Herbert Mason
The facts don't include a single most-cited or prominent work to open with, so I'll lead with the strongest concrete detail available and follow the structural recipe as closely as the thin facts allow.
Herbert Mason worked as a film director and producer whose career in English-language productions spanned several decades of British cinema. Born Samuel George Herbert Mason in Birmingham — with records suggesting either 1891 or 1903 as his birth year — he died in London on 20 May 1960, a United Kingdom citizen whose working life touched nearly every corner of theatrical and screen production.
Before his film career, Mason's background was unusually broad for the industry. He worked as a stage actor, stage director, and stage manager, and also took on the roles of choreographer, playwright, and presenter of revues. His military service added another dimension to his biography: he served as an army officer, took part in the Battle of Guillemont, and was awarded the Military Cross for his conduct. He also worked at various points as a photographer and production manager, suggesting a practical, hands-on approach to the craft of putting shows and films together.
Mason moved through film production as both a director and a producer, working in English. The Military Cross he received for his role in the Battle of Guillemont remains one of the most concrete and independently verifiable facts attached to his name.
Quotes by Herbert Mason
Everything had life to me,’ he heard Enkidu murmur, ’the sky, the storm, the earth, water, wandering, the moon and its three children, salt, even my hand had life. It’s gone. It’s gone.
He entered the city asked a blind man if he had ever heard the name Enkidu, and the old man shrugged and shook his head, then turned away, as if to say, ‘It is impossible to keep the names of friends whom we have lost.
What we finally do, out of desperation... is go on an impossible, or even forbidden, journey or pilgrimage, which from a rational point of view is futile: to find the one wise man, whomever or wherever he may be; and to find from him the secret of eternal life or the secret of adjusting to this life as best we can.
Gilgamesh was called a god and a man; Enkidu was an animal and a man. It is the story of their becoming human together.
He entered the city asked a blind man if he had ever heard the name Enkidu, and the old man shrugged and shook his head, then turned away, as if to say, ‘It is impossible to keep the names of friends whom we have lost
What we finally do, out of desperation ... is go on an impossible, or even forbidden, journey or pilgrimage, which from a rational point of view is futile: to find the one wise man, whomever or wherever he may be; and to find from him the secret of eternal life or the secret of adjusting to this life as best we can.
All that is left to one who grievesIs convalescence. No change of heart or spiritualConversion, for the heart has changedAnd the soul has been convertedTo a thing that seesHow much it costs to lose a friend it loved.
It could go on for years and years,And has, for centuries,For being human holds a special griefOf privacy within the universeThat yearns and waits to be retouchedBy someone who can take awayThe memory of death.
You have known, O Gilgamesh,What interests me,To drink from the Well of Immortality.Which means to make the deadRise from their gravesAnd the prisoners from their cellsThe sinners from their sins.I think love's kiss kills our heart of flesh.It is the only way to eternal life,Which should be unbearable if livedAmong the dying flowersAnd the shrieking farewellsOf the overstretched arms of our spoiled hopes.
Friendship is vowing toward immortality and does not know the passing away of beauty (Though take care!) because it aims for the spirit. Many years ago through loss I learned that love is wrung from our inmost heart until only the loved one is and we are not.