Oscar-winning director Anthony Minghella is dead at 54, from a hemorrhage, after what is being described as a routine operation on his neck. It’s a completely different situation, but one in its own way every bit as shocking as the death of Heath Ledger.

In 1996, Minghella’s The English Patient won nine Academy Awards, and it remained his signature piece, for better of worse; he got trapped in the gauzy-lit lock-box, it seemed. Those who found The English Patient sludgy and unrewarding might have taken out those feelings — though not completely undeservedly — on Minghella’s somewhat thematically similar adaptation of Charles Frazier’s bestselling Cold Mountain, starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger. For those interested in reaching a bit deeper into Minghella’s canon, check out 1990’s underrated Truly, Madly, Deeply, and of course The Talented Mr. Ripley, which to me is his most uniformly involving work.