Nobody Knows Anything

May require a penny in the swearbox. When we left our hero last week, he’d just had one of the most artistically satisfying experiences of his life (directing Tarantino’s script for True Romance) only to see it more or less shunned at the American box office. One of the things that becomes apparent when comparing the budgets with the grosses of Scott’s films is that the budgets have increased and the grosses haven’t really. If Enemy of the State had been made for $15m and made as much money as it did, then it would be easier to declare it a big hit. As it is, Scott’s movies have continued to make enough money for his career to continue and he’s continued to work with Jerry Bruckheimer, Don Simpson having passed away in 1996.

Crimson Tide (1995)

Budget $53m - US gross $92m

The difference in the 1990s is that the scripts have improved, especially on the Jerry Bruckheimer productions, and Scott has started to get really good performances out of really good actors. The great pleasures of Crimson Tide aren’t to be found in the mechanics of the plot that manufactures another variant on the Cuban Missile crisis but in watching the actors tearing great chunks off each other in the confines of a nuclear submarine. Probably only Tony Scott could have made as dynamic a movie in a claustrophobic environment where the action sequences are all in the dialogue (polished by Tarantino in the wake of Pulp Fiction (1994)). The unbelievability of it all disappears because everything is played with such conviction.

The Fan (1996)

Budget $55m - US gross $19m

Two thirds of The Fan is great. The opening dialogue sequence, which any normal director would have staged in a bar with all the protagonists in the same place, has instead been opened up and staged in two separate moving vehicles and a radio phone in studio with helicopter shots, driving stunts, and six cameras filming everything at once (in all likelihood). Robert De Niro, who has of late attracted much criticism for using the phone to deliver his performances instead of turning up on the set like he used to in the 70s, is creepy as all get-out in the first two thirds of the movie; all of the scenes he has with his onscreen son are as disturbing as Travis Bickle was on his own in Taxi Driver (1976). De Niro’s ability to switch moods between funny and angry and loving and hate-filled remains unmatched. And then it all goes to hell. The moment the De Niro character decides to kidnap Wesley Snipes’ son is the precise instant the film becomes just another generic Hollywood thriller, the kind of film it promised not to be. Credibility flies out the window, the plot becomes stupid, the action becomes contrived, the talents of the cast are wasted, and even the deployment of the largest bank of rain machines in history for the film’s climax is unable to disguise this. The Fan is one of those odd films that works until it doesn’t. It’s a real disappointment.

Enemy of the State (1998)

Budget $90m - US gross $112m

In direct contrast, Enemy of the State is anything but a disappointment. The pace of the editing has started to accelerate. But not at the expense of telling the story or revealing character. People including the man himself sometimes tend to forget that Will Smith can actually act, and he acquits himself well in this “wronged man has his life trashed and has to discover the truth and expose the bad guys” role. And Gene Hackman’s character is a respectful tip of the hat to Harry Caul in The Conversation (1974). It’s occurred to me that there isn’t anything particularly original about Scott’s films strictly on a plot or story level. Scott can be found in his commentaries making precisely the same point - “everything’s been done” - but he maintains that what he can bring to the table is a freshness.

Spy Game (2001)

Budget $92m - US gross $63m

Releasing a morally ambiguous spy thriller with a key scene involving the suicide bombing of a building in the wake of 11th September 2001 is probably the reason for the box office droop, but Spy Game has an unappreciated brilliance. The restlessness of Enemy of the State has been amped up even further, aided by Scott’s discovery of the digital intermediate process first trialled the year before on an entire movie on the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). The digital intermediate allows filmmakers to manipulate the colour of the film before it’s output to negative and processed chemically into prints. It gets Scott halfway to what he finds later on (see below), as each section of the film is assigned a different look: sepia yellow for Vietnam, cold blue for Berlin, and high contrast colour in Beirut. As opposed to the ersatz baubles of tentpole blockbusters, this is proper moviemaking with a dense script, tough characters and a satisfying denouement.

Man on Fire (2004)

Budget $70m - US gross $78m

Boy, I’ve read a lot of crap about this movie. There’s something about the whole revenge thing that really rubs some people up the wrong way, but art has always been obsessed with the subject, and it’s not going to go away any time soon. And what is the current situation in Iraq but a product of revenge on all sides by all creeds on all peoples? This may be Tony Scott’s masterpiece. The editing is now utterly out of control, Scott has been allowed to do what he couldn’t on Spy Game: shoot on reversal stock, cross processed, for heightened colours, black blacks and white whites. He uses hand cranked cameras, multiple exposures, all sorts of wacky stuff. And yet it’s all to serve the story and get inside his character’s heads: the sequence in which Denzel Washington contemplates suicide is an extraordinary barrage of harrowing imagery and strong performance. The technique would be nothing without the actor. Revenge is a meal best served cold, and if you don’t like that kind of cold dish, expertly served, there’s nothing I nor anyone else can do for you. But if you do…

Domino (2005)

Budget $50m - US gross $11m

Based on a true story. Sort of. I don’t think people liked the trailer. I don’t think they liked Keira Knightley’s cut glass RP voice enunciating the phrase, “I am a bounty hunter.” As if all upper class English accents belong in romantic period pieces, you know, chick flicks. Well, guess what, Domino’s a chick flick too. Confronted at a horrid sorority by a blonde with attitude who says she has the chest of a ten year old boy, Domino’s response is to ask, “Have you had a nose job?” before decking her. Who could not love that? And could a man make a film more extreme than Man on Fire? Oh yes. In our vapid, image-obsessed, MTV culture, how come the 13 year olds who flock to all those shitty blockbusters weren’t interested in sneaking in to a vapid, image-obsessed MTV culture movie like this that’s doing all these things for purposes of satire. On mescalin. With Tom Waits as a preacher in the desert for no other reason than that it’s very, very cool. In an odd way, Domino is a comedy, and I’ve come across a review online somewhere that sees it as the future of cinema. So there. Check it out.

Conclusion

So what have we learned from a fortnight of Tony Scott?

1. Things are always better when they’re exploding in balls of flame.

2. Fuck is one of the best words in the English language.

3. There is no such thing as “restrained” in a Tony Scott film. More is more is his mantra.

4. If Michael Bay ever directs a movie with a good script, we’re all in a lot of trouble. (Thankfully, this looks like it may never happen.)

Peace. Out. Normal service to be resumed next week. Though I am promising a season of Russ Meyer when I’m all better.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 20th, 2007 at 8:27 am and is filed under Films, Tony Scott. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.