crime

Recently, it appears I’ve been on a John Wayne thing. To get away from that for the moment, here’s what I wrote recently about L.A. Confidential (1997). For what it’s worth …

I’ve always been lukewarm on noir films. I prefer comedies, romances and, of course, westerns. Still there are, as we all know, some exquisite noir films (Gilda, The Big Heat, The Maltese Falcon and so on.) And really, if a movie is good, who cares about the genre?

I start with that small preface because L.A. Confidential is a noir film and, if I recall correctly, it was hyped that way back when it was released, and hyped in such a way (read “excess”) that back then I watched it with reluctance. (Back then, by the way, would be 1997.) I thought, “Oh great. Another movie that’s all about evoking an older style and achieves cleverness by how closely it accomplishes this.”

Put another way, I was expecting a lot of style and very little substance. I expected it to be visually great but with a tedious, predictable story that mimicked the structure of older films.

In some ways, that’s what L. A. Confidential does. What I had forgotten about with good noir movies is that, much like westerns, the story focuses on a moral question. The approach here, however, is quite different than in a western.

For me, a moral centre is what makes a movie compelling (assuming that the technical bits are all working at a relatively high level).

In L.A. Confidential, there are loads of moral choices. Although most of the characters have moral dilemmas, the story focuses on the characters played by Russell Crowe, Guy Pierce and Kevin Stacey. They are very different characters but they all make choices. Put simplistically, each chooses whether he’ll be a good guy or a bad guy.

It’s because the story, fairly complex, unfolds with a certain irrevocable determination that all the heavy lifting as far as costumes, sets, music and so on, elements to evoke a period, style, a kind of cinema, work. Often something period is a work of self-indulgent crap. In this case, the story demands the period look and feel and there is no sense that the filmmakers were treating themselves ahead of the audience.

The end result is a very good movie, regardless of the genre, one that’s engaging and rewarding.

I’m sure I’ve said this before but, to repeat, I’m not a film expert, a film historian, a student of the cinema. I think I watch movies the way most people do. I’m dazzled sometimes by editing, effects, cinematography, but in the end, budgets be damned: it’s a well told story I respond to.

L.A. Confidential is a well told story. As a bonus, it’s visually brilliant.

3½ stars out of 4.

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Directed by Don Siegel

I’ve always found Dirty Harry a troubling movie. Well, almost all of the earlier, image making movies of Clint Eastwood have been troubling to me, but Dirty Harry tops my list. The reason is simple: from the first time I saw it, I’ve loved the movie but I felt that I shouldn’t.

The conflict is easy to explain. The movie is manipulated to have you cheering for Harry so when, as in a western, the final showdown happens, there’s a cathartic moment, like scoring the winning touchdown on the last play of the game. But then you do a kind of mental double take: this guy with the big gun is actually ignoring the law, being as bad as the bad guys, and feeling justified about it because, well, they’re bad guys and he’s fighting for the good guys.

Harry is essentially a vigilante and in the movie, by creating a perverted, killing bad guy (“Scorpio”), you inevitably root for him because the emotion carries you along and your thinking side is turned off, in a manner of speaking. In his review, Roger Ebert argues that it’s essentially a fascist film, and this may be true, although I think the final scene with Harry tossing his badge in the water could be construed as meaning he’s outside the law now, no different than the criminals he’s been hunting down. It may be the movie wants you to cheer for Harry so it can then say, “Now think seriously about what you’re really cheering for.”

There are lots of people who write about Harry’s appeal to the conservative right, at least of the time (1971), and a frustration with liberal approaches to crime – respecting individual rights, in this case the criminal’s, and abandoning victims. And this may be true, too, though it should be pointed out that operating beyond the law, ignoring victims, is not something to be found on the far right of things. Some, at the far left, have had no qualms about victims when they’ve initiated a violent act for their cause. It’s an attitude that occurs at the far end of things, at extremes, be they left or right.

But what about the movie? Dirty Harry always initiates discussion about the politics of the film and often the movie itself gets overlooked.

First off, I see it as an urban western, and loving westerns that may explain why I like it so much. Harry’s a loner, operating on his own (often to the exasperation of his superiors). He gets little help – some, but not a lot – and he’s after a really bad guy. So it’s framed like a moral tale, the way westerns are … but this leads us into the politics again. It is a moral tale but one a lot more subtle and ambiguous than the usual western because the good guy, well, there’s a reason they call Harry “Dirty.” (This comes up several times in the film, the question of why he’s “Dirty” Harry, with a number of possible reasons thrown out. I think that final scene with the badge is the film’s only suggestion of the real answer.)

Another aspect I like about the movie is how very, very seventies it looks. Of course there are the clothes, the hair, the cars … but I think even more so it’s the overall look of the film. With that look, today it would be called an indie film. Despite some restoration, it still feels gritty and grainy, even when it isn’t. Not only does the movie not look slick, it almost looks anti-slick, as if it’s trying to disassociate itself from Hollywood – a characteristic of a number of movies from that period, like Taxi Driver, for instance.

