The Black Dahlia
Grade: A-
Meticulously mounted with bravura filmmaking that serves splendidly an intriguing story, "The Black Dahlia" is one of the most accomplished and satisfying films of master stylist Brian De Palma in a long time. As of today, Universal's "Black Dahlia," which opened the 2006 Venice Film Festival, is also one of the year's best studio movies.
Weaving together a fictionalized tale of love, obsession, corruption, greed, and depravity around the true story of the brutal murder of fledgling Hollywood starlet Elizabeth Short, "Black Dahlia" emerges as a quintessentail film noir and a classic for the ages.
As a darkly cynical period piece--the story is set in 1947--this uniquly L.A. and Hollywood saga establishes immediate thematic connections to other noir classics, such as Roman Polanksi's superb conpsirational "Chinatown," set in L.A. in the late Depression, and particularly Curtis Hanson's sublime policier L.A. Confidential, set in the late 1950s, and, like the new picture, drawing on a James Ellroy hair-raising crime novel.
In "Black Dahlia," one of the most coherent works De Palma has ever made, text, characters, subtext and visuals gell smoothly and creepily in retelling the Black Dahlia yarn that shocked and fascinated the nation over half a century ago and still remains largely unresolved (See Below).
Adapting to the screen Ellroy's best-selling crime tome, "Black Dahlia" proves that when given a well-constructed narrrative that pays equal attention to plot and characterization, De Palma has few competitors in American film. For once, De Palma's detractors can't accuse him of favoring style over contents, of being excessively cynic and even misanthropic, of delighting in trashy voyeurism with his obssessive himages to Hitchcock and Polanski, among others. (The list of charges is too long to rehearse hersee Film Comment about De Palma).
Anchored by five multi-nuaced, endlessly shifting charcaters, splendidly played by Josh Hatnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johnansson, and Hilary Swank, and at least half a dozen secondary characters that are masterfully integrated into the supspense mystery, the film pulls you in in its very first minutes and doesn't let go until the last, highly distrubing shot.
The fact that about half of the cast is female, and that women play major roles, is also something of a novely in De Palma's predominantly male-driven oeuvre. That said, the movie belongs to Hartnett, whose asssertively central turn is not only his most impressive performance to date, but also one that should finally catapult him to the front rank of American leading men and bankable star.
The first chapter establishes the specific locale and intrictate relationship between the two protagonists, puglists-cops Sgt. Leland "Lee" Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Officer Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett). Defined by intimate camarderie but also rivalry, it's a bond in which initially Lee has the upper hand, in and out of the ring. However, after the first reel, the balance of power begins to change.
Erotic tension is introduced from the start, and continues to build throughout between Bucky and Kay Lake (Scarlett Johnassson who looks beautiful as ablonde in period wardrobe), Lee's alluring, somehow mysterious wife.
Turning point occurs when the duo are called to investigate the homicide of ambitious silver-sceen B-lister Betty Ann Short (Mia Kirshnaer), aka "The Black Dahlia," whose mutilated body is found in the open fields. In actuality, the attack was so grisly that images of the killing were kept from the public eye, and De Palma deserves credit for never exploiting, or even showing, the gruesome sight of Betty's corspe up to the very end, when he recreates the brutal murder scene.
Lee's growing preoccupation with the sensational murder turns into an outright obsession that threatens his marriage to Kay, and soon she kicks him out of the house. Meanhwile, Bucky tracks some leads of his own, which take him to the enigmatic Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), the daughter of one of the city's most prominent families, who just happens to have an unsavory connection to the murder victim.
Space doesn't permit me to dwell on the twists and turns of the intricate plots and suplots (it's part of the fun to discern them for yourself), but grdaually, a very dark, somber, and sordid portrait of L.A. and its sharp stratification system (the gap between the "haves and haves not") emerges.
The Linscott clan, headed by corrupt patriarch Emmet (John Kavanah) is cursed with all the problems and ills of a rich, blue-blooded American family out of a 1950s melodrama: incestuous relationship with one daughter, mentally disturbed wife (played by Fiona Shaw with a touch of Lady MacBeth), who knows and dangerously talks more than she is expected too, a younger jealous daughter Martha (Rachel Miner), who later on plays a key role in unraveling the mystery.
This being quintessential noir, "Black Dahlia" is sexually explicit in depicting a romantic triangle between Bucky, Kay, and Madeleine, who may or may not have known Betty Short and who may or may not be bisexual. The sexual attraction between Bucky and Madeleine is depicted in particularly steamy way in a number of scenes. As De Palma promised during production, Hilary Swank, known until now for her tough gender-bending Oscar roles like "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby," is utterly credible as a noirish femme fatale.
Integrated into the maze, which gets creepier, freakier, and overwrought with every scene, are black-and-white flashbacks of Short's Hollywood screen tests, including a pornographic film of her with one of the lead female charcaters that's repeatedly watched by Bucky, the cops, and other city officers. (These are the few sequences in which De Palma goes overboard with trashy sleaziness that remarkably is absent from the rest of the film).
