Now that the shock of Anthony Minghella’s sudden death has dissipated slightly, I think it’s less unseemly to say that this brilliant and soulful filmmaker died unfulfilled. Yes, The English Patient won a host of Academy Awards (one for Minghella), and many regard The Talented Mr. Ripley as an unqualified success. Even Cold Mountain has its lonely champions. But I found them all a disheartening falloff from his theatrical debut, Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990). And I can’t help thinking that what happened has something to do with someone whose name rhymes with Shmarvey Shmeinstein.

Do I have evidence? Peter Biskind’s chronicle of the indie movement, Down and Dirty Pictures, provides some. But I’m less interested in what happened behind the screen than in the compromises in front of it.