http://picasaweb.google.com/ctrova/LAConfidential?feat=embedwebsite#5527358472615658786
Curtis Hanson is a director who has had more misses than hits unfortunately. While I loved his films LA Confidential and Wonder Boys, he has fallen out of my good graces as an auteur with 8 Mile and Lucky You. While rewatching LA Confidential with my Literature and Film class a little more than a month ago, I decided to watch it with the intention of looking for what the difference is between his better films and his lesser films. While watching, I realized that most of what Hanson does as a filmmaker doesn't differ from good film to bad film. He always has the same eye for detail and has a similar idea of what he should do with the camera, which is to gracefully move the camera and regularly have OTS shots during conversations. So what is the difference? In his best films, you genuinely care about the characters he creates. For example, the character in the shot that I have chosen for LA Confidential is Edmund Exley. This is the 2nd major scene that we have seen him in, and we are already interested in his character even though he is doing something questionable. Guy Pearce does an excellent job portraying Exley, but the writing that Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland give us is what drives the audience to want to spend 2 hours with him. From the very beginning, we learn things and infer things about him while keeping the script subtle and poignant. His problems feel universal, even though we have never experienced what he is going through exactly. Let's looks at the shot that I have chosen, where he has thrown members of the department that he has just joined under the bus. The look on Guy Pearce's face is very similar to the other shot that I am analyzing is that of Barbara Stanwyck. (http://picasaweb.google.com/ctrova/DoubleIndemnityStillShots?feat=embedwebsite#5524226830866087010) In both scenes, these characters show a sense of blind action, without considering the repercussions of what they have just done. They look at their side of the story, without looking at other perspectives. And in both films, they learn to look at moments and choices that they must make through multiple lenses.
"If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you."-Billy Wilder
To say that Curtis Hanson has had a career similar to that of Billy Wilder's is too big of a compliment for Mr. Hanson, but they have had similar problems throughout their careers. Billy Wilder is the director of American classics Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot, and The Apartment. Each of these films unique and genuine pieces of filmmaking. Wilder's problems with his misses though? The same as Hanson. These are directors who focus so much on character, that when you don't connect with them you can't enjoy the movie. Let's take Wilder's film One, Two, Three, a film about an american man who works for Coca Cola who will lose business if he can't convince his daughter to marry a communist. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen. The characters have no depth, and the situations that they are put in are unrealistic. One, Two, Three came out in 1961. The Apartment came out in 1960. There has never been a more drastic drop off in talent other than Hal Ashby's in the early 1980's. The Apartment is one of the best american films of the 1960's and says profound things with meaningful characters through comedy. If I may quote Wilder again, "If you;re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you." Billy Wilder was the first director to take films that offered really tricky subject matters and made you laugh and enjoy yourself while learning about human nature. His mindset of "if we can laugh, then we can have a conversation" style of filmmaking has influenced everyone from Hal Ashby to Alexander Payne.
I acknowledge that this is not as much of a shot analysis as it is a rant about filmmaking, but at least it shows some effort.
Thanks for reading,
MK
