My favorite story that Gene Wyatt used to tell goes something like this. He was returning to Nashville by plane, sometime in the 1980s, when he struck up a conversation with his seatmate. Of all people, it was the German director Wim Wenders, who had a stopover here. Gene offered to show him the sights. Before long he had the director of Wings of Desire buying cowboy duds on Lower Broadway. Then the two of them took in the Grand Ole Opry.
I believe this story for several reasons. One, it's just too good. Any story that connects Wim Wenders to Little Jimmy Dickens makes the world a better place. Two, Gene could talk to anyone; he had a fathomless range of interests and experiences. As The Tennessean's movie critic for more than 30 years, he had interviewed most every actor and director of note. I can't think of a more interesting flight companion.
When Gene Wyatt succumbed to a brief illness last December, we lost more than a good conversationalist. He took much of the city's institutional memory. He started as a copy boy at The Tennessean in 1942, and it wasn't until 2002 that he resigned as movie critic. That made him the dominant voice in movie writing for generations of local readers, and he wasn't afraid to use that power when it mattered. He was among the most vocal supporters of the movie Nashville—not a popular stance here in 1975, but one that history has vindicated.
What I liked most about Gene, though, was the collegial tone he set. Lord knows he'd tell you if he disagreed: nothing reduced him to sputtering rage faster than Lars von Trier's movies, especially the ones I liked. But he was unfailingly generous to me and other fledgling writers. He never pulled rank, except to get the rest of us into crowded screenings or regional critics' societies. He treated writing about movies as a privilege, and he never saw himself as above the movies he covered.
I didn't find out about Gene's death for several weeks. He had stopped coming to screenings, and that told me how bad his health must have been. We missed his stories about whom he'd just interviewed, what movie he'd just seen. None of us had any idea we'd never hear them again. The screenings, and the paper, will be emptier without him. But his seat will never be taken.
By Jim Ridley