I was also struck by a nice difference between Dirty Harry and its progeny, more contemporary movies with heroes and really bad villains. Today, a character like Harry would be up against an almost superhuman bad guy. But in this movie, the character of Scorpio, while very bad, is almost something of a screw up. I’m thinking of one scene where he’s out to shoot another victim but gets spotted by the police in their helicopter. Scorpio is bad, he’s dangerous, he’s sick, but he’s not a brilliant criminal mind. He’s not nearly as clever as he would like to imagine himself, and nowhere near as clever as a character such as him would be in a contemporary movie. In other words, there’s a bit more realism to Harry and his bad guy. (And realism is one of the things movies of that period aspired to.)

Finally, I believe one of the reasons this movie is so satisfying is because it understands so well set up and payoff. Like the way good jokes work, with their structure and their rhythm, there are a number of scenes in Dirty Harry that deliver the same way (for example, the “Do you feel lucky, punk?” scenes).

An interesting comparison between Dirty Harry an one of its progeny is the recent revenge film, Man on Fire, with Denzel Washington in the lead role. Whereas in Harry, directing and cinematography are almost self-effacing, with most of the emphasis on story and performance, Man on Fire is very self-consciously directed and very obvious in its cinematography, almost the exact opposite of the Don Seigal film. And whereas Harry is consumed with his hatred for bad guys and indifferent to what he does to nail them (with the possible exception of the end with the badge), Denzel’s character in Man on Fire is almost morose with awareness of being lost to the dark side and, when he goes after the bad guys, is almost like a suicide bomber, willing to do whatever needs to be done and sacrificing himself willingly as a kind of redemption. (And Denzel’s bad guy is much more clever than the Scorpio killer.)

Despite being a film from 1971 and looking very much so, Dirty Harry still works and works brilliantly. It’s just a troubling with its ambiguous politics, and just as thrilling with its cop chasing a killer suspense. I loved it.

3½ stars out of 4.

(Note: For some of Clint Eastwood’s views on Dirty Harry, have a look at the 1974 Playboy interview, East Talks Dirty Harry. Amongst other things, when the badge scene from the movie comes up and the reference to a similar scene in High Noon, Eastwood disagees with the comparison saying High Plains Drifter is much more along the lines of the Gary Cooper film.)

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Directed by Clint Eastwood

I think Hollywood must be puzzled over what to make of Clint Eastwood. You almost get the feeling they allow him to make movies out of a sense of obligation – he represents an older style within a Hollywood dominated and obsessed by youth. It would be in just too much bad taste for even Hollywood to shut the door on him because he’s, well, old.

But what must be a real head-scratcher for them is the fact that he keeps making good movies. They’re just not today’s Hollywood movies. This, by the way, is one of the reasons they are so good, and come as such a relief.

Blood Work is another good Eastwood movie, though it’s not his best as it has some flaws.

The strength of the movie comes from its script. This is usually the case with Eastwood films of the last few years. He somehow finds strong stories then allows them to play out with little directorial interference. In other words, his direction is understated. It’s almost a hands-off approach. Thus, we get clean, well-framed shots edited in an unobtrusive way that still maintains the film’s pace.

The pace, by the way, is less frantic than the majority of current films. This is partly due to the style Eastwood has developed over the years, the fact that his influences are older (as he is), but also because he has focused so much on ensuring he has a strong story to tell. There is no sense that many films now have that the director lacks confidence in his story and feels the need to throw some razzle dazzle in to keep an audience’s attention.

This is not to say there aren’t some problems with Blood Work, the chief of which lies in the script I’ve been praising. The script has two key relationships within it – that of Eastwood and the character played by Wanda De Jesus, and Eastwood and the character played by of Jeff Daniels. It is in the latter relationship that the weakness lies, but it’s weakness is also because thematically the film’s focus is the former relationship (with de Jesus).

Warning: Spoiler

Broadly, the story is about a man who loses something of himself following a heart transplant operation. An FBI profiler, he receives the heart of a murder victim, the sister of Wanda de Jesus character. This character, de Jesus, has also suffered a loss – her sister. The movie is about how together they find and rebuild themselves, each helping the other.

The McGuffin for this comes from the serial killer who is the cause of both losses. The framework of the movie requires some mystery as to who this person is – Eastwood has to find and stop the killer. But it’s pretty clear who this person is fairly early in the film. This is partly due to the way the situation is set up, but also partly due to the casting. Given the casting, it’s hard to image that one of the film’s actors is playing such a seemingly inconsequential role. You can’t help thinking there must be more to it, and of course there is. You know, therefore, roughly how the plot will resolve.

This isn’t such a big problem, though. The only real problem is the suspicion you have that it is suppose to be a mystery. A better approach would have been to acknowledge how the film actually plays – that we know who the killer is and the film’s hook is seeing how Eastwood handles the mystery.

The reason this problem isn’t so large is because the heart of the movie (no pun intended) is not the mystery but the characters and how they find themselves again, individually and together.

