Sir (Chabet) and I hardly talked about art. I was in his class for only a semester. But we've been hanging out since. We did talk a tremendous amount about cinema though, maybe because I was the only one among us who was sort of into it to the degree that I was. But I was a misguided Hollywood nerd and he took it upon himself to set me right. He was like my de facto cinema guru slash pimp. And he schooled me. Every time we saw each other, all these years, at drink-ups, at parties, at exhibits, he always had some filmmaker I had no idea about that he wanted me to seek out : Bernal, Zialcita , Godard, Buñuel, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Howard Hawks, Alain Resnais. And like any good student, I did. And subsequently got hooked.
He pushed this Antonioni film on me years ago, raving about the ending. I have since fallen in love with it hard and seen it many times. And in its own odd way, that desolate and beautiful finale makes the most fitting of codas for the occasion.
Thank you, sir.
RIP.
