Rob Reiner

Donald Trump badly damaged his own legacy recently with ungracious comments on the murder of Rob Reiner. He reminded us once again that he is not a good man, only a brave man. Perhaps we can never expect much more from a political leader, The leadership of this world is given over to Satan.

Anyone who celebrates another’s death is not on God’s side. The beginning and ending of life are sacred matters, and must be approached reverently.

In the case of Rob Reiner, anyone who thinks his political views justify pleasure at his murder is of the Devil’s party. Politics is a never highly principled: it is “the art of the possible.” And, I might say, creatives are often deeply misguided on politics, for the creditable reason that they are not cynical enough to understand it. They are too idealistic. 

But Reiner’s contributions to the culture, and therefore to everyone’s quality of life, are in principle immortal. Politics is trivial by comparison. He was the director of This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, Misery, The Princess Bride, and When Harry Met Sally. What would American culture be without these films? There are lines, scenes, in those films that have entered the language, and so aided our understanding of the world. “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.” “As you wish.” “Inconceivable.” “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!” “These go to eleven.” “Their appeal is becoming more selective.” The famous scene of Meg Ryan faking orgasm, and the woman in the next booth saying “I’ll have what she’s having.” I had to stop in at Katz’s Deli for a meal when I visited New York. It had become a kind of holy ground.

You might say these are really examples of great screenwriting, not great directing. But it is both. Reiner somehow got these great lines and scenes out of several screenwriters, after all. The real trick, it seems to me, is that he somehow got exceptional performances out of his actors. The delivery is a huge part of why these quotes have been memorable. Consider the performances he got out of Kathy Bates in Misery; has she ever done a better performance for anyone else? Meg Ryan in that deli scene; has she ever done better for anyone else? Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya. These were actors acting at the highest level, not realistic, not method acting, God forbid, but truly vivid. Acting of the Cagney school, something you see only with the great directors, like Orson Welles, the Coen brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock. Acting that burns an image into your memory. And Reiner got it out of actor after actor. So it cannot just have been them. It was something he was doing. 

Perhaps Reiner’s later films are not up to his earlier standard. I cannot say; I stopped watching adult films in general some years ago, when I had little ones. Since then, it has mostly only been something I did on long-range flights. And his great films, like most great films, have been slow burns: not huge box office at first, but growing in reputation over time. 

And now we will see no more. That is an incalculable tragedy.