"He was beautiful..."

Suck on this, Brad Pitt! (Paul Newman in THE PRIZE)

Sam Mendes erzählt im New Yorker Vulture Blog des New York Magazines eine anrührende wahre Geschichte über Paul Newman. Newman und Mendes arbeiteten bei ROAD TO PERDITION, der Gangster Graphic-Novel Verfilmung mit Tom Hanks, die Newmans letzten richtigen Kinofilm darstellte zusammen:

He was 76 when I worked with him on Road to Perdition. Conrad Hall was the cinematographer. He was about Paul’s age, maybe slightly younger, and he’d also shot Harper, Cool Hand Luke, and Butch Cassidy, so he had seen Paul from the age of 40, and there they were in their seventies, still shooting together. It was very moving. At one point he was shooting a close-up of Paul looking into a fire, and I turned round and Conrad was crying as he lit the shot. I asked him what was the matter, and he just said, “He was so beautiful.” And I said, “Well, he’s beautiful now!” And he said, “Yeah, but he was so beautiful.” I think he was crying for both of them. But whereas Conrad, you see, was sort of not at peace with the idea of death and growing older, Paul said several times, “Yeah, I’ve had some great innings, it’s about time I give all this up. It’s all a bit silly.” There was this real sense of grace and dignity. He had nothing left to prove. He knew what a fortunate and wonderful life he had led, and he was very willing to admit that. That really lent him an aura of a minor deity to me. He had sort of ascended already. He felt at peace, like he’d come to terms with what he’d done in his life and his own mortality. I think some of that must have stemmed — though he never spoke about it — from his son Scott’s premature death. Once you’ve lived through that, I don’t think anything else really gets as bad. Even your own death.