Today, I've seen a lot of tributes to Mr. Osborne. It might seem strange to the casual onlooker that so much digital ink is being spilled by film lovers over someone who wasn't even a filmmaker. I think that view really misses the point, though, because the life of a film doesn't end with its release, and a film's post-release life is often as important as its initial run in theaters.
One of my favorite quotes from Before Sunset is the Ethan Hawke character's observation that "...a memory's never finished, if you really think about it." Robert Osborne's legacy is one of championing, and contextualizing the films he brought to us. He may not have made Casa Blanca or Gone With the Wind, but he was there to tell us why those movies are great and/or interesting and worthy of our time and to give us a little of the history behind them. In that way, he became an important part of the "afterlife" of these films. He kept them in our minds and was integral in framing our memories of them. As with a memory, a movie's never really finished until we're done thinking of it, and the contribution of people like Mr. Osborne will be felt for decades to come.
