SCOTT, FREE

RIP to Tony Scott, passed on at 68 by suicide. I despised Top Gun but I really liked some of his other movies, including his last, Unstoppable.

I won’t be the first to note this, but I was reminded that he changed the end of Quentin Tarantino’s script for True Romance—probably his best film—from tragic to happy simply, he said, because he liked the characters and wanted them to live. I love and honor the sloppy humanity of that cowardly artistic decision, and last night I felt infuriated at the man who made it then choosing to end his own life. But this morning we learn that Scott may have been afflicted with inoperable brain cancer, and I feel rather ashamed of my judgmental conclusion-jumping.