Film noir conoisseurs and purists will be able to detect all the prevalent types of the genre's iconographic landscape: Corrupt politicians, clean and dirty cops, attention-seeking journalists, femme fatales, black widows, psychotic murderers, and a whole host of ruthless mobsters and gansgters, seedy filmmakers, abusive directors, and young and poor actresses (mostly white trash but also minorities) hungry for quick fame and instantaneous stardom.
What enriches "Black Dahlia" are not only the major twists and turns, but also the double nature and fluid identity of most of the characters, each of which carries a chip on his/her shoulder. Through subtle details, we get to know the younger versions of all of the characters and what makes them tick at present.
Hence, crucial details are disclosed about Lee's past family history that may explian his growing obsession with this particular murder case.
As in most noirs, the saga unfolds from the consistent POV of Bucky, who serves as the film's tormented protagonist and narrator. However, De Palma's shredly keeps the voice-over to a minimum, mostly to bridge the various subplots and to provide s self-reflexive commentary when it's necessary, indicating Bucky's growing awareness of his weaknesses after Lee had saved his life.
In "Chinatown," the power struggles over water and land indicated corruption and greed in the evolution of Los Angeles as a modernized city. In contrast, in "Black Dahlia," we get a glimpse of how the movie industry evolved as an integral force of the city's economy and power structure at large. Specific references are made to Mack Sennett and the movies' silent era, the notorious Hollywood Sign (also currently seen in "Hollywoodland"), the studios' link to valuable real estate, and connections even to the art world; a particular painting serves a major clue.
For a two-hour movie, the yarn may cover too many subplots and, as a result, characters often disappear for too long a time.
The film's other major flaw is the staging of its last reel, in which heavy melodrama kicks in, with De Palma succumbing to old habits and to something that's equivalent to a modern Greek tragedy. This is particularly the case in which the major revelation is made within the Linscott mansion.
Increasingly, what was subtle and subdued in the first hour gets increasingly more overrought and even hysterical, a tone that's reflected not only in the staging but also in the visuals and acting.
That said, overall, the collaboration between James Ellroy (who had previously written "L.A. Confidential" and "American Tabloid), screenwriter Josh Friedman with his lively, laert dialogue, director De Palma, and his technical crew, particularly ace cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmund, proves extremely creative, resulting in a sumputuous mounted production, a uniquley American movie that only Hollywood has the resources and know-how to make--but doesn't make anymore.
Indeed, there's complete congruence between De Palma's thematic and stylistic preoccupations and those of "Black Dahlia." The best compliment I can pay this picture is that it's hard to imagine any other filmmaker tackling it with such stupendous results on any level, narrative, visual, audial and even acting (often not the bets aspect of De Palma's movies).
Eckhart, who has been circling around stardom for years, may have found the right vehicle to achieve the real thing. Hartnett, up until now a youth hearthtrob in mindless actioner and romantic comedies, has finally mature out of his "boyish" looks and seems ready to assume adult leading roles in high-profile mainstream movies.
The cast's femmes are just as impresive as the men. Swank, a two-time Oscar winner who gets better and better, plays a sexually ambiguous role: She might have been the girlfriend of the victim, to whom she bears resemblance! One of her creepily bizarre lines, trying to explian to straightarrow (in both senses of the term) Bucky her past, may enter into movie lore. Says Madeline: "Elizabeth and I made love once. I just did it to see what it would be with someone who looked like me."
Considering her age, 22, Scarlett Johansson has already done great work, in Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" and Woody Allen's "Match Point." Looking stunning in period costume, she effortlessly essays the "femme fatale" of the piece, torn between loyalty to Lee, who had saved her from the clutches of an abusively brutal man (with evidence on her sexy body), and growing attraction to Bucky, particularly after realizing the lost love to the rapidly declining and evntually doomed Lee.
Literary Source
"The Black Dahlia" is the story of the seamy underbelly of a city, in which the death of one girl led to the birth of a legend. For almost 60 years, the notorious murder of Elizabeth Short, a lost soul in a heartless town has fascinated the nation. Betty's case remains one of the most gruesome, unsolved homicides in the City of Angeles' history. Conspiracy theories and false confessions abound, but no one has ever known why the aspiring starlet was horrifically tortured, or who committed the crime.
Known facts: On January 15, 1947, detectives from the LAPD found the nude, mutilated remains of a young actress cut in half at the waist, with organs removed and blood drained from her small body. Her killer bludgeoned and sodomized her, slit her mouth from ear to ear in a sickening, clownish grin an dumped Betty in a vacant lot near Leimert Park. Betty's attack was so grisly that most images were kept from the public's eye--and from journalists too.
Forty years after her killing, crime novelist James Ellroy (who penned "L.A. Confidential" and "American Tabloid") crafted "The Black Dahlia, a best-selling whodunit with Betty's murder at its crux, and boom-era Los Angeles as its backdrop. James Ellroy says he used the book as an attempt to exorcise demons from the strangulation of his own mother in 1958.
Determined to be famous, destined to be infamous, Betty Short affected more lives dead than she possibly could alive. She dreamed of being photographed for the big screen, but wound up the pin-up girl of a tabloid autopsy photos.
i usually love de palma.
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