I generally think of myself as an auteurist, being largely attracted to artists with a discernible personal vision that pulses through their work, whether we’re talking about Godard, Fellini, Brakhage, Sharits, Sondheim, Coltrane, or Patti Smith. This is a Romantic conception of art that makes it easy to forget more eclectic artists like Mike Nichols, even though his work has been in my imaginative life since I first saw The Graduate 40 years ago. Nichols has been in the back of my mind since he died in 2014, shortly after he directed Death of a Salesman starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2012. Hoffman, one of the greatest performers of our generation, committed suicide in 2014. I wonder if this performance was captured, canned for some future release or if it’s gone now, along with Nichols and Hoffman. It reminds me that one of Nichols greatest achievements was directing the film version of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, after and with the famed stage version starring Taylor and Burton. Nichols’ first film, WAOVW? would be a gift simply for capturing a definitive moment in theatre history, similar to West Side Story and Streetcar Named Desire, but I think that WAOVW? feels like more an an autonomous work as a film. This is just a hunch, and Nichols’ direction is likely only part of the explanation: Haskell Wexler’s always-perfect cinematography and the performances obviously have a lot to do with it.//Nichols would prove that his debut wasn’t pure luck, however, when he released his second film, The Graduate. His second film! Once again, performances by Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross and the then-unknown Dustin Hoffman (!), had something to do with, as did Simon & Garfunkel, a choice Nichols made when they were cutting to the film to “Sounds of Silence” a temporary solution. The rest is history.//Nichols’s other films are all solid, but sometimes underrated. I highly recommend Silkwood, Catch-22, Postcards from the Edge, Gilda Live, Carnal Knowledge, and The Birdcage.//Ran out of room for the brilliant Elaine May, Buck Henry, Robin Williams, and others.