- from arts.nationalpost.com
Chris Knight | February 24, 2014 | Last Updated: Feb 24 2:48 PM ET
More from Chris Knight | @ChrisKnightfilm
More from Chris Knight | @ChrisKnightfilm
Harold
Ramis directed fewer than a dozen films, but this was more than enough
to reshape the landscape of comedy. The Chicago native died Monday
morning, from complications due to autoimmune inflammatory disease, Fred
Toczek, an attorney for the late actor/writer/director told The
Associated Press. Ramis was 69.
Ramis once boasted he was “welcome in churches, synagogues, mosques and psychiatrists’ offices all around the country” thanks to co-writing and directing 1993’s Groundhog Day. The existential comedy, starring Bill Murray as a TV weatherman who relives the same day over and over again, has proven popular with philosophers of all stripes as well as general audiences. “It’s like, having made Caddyshack, I can walk on to any golf course and probably get a free drink.”
Made in 1980, Caddyshack (also featuring Murray) was Ramis’s first outing as a director. He also made National Lampoon’s Vacation, Multiplicity, Analyze This and, most recently, Year One in 2009.
Among those mourning Ramis’s death publicly on Monday were Canadian actor Aykroyd, his Ghostbusters co-star and fellow alum at Second City.
Aykroyd and Ramis knew each other for years. They came up as members of the famed Chicago comedy troupe, Second City.
In a brief statement, Aykroyd called Ramis his “Brilliant, gifted, funny, friend, co-writer/performer and teacher.” He ends the statement with his hope that Ramis might “now get the answers he was always seeking.”
Ramis kept a hand in acting, with small roles in some of his own films as well as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Knocked Up, As Good As It Gets and others. His most recent work was directing several episodes of The Office, including one from its last season in 2010.
His greatest career legacy arguably remains Groundhog Day, which was moderately well received when it was first released, but has since grown in popularity. (No surprise that it benefits from repeat viewings.)
The Writers Guild of American last year named it the 27th greatest screenplay (it is one of the more recent films on the list), and a Broadway musical is in the works. It has even entered the lexicon, especially among soldiers, as a reference to a day that seems to repeat endlessly.
“The best comedy touches something that’s timeless and universal in people,” Ramis told The Associated Press in a 2009 story about the 50th anniversary of Second City. “When you hit it right, those things last.”
Ramis was born Nov. 21, 1944 in Chicago. He is survived by his wife, Erica Ramis; sons Julian and Daniel; daughter, Violet, and two grandchildren.
—With files from The Associated Press
Here’s some of the early reaction from the Twittersphere to the passing of a comedy legend:
And to remember Ramis, the best way is to catch some of his most memorable onscreen moments, or him talking about the magic of the movies where he was behind the camera:
Such as the famed “Big Twinkie” scene in Ghostbusters:
And here’s Ramis playing Seth Rogen’s dad in Knocked Up, excited about his grandparenting prospects:
Talking about the meaning of the metaphor in Groundhog Day:
On the quotability of Caddyshack:
And in a classic scene from Stripes with Bill Murray, signing up to join the U.S. Army:
Ramis once boasted he was “welcome in churches, synagogues, mosques and psychiatrists’ offices all around the country” thanks to co-writing and directing 1993’s Groundhog Day. The existential comedy, starring Bill Murray as a TV weatherman who relives the same day over and over again, has proven popular with philosophers of all stripes as well as general audiences. “It’s like, having made Caddyshack, I can walk on to any golf course and probably get a free drink.”
Made in 1980, Caddyshack (also featuring Murray) was Ramis’s first outing as a director. He also made National Lampoon’s Vacation, Multiplicity, Analyze This and, most recently, Year One in 2009.
Dan Ackroyd mourned his ‘brilliant’ friend, saying he hopes Ramis ‘now get the answers he was always seeking’But his short list of directing credits belies an influential career in TV and movies that began with writing and acting on SCTV in the late 1970s. During the same period he co-wrote Animal House, Stripes and Meatballs. In 1984 he co-wrote and co-starred in Ghostbusters alongside Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and again Murray, whose comic career ascended lockstep with his own.
Jim Prisching/AP filesHarold
Ramis, comedic architect in part of Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and
even Animal House, on which he was a writer, had died, age 69. Here,
he's pictured at a Second City reunion in 2009 in Chicago.
Aykroyd and Ramis knew each other for years. They came up as members of the famed Chicago comedy troupe, Second City.
In a brief statement, Aykroyd called Ramis his “Brilliant, gifted, funny, friend, co-writer/performer and teacher.” He ends the statement with his hope that Ramis might “now get the answers he was always seeking.”
Ramis kept a hand in acting, with small roles in some of his own films as well as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Knocked Up, As Good As It Gets and others. His most recent work was directing several episodes of The Office, including one from its last season in 2010.
His greatest career legacy arguably remains Groundhog Day, which was moderately well received when it was first released, but has since grown in popularity. (No surprise that it benefits from repeat viewings.)
The Writers Guild of American last year named it the 27th greatest screenplay (it is one of the more recent films on the list), and a Broadway musical is in the works. It has even entered the lexicon, especially among soldiers, as a reference to a day that seems to repeat endlessly.
“The best comedy touches something that’s timeless and universal in people,” Ramis told The Associated Press in a 2009 story about the 50th anniversary of Second City. “When you hit it right, those things last.”
Ramis was born Nov. 21, 1944 in Chicago. He is survived by his wife, Erica Ramis; sons Julian and Daniel; daughter, Violet, and two grandchildren.
—With files from The Associated Press
Here’s some of the early reaction from the Twittersphere to the passing of a comedy legend:
And to remember Ramis, the best way is to catch some of his most memorable onscreen moments, or him talking about the magic of the movies where he was behind the camera:
Such as the famed “Big Twinkie” scene in Ghostbusters:
And here’s Ramis playing Seth Rogen’s dad in Knocked Up, excited about his grandparenting prospects:
Talking about the meaning of the metaphor in Groundhog Day:
On the quotability of Caddyshack:
And in a classic scene from Stripes with Bill Murray, signing up to join the U.S. Army:
WRECKTEAM DOPE
0 comments:
Post a Comment