FILMS BY RECENTLY DECEASED DIRECTORS SELECTED FOR POSTERITY

Less than a month after the deaths of directors Irvin Kershner and Blake Edwards, two of their films, Kershner’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, produced by George Lucas, and Edwards’s The Pink Panther, produced by Martin Jurow, have been selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in its National Film Registry. The two films were among 25 motion pictures that were selected and also include Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, Elia Kazan’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men, and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. The comedy Airplane!, directed by Jim Abrahams and Jerry and David Zucker, also was included. It starred Leslie Nielsen, who died one month ago today.