The best medicine? Wash your fucking hands.

by Ryland Walker Knight

[I got the idea from the recent comments on today's, the 5th's, Links for the Day over at The House Next Door concerning the writing credit on movies, specifically CHILDREN OF MEN, which I hope to write about after a second viewing. Naturally, things got out of hand.]

I read a year ago or something (maybe more?) that John Logan has it in his contract that only he gets final credit for whatever the film ends up being but (to pick up from my comments on The House yesterday a bit) THE AVIATOR bears similar strains that plagued GANGS OF NEW YORK, yet the latter has three credited writers. I think both films appear to have been script-doctored to death, to the detriment of whatever passionate vision Martin Scorsese was bringing to the table (or Michael Mann as it may have been once not so long ago; what would Mann's AVIATOR have been? would he have shot digital? (Steve often proposes ideas about movies we know re-imagined as projects by other directors and that could be a fertile shooting gallery I think we could have some fun with)). And to what purpose? Was it merely studio heads trying to focus the project? How many rainbows were either final shooting scripts? I bet they used about three full spectrums, if not more, by the end of each picture. And it's a shame. An entirely dubious and engaging public figure, Hughes warrants a three-hour movie, even if especially because his movies are rarely as good as some of this one's best moments and he was a straight up loon. [But, I should say, this is entirely speculation given my admittedly dated reads on those movies and lack of research (too tired, just wanna bait).]

Which brings me to THE BLACK DAHLIA, which I gave a second look this past week. And it made me think a very similar thesis. DAHLIA's shortcomings are hardly De Palma's over all formal brilliance -- his staircases are Bresson's doorways, it seems -- but the script's meanderings. Yesterday Matt said he often enjoys a meandering story more than a strict narrative (this may not be all-the-way true, a wild paraphrase, but he seemed to say he loves embellishment if it furthers the art, and I'm in agreement, to a point) and there's no lack of that in DAHLIA. I doubt Josh Freidman is solely responsible for the end result but maybe he is -- it's that perverse a movie. I realize part of the point of Ellroy is to get so bogged down in plot you don't know which way is up or whom to trust but it basically doesn't create a very good movie-going experience when it's this congested and byzantine; it just feels muddled. (MIAMI VICE, on the other hand, I am completely in tuned with, so it's partly a matter of taste.) It's beyond noir: some kind of deeper well where all the ugliness hides -- and is rarely seen in Ho'wood. That said, this time I was able to accept it on its own terms and at least enjoyed it more, if only for how gorgeous it is. But there's still somethging missing for me, and a lot of it is in those prettier-than-reality leads who, to me, look like they're playing dress up. The whole movie is kind of playing dress up to get down into that well (hell?). However, there are highlights: Vilmos Zsigmond is a straight up G(nius), the crane shots' subjectivity is simply amazing, Mia Kirshner is breathtaking and, actually, I kind of think Hilary Swank is brilliant in the most awful way possible. When jerked out of the movie, or grabbing another beer, I kept imagining Madeline Cathcart Linscott devouring a host of high school Freedom Writers like she'd been having trouble every day... it was, ahem, a minor epiphany.

Please, tell me what you think -- anybody. This is intended as the germ you didn't clean off your fingers that inevitably gets on your face. And you know what that leads to... But, knowing the (lack of) traffic I get, it probably won't warrant that kind of infection.