Anthony Minghella gained recognition from producer Saul Zaentz from his 1990 film Truly Madly Deeply. This film helped Minghella pitch the producer the idea for the book The English Patient to be made. Minghella has said that he enjoyed working with the books author, Michael Ondaatje because he was able to dismantle the book and create a new vision for the film that he had in his head and the novelist still gave him notes of encouragement to do so.
A writer by nature, Minghella has said that the solitude is a place where he both thrives and dies a little bit as the authority and pressure are all up to him. Thus, we must look at Minghella first as a writer, a man that was fully capable of creating such beautiful imagery while still connecting to the heart of every character which thus lead to the lifeblood of the entire story. Many times writer/directors come through heavier on the directing side, but Minghella was always clear that it was his writing that gave him the opportunity to direct and he knew he was lucky to be able to direct his own work as many who slave behind a desk with words day to day don't have that ability.
Minghella is quoted as saying, "I hate misanthropy and want to believe that there’s a possibility that we might all be redeemed, that hope deferred makes the soul sick, that our humanity is fragile, funny, common, crazy, full of the longing for love, the failure of love." We see that his personal philosophy about life is all over and underneath this picture as it hits on every single of the themes he expresses about life. It's important to know that what we see on screen is greatly the inner life, personality and belief of the director himself bleeding throuhg into images, and Minghella's personal life and stance was quite rich as it came through for an Oscar Winning effort for his part as director.
