"She described it years later as a 'boy-meets-dog story.'"

November 4, 2015 8:57 PM

Melissa Mathison dies at 65 - L.A. Times (Steve Chawkins)" "Mathison, 65, who portrayed children as sensitively heroic, died Wednesday at UCLA Medical Center. The cause was neuroendocrine cancer, her brother Dirk Mathison said. Mathison’s film credits also include “The Black Stallion” (1979), “The Escape Artist” (1982) and “The Indian in the Cupboard” (1995)."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (20 comments total)

I was shocked and saddened to learn of this today; she was important for me personally as one of the few high-profile, talented and successful Hollywood women behind the camera, who also was married to a sexy film star. Steven Spielberg spoke kindly of her and her work.

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posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 8:59 PM on November 4, 2015

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posted by brundlefly at 9:51 PM on November 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Was so, so sad to hear this news. And almost as sad that every single obit photo seems to show her standing next to Harrison Ford and list her in the headline as his ex-wife. She stands on her own. A magical writer. She will be missed.
posted by OolooKitty at 10:42 PM on November 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

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posted by SisterHavana at 11:06 PM on November 4, 2015

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posted by Gin and Broadband at 11:39 PM on November 4, 2015

After listening to The Frame podcast for a good long while and all their reporting on the gender imbalance in Hollywood, I was somehow astounded today to hear that a woman wrote E.T.

Casual bigotry and all that aside, it's a shame that Hollywood has lost one of the few female screenwriters who had been given a chance to have success.

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posted by hippybear at 2:16 AM on November 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Well, damn.

She wrote one of the classics. And The Black Stallion is pure magic. Still a go-to on dark days. At least we get to see one last piece: The BFG is in post.

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posted by likeso at 2:59 AM on November 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

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She gave me ET and Dungeons and Dragons.
If only for those two things, I will be forever greatful.
posted by Mezentian at 3:42 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

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posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:23 AM on November 5, 2015

☏
posted by mochapickle at 4:26 AM on November 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

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posted by gwint at 5:17 AM on November 5, 2015

Woman or man, I am amazed that all of those stories came from one person's hand. Great work, a sore loss.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:32 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I came upon The Indian in the Cupboard in grad school, while caring for a 6-year-old. I haven't seen it lately, but what a marvel.

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posted by allthinky at 6:03 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

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posted by cazoo at 6:21 AM on November 5, 2015

This isn't meant to slight her, but she adapted The Black Stallion from Walter Farley's series of books.
posted by sardonyx at 6:53 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

sardonyx, yep, and as a horse-crazy kid, I read 'em all. But just go watch the movie and see what Mathison did. Please. Just go see what she did.
posted by likeso at 7:33 AM on November 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

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posted by pt68 at 8:30 AM on November 5, 2015

likeson,
Honestly, I hated the movie when it came out. It was one of those movies that didn't hold a candle to the one that was in my head after reading the books. I won't say that's because of the script (for me it was a complete package of wrong casting and acting choices, bizarre art direction and directing choices, etc.) I don't think this is the right thread to get into why I thought it was a bad movie.

I think Mathison deserves tons of credit and respect for E.T. She created a cultural touchstone for so many people* with that movie. And she had to do it while being a women in Hollywood. I just also believe in crediting story creators as well as the people who adapt their works (which is a challenge that can be monumental).

*I saw E.T. when it was released, and while I though it was okay, I didn't fall in love with it, but I do appreciate its contribution to cinematic and popular culture.
posted by sardonyx at 8:33 AM on November 5, 2015

There are a handful of films that I saw as a young child for which I've retained strong sense memories of the actual physical movie-going experience; The Black Stallion is one of those films. I had no knowledge of the books or particular love of horses, but for whatever reason, my parents took me to see this movie on a dreary, rain-soaked Autumn afternoon, and I can still recall sitting in a dark, toasty theater and gaping as all this lush, weirdly beautiful, almost frightful imagery washed over me. (The first quarter of the movie is, more or less, an art film.) I've never gone back and revisited the film, but as a visceral, early experience of "high" art, it's probably had more impact on my life than all the frenetic, hyper-color, explosion-packed fluff that would eventually come to occupy the bulk of my childhood imagination.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:14 AM on November 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

*I saw E.T. when it was released, and while I though it was okay, I didn't fall in love with it, but I do appreciate its contribution to cinematic and popular culture.

I saw ET at the cinema twice.
An honour reserved for:
ET
Brain Dead
All the Star Wars movies (original, not prequels)
Fellowship of the Ring
and... er.... the Ten Little Indians(?) film with John Cusack I forget the name of, and that was an accident.

I just can't over-state how important ET was to me growing up in so may ways.
Keys!
M&Ms (didn't exist).
Star Wars figures.
Beer.
Hell, in high school, when faced with my first dissection: Hell yeah, ET was there.
posted by Mezentian at 4:36 AM on November 6, 2015 [1 favorite]