Neal Jimenez, ‘River’s Edge’ Screenwriter and Director of ‘The Waterdance,’ Dead at 62
Neal Jimenez, the writer-director behind a string of acclaimed movies within the Eighties and Nineties, together with the thriller “River’s Edge” and his directorial debut, the semi-autobiographical drama “The Waterdance,” died Dec. 11 from coronary heart failure, his household has introduced. He was 62.
Paralyzed in a climbing accident whereas he was a scholar at UCLA in 1984, Jimenez paved the way in which for incapacity illustration with “The Waterdance,” the 1991 drama starring Eric Stoltz as a author struggling to get better after being paralyzed from the neck down. Based partly on his personal restoration, the movie was launched to vital acclaim and gained Best First Feature and Best Screenplay on the 1992 Independent Spirit Awards.
Jimenez additionally wrote the screenplays for “For the Boys” (1991), “Sleep With Me” (1994) and “Hideaway” (1995 amongst different issues.)
“My brother had a passion for writing and creating. The clack of typing seemed to daily come through his bedroom walls. He had drawers full of typed pages and journals filled with his words and ink doodles. He wrote then because he had to, he needed to and he wanted to,” Jimenez’s sister, Elizabeth Rathjen mentioned in an announcement. “I always imagined walking into a bookstore and seeing books authored by my brother. Instead it was a video store and movies. As far back as I can remember, my brother would make short movies on Super 8 with his friends. He spent hours cutting and splicing film together. He seemed to know how he wanted the film to look. Neal had an easy intelligence and a great wit. He enjoyed movies, books and music and wanted others to enjoy those things too.”
“His writing voice is seductive, powerful, and wholly unique,” Michael Steinberg, Jimenez’s co-director on ‘The Waterdance,” mentioned in an announcement “Like a complex minor chord with a range that could move in any direction. Dark, hilarious, romantic, political, gritty, fantastical, poetic. In the 40 years since meeting Neal, I’ve worked with dozens of big names and huge talents. But only a handful of true, genius-level artists. Jimenez, like Tarantino, and The Farrelly Brothers, had a voice strong enough to bend cinema.”
Jimenez was born May 22, 1960 in Sacramento to Mexican American dad and mom who owned and operated a Shell Station. He started his profession writing for a neighborhood weekly paper, “The Grapevine Independent” earlier than starting his college training at Santa Clara University. He finally transferred to UCLA to check movie and whereas there wrote his first screenplay, “River’s Edge.”
More to come back…
