“Who else could win Oscars for both Bob Dylan and Eminem?” read one of the many elegies for Curtis Hanson that popped up among the screenwriters in my Facebook news feed.
That interesting musical two-fer — Dylan won a Best Song Academy Award for Hanson’s 2000 dramedy “Wonder Boys,” and Eminem topped the same category two years later for “8 Mile” — speaks to the eclectic nature of Hanson as a filmmaker, one who couldn’t be easily categorized.
If there’s a through-line to the life and work of the man who passed away this week at the age of 71, it’s his love for the medium.