Blood Work is thoroughly enjoyable on a number of levels, not the least of which is the relaxed, unrushed way it unfolds. It is a huge relief, especially during a season of blockbuster DVD releases like Minority Report, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. It doesn’t rely on CGI, overwhelming landscapes, over-the-top camera work and so on. It relies on a story and strong acting performances, as well as unobstrusive camera work and direction. (It’s nice to see scenes that seem natural as opposed to tinted and with high contrast levels.)

Some years from now when the romance with technology and frenetic editing has passed and filmmakers turn again to a more naturalistic look, and a more minimalist approach, it will be to films like Eastwood’s that they will turn to for inspiration.

3 stars out of 4.

© 2002 Piddleville

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Directed by Roman Polanski

Chinatown, a wonderful movie, is an example of what a script can do for a film.

It’s like finding the right music at a party. Someone feels compelled to dance, then another and another.

Soon, everyone’s up dancing. And dancing well.

In Chinatown, just about every artist is dancing their damnedest because the script has pulled them onto the floor. Director, actors, lighting people, costume designers … they’re all performing at their highest level.

It’s Robert Towne’s script that has done this.

One of Roman Polanski’s great talents is creating mood and few films do it so well and so quickly as the opening of Chinatown. I can’t think of many movies I would watch simply to see the opening credits but the look and the marvellous music of the introductory credit sequence is just so good with its period lettering and sepia tone (which carries through the movie), that you’re hooked even before the movie has presented its opening shot.

Modelling itself on the film noir style (particularly films like Howard Hawks’ movie The Big Sleep), the film’s mystery is created by presenting the story through the eyes of detective Jake Gittes, the Jack Nicholson character. We know what he knows, we’re puzzled by what he’s puzzled by, we’re misled by what misleads him. In fact, just as Bogart was in just about every scene of The Big Sleep, Nicholson is in just about every scene in Chinatown, either as a participant or as an observer.

But the film isn’t dependent on Nicholson. Faye Dunaway is perfectly cast as the enigmatic, and troubled, Evelyn Mulwray. It’s hard to imagine anyone else but Dunaway in that role. The movie is also bolstered by brilliant supporting performances, particularly John Huston as Noah Cross.

I also love the leisurely way the movie unfolds. Unlike the quick cuts and thrumming soundtrack of most current movies, Polanski takes his time. And it works so well. This may be the reason why it works. You’re seduced by the mood, and become involved with the characters, and thus the story.

Chinatown is a great, fascinating movie that illustrates the importance of beginning with a great script.

With the DVD … it’s okay. Not great, could be a lot better, but adequate. It’s largely clean and clear, but certainly not on the pristine level.

This is partly due to it being an older film (1974). For extras, there is really just one (I don’t count trailers as extras).

There is a documentary of sorts. It features interview clips with director Roman Polanski, writer Robert Towne, and producer Robert Evans.

There are some interesting comments, but there is really no depth to it … Par for the course with DVD extras.

4 stars out of 4.

(Originally posted in 2002.)

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Directed by Barry Levinson

Some years ago, maybe around the time of Pulp Fiction, Hollywood developed a new kind of movie genre which I call the chimera. In Greek mythology, the chimera has a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. In other words, it’s a hodge podge. So I call certain movies chimeras because they’re several styles all thrown together, higgledee-piggledee.

Bandits is such a film. It’s action adventure. It’s comedy. It’s crime drama. It’s romance. (It’s not science-fiction, however.)

I think this smorgasbord approach began with Pulp Fiction because that film seemed to be a noir film while also being a comedy. It’s sort of like The Maltese Falcon meets His Girl Friday or something.

Soon we began seeing all kinds of movies that blended styles, like Get Shorty (noir, comedy, romance). Last year we saw The Mexican (noir, comedy, romance, western). And now, Bandits.

Why? Beginning as an interesting, and successful idea (like Pulp Fiction), I suspect now it has more to do with market research and trying to appeal to as many demographic groups as possible, and jigging a script so there is no “dead space,” meaning moments when the audience’s attention may falter.

It seems a dumbass way to make movies but I suppose as long as the ROI (return on investment) is good for the people backing the movies, we’ll continue to see them.

In the case of Bandits, I think we have one of the few successful chimeras. But this, I believe, has nothing to do with the script. It is the performances and the directing/editing. There are some incredibly funny scenes, especially with Bill Bob Thornton (as a hypochondriac bank robber), and Cate Blanchett is wonderful too (as a kind of flighty housewife who gets caught up with two convicts).

Bruce Willis is also great in a type of role he’s done before (like The Whole Nine Yards), the likeable tough guy. But he’s mastered it so well he delivers his lines and scenes flawlessly. You also get the impression that the three leads all enjoy working with one another, and this works well on screen.

There is also some great cinematography and production design, things you really wouldn’t expect to see in this kind of a movie. The movie, overall, simply looks good.

And it is good. Which surprises the hell out of me since it is so many types of movie, jumping back and forth and all over the place from one genre to another.

But that’s a chimera for you.

2½ stars out of 4.

(Originally posted 2002.)

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