Neal Jimenez dies: Spirit Award winner for “River’s Edge” and “The Waterdance” turned 62

Neil Jimenez, who has won three Indie Spirit Awards for writing The river’s edge and writing and co-directing the water dances, deceased. He was 62 years old. His sister, Kathleen Serio, said Jimenez died of heart failure on Dec. 11 in Arroyo Grande, Calif.

Jimenez won his first Spirit Award for his screenplay in 1988 river bank, the thriller directed by Tim Hunter and starring Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye and Dennis Hopper, among others. The 1986 picture of a group of California friends involved in a murder and cover-up also won that year’s Best Picture award at The Spirits and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

The Sacramento native wrote or co-wrote the screenplays Where the river flows black (1986) and The Dark Wind (1991) and the story for Bette Midler’s historical drama For the boys (1991). Jimenez’s next project was the water dances, In it, Eric Stoltz played a man who has to come to terms with a spinal cord injury after a hiking accident. Helen Hunt and Wesley Snipes also starred in the film, which won Indie Spirits for Jimenez’s writing and Best First Feature. It also won the Audience Award at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Jimenez, himself a quadriplegic and wheelchair user, also won the festival’s Waldo Salt screenplay prize for the film.

Many top critics including Roger Ebert and The New York TimesVincent Canby praised the film.

“His writing voice is seductive, powerful and utterly unique – like a complex minor chord with a range that can move in any direction.” The water dance said co-director Michael Steinberg. “Dark, hilarious, Romantic, Political, Dark, Fantastic, Poetic. … Jimenez, like Tarantino and The Farrelly Brothers, had a voice powerful enough to bend cinema.

Jimenez later co-wrote it sleep with me (1994) and hideout (1995).

“My brother had a passion for writing and design,” his sister Elizabeth Rathjen said in a statement. “The sound of tapping seemed to permeate his bedroom walls daily. He had drawers full of typed pages and journals full of his words and ink scribbles. He then wrote because he had to, had to and wanted to. I always imagined going to a bookstore and seeing books written by my brother. Instead it was a video store and movies.”