Wesley Morris

The terrible thing about this death, a terrible thing about it, in terms of the millions of people who never met, didn't know Rob Reiner, but whose lives were touched by his work, is that the work was about the opposite of how he died.

And yet...

You know, the very moving aspect of this grisly tragedy is, I mean, from all reports, you know, the Reiners were determined to, like, help their son, right?

The ethos of the family life is the ethos of the filmmaking.

You know, sometimes to the movie's detriment because the movie didn't want to go to really dark places, right?

The movies weren't about the real darknesses, right?

The real difficulties.

They were about the attempt to believe in our better natures, our better selves.

And that is what is so shocking about his death.

But, you know, I was, you know, as one, as at least I do, when great or important people die in popular culture.

You were often tasked with eulogizing them in print.

Yeah.

And so you go back and you look and see how things went for them in real time or how they've been memorialized before their death, how their work is considered.

And I found...

You know, one of the great tomes, one of the great movie projects ever... Yeah, you're holding a very, very thick book.

...is David Thompson's Biographical Dictionary of Film.

Mm-hmm.

It's right here.

I've got a new Biographical Dictionary of Film.

Yeah, Christine.