Alan Rickman (1946–2016)

Wow, what an odd read. I've mainly only read memoirs or biographies for celebrities/public figures and Rickman's journals are so unlike any I've come across. His entries are short and often vague, overall adding more mystery to him as a person. But there are also plenty of entries that, while brief, give an intimate insight into his feelings at the time - whether about politics, projects he's working on, or people he's interacting with. It made me feel both close to and distant from him, if that makes sense.

There is significantly less detail about the films he worked on than I expected. Oftentimes there were just a few sentences about a whole film. Harry Potter obviously had the most page-time, given there were 7 movies or whatever. I did get the sense he was somewhat sick of them by the time the franchise wrapped, but aside from his affection for Daniel, not much else.

It was also strange to read someone's journals published after their death. I trust the estate wouldn't have published them if they felt Alan really didn't want them shared, but there's no way to know for sure. His wife's afterward regarding his final days left me both feeling joyful and sad.

Just a strange experience overall, but since I've been a big fan of his work for quite some time, it was well worth reading. If you're not a fan of his, I'm not quite sure what you'll gain from this, as it's nothing like a straightforward memoir.… (plus d'informations)

I spent 2 months with his more than two decades of diaries. I started it because I read he had intended them to be published but then the foreword said we didn't know that, so it quickly turned to a very uneasy feeling, especially at times of very honest opinions about people.

There is a sh*tton of names in it, a large number of identities explained in brackets or in endnotes. Not Ruby Wax, though, I wonder if she got an explanation in the Hungarian version (I know her through her books only, probably most people here don't know her at all). It was interesting to see him being friends with the likes of Ruby Wax, Ian McKellen, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Emma Thompson, and so on, being curious and sharing a sometimes strong opinion about other world-famous colleagues, being star-struck by still others.

The entries are very short, packed with times (as in the exact hour, not the date, I know they are diaries), names, and places. It was a tad challenging to process this amount of information on every page. He describes a lot of travelling, working on projects, going to events, the theatre, cinema, restaurants, some books he read. I really liked to see his thoughts about films and stars I am familar with and even the ones I am not. Added some films to my to-be-watched list. I loved his thoughts about everything else, life, experiences, pigeons (yes, we agree), it was worth the digging. Very British, judgy, passionate, self-reflective, with a couple of simple sentences that just radiate his love for Rima (lifelong partner and for the last couple of years, wife - by the way, I would have loved to know why they had decided to marry after all those years).

The last year was heart-wrenching, knowing how little he had had to live, something he had been completely unaware of. The entries got shorter and shorter, and then just stopped, and there was Rima, describing the last month of his life. It was interesting to see how different funerals in the UK are from what we are used to in this corner of the world. More of a celebration of the life than feeling sorry for ourselves that we lost the person. His chosen music was Uptown Funk and Take It With Me by Tom Waits ("Four great words - I MET TOM WAITS." 29 October, 2005).

At the end we get a few excerpts from earlier diaries, which seemed odd, because we had just shared a journey through 20 years, to jump back to pre-1993. They were longer texts, not similar to the ones encountered so far, but a joy to read anyway. He is greatly missed.… (plus d'informations)