OK,
Here it is… let’s discuss this movie.
I put the warning on title so don’t bother with spoilers.
I saw it this evening. Some moments were spoken so fast and so softly that I didn’t hear all of it.
I think I’d like to watch it again. I’m still not sure of the motive. I have so many questions, I’m not sure where to start.
Was there any significance that Elizabeth Short was cut ear to ear? Was it because George’s face was mutilated? What was the significane of the clown painting? I suppose it had something to do with george’s face being mutiliated.
Oh hell, I have too many questions.
Can someone explain the movie to me with spoilers a plenty?
I haven’t seen the movie, and after reading the numerous bad reviews on rottentomatoes.com I probably won’t (unless maybe the Scarlett Johansson factor proves irresistable ) but I’ve read the book by James Ellroy. It was a superb book, although it was in no way an explanation of what really happened to Elizabeth Short. I would suggest you read it, rather than trying to unravel De Palma’s version of it.
I saw it tonight. What a mess that last act was. I read Ellroy’s novel several years ago but I couldn’t remember enough about it to parse all the plot points.
Anyway, here’s what I THINK happened:
Hillary Swank’s mom had an affair with the gardener and got pregnant with Hillary. When Hillary got older, her dad realized the gardener was her biological father and mutilated his face (not out of any real jealousy…it was clear he cared nothing for his wife and had only married her for her money, but he didn’t want other people to snap to the resemblance).
Later, George (the gardener) became fixated on Eizabeth Short (I guess because she looks like Hillary Swank, his daughter…and I’m still kind of confused on the timing there, it seems to show him watching during filming but I’m unclear on if she was killed that same day or if it was later or what). The mom goes to the porn set, sees the gardener hitting on Short and goes beserk, killing her and mutilating her face in the same way that George’s had been mutilated (something that was also reflected in her paintings of clowns). Her exact motivation is not clear to me either. I think it might have been jealousy but that seems kind of weak.
Then that was the whole weird thing about Hillary and Short having had a relationship and I can’t tell if that was supposed to play into it or not.
After seeing the movie, I can’t help feeling that Ellroy has slandered Elizabeth Short a little bit. He invented seedy details about her life that aren’t based on fact. She didn’t make stag films and was never a prostitute. I understand the desire to write a good story, but this was a real person, not a character. It’s just right in line with Ellroy’s seeming need to turn all women into whores, victims or both.
Saw it last night, and I’m not sure what to think. It did seem like a jumbled mess, but I still enjoyed it. I felt the same way walking out of LA Confidential, and after a few viewings of LAC, everything fell into place and it’s now one of my favorite movies of all time. So I think I’ll have to reserve judgement until I see it again on DVD.
So even though I enjoyed the film, I did leave with an unsatisfied feeling. But I’m also a sucker for '40s vernacular - and for Scarlett Johansson, even in her 1940’s style “granny panties”. So that could be a factor as well.
Actually, I think the old Scotsman got Smart to be in the porno after she was discovered at the lesbian bar by Hillary Swank, who has slept to see what it was like to be with someone who looked just like her. (As a side note: I think the old scot was dipping his pen in Hillary Swank’s well). Then the Scot decided to get
Smart for George, as a gift, on a totally different occassion – to really piss the old lady off, you know have her lover sleep with someone that looked like her daughter. The old lady overhears the plan (you see it in the movie) and walks in on George and Smart. She then kills Smart out of jealousy and together, she and George disfigure and dismember her. I have to think the killing was on a seoperate occassion than the porno shoot because the other girl wasn’t killed and didn’t seem to know why Smart was killed.
The better story is how the other cop was on the take from damn near everybody – Dewit, the Scot, the dude he killed at the beginning – and how he stayed with Johnasen to keep her close, what with her knowing about the dough and all.
As far as the slander goes, I have to agree. There were way too many liberties taken with the lives of real people for Elroy to not have changed the names. It be like me writing about the JonBenet Ramsey murder and have her end up being the coke smuggling midget twin of Patsey, killed by Patsy when she discovered her in bed with her husband.
I saw it on Saturday and was very disappointed. Every time there was a droning voice-over, I expected to actually learn something. But nope, not until the last reel when I was so confused and numb that I just wanted to leave.
Worst film I’ve seen in a long time. I was in the bathroom for the opening credits and got to my seat as the 2 cops were making an arrest in an alley with a voice over about police work and boxing. For the first 20 minutes, I thought maybe we had wandered into the wrong film.
Bad acting. Bad, bad acting. They made Scarlett Johansen seem dull, fer chrissakes. Maybe they needed her to be dull to match Josh Harnett. (how’d he ever get a job???)
Bad writing.
Bad directing.
Awful, cliche love scenes (I cannot contain my desire for you any longer. I must have you, for the 1st time, here on the dining room table. I will rip off your clothes and throw the food on the floor to make us more comfortable. It would be far to difficult to climb the stairs to get to the comfy bed!)
Stupid subplots. As if the murder investigation wasn’t interesting enough to make a film about on it’s own.
As I said loudly to my wife when the end credits were rolling, “Thank God it’s over!”
I enjoyed the texture of it a lot, but man, what a crappy fucking movie.
The third act had more disjointed nonsense than a college newspaper.
BTW, I must have missed a detail, because I couldn’t figure somethinig out. Why was the evil cop supposed to write a “letter of apology” for finding the pr0n?
I didn’t give a shit about the characters. Thought that Hillary Swank looked more like Lorna Mertz than Elizabeth Short. (At least I think that’s the character’s names.) If we’d have gotten to see Rose McGowan’s and Scarlett Johansson’s boobies, I might have mustered up some interest in the film. This reminded me of From Hell in that the theory of who did what and why given in the film was nowhere as interesting as to the other theories of what happened and why.
And WTF was Swank doing cruising the lesbo bars? Given that the reason she gave for doing Short was that she wanted to know what it was like to do someone who looked like her (even though she didn’t), it doesn’t seem to be a strong enough indication that she was bi (bi-curious, yes).
A wretched, wretched movie, IMHO, that felt neither noir nor period. Hard to believe that this is the same guy who gave us Scarface and Femme Fatale. (At least Femme Fatale had some hot lesbian scenes.)
It wasn’t that Blanchard found the pr0n, it was his behavior in the screening room.
I saw it last night. It was much too gruesome, and there were scenes that didn’t need to be that graphic, particularly since some of it was more for shock value than for advancing the plot. For example: (spoilered because it’s the end and because it’s gross)
At the very end, Bleichert hears a crow, turns around, and sees the very mutilated corpse on the grass in front of Kay’s house, then turns around again to find it gone. It’s clearly a fantasy, so why couldn’t the audience have been left with an image of the living Elizabeth Short?
Another example:
During the scene in which Junior Nash is found, was it necessary to show the body of the dead child? I think it would’ve been better if Bleichert told Blanchard about it.
I think the movie would’ve been better if the gore were toned down a good bit and if some of the plot had been cleaned up to include fewer of Ellroy’s plotlines and more backstory on the characters and motivations.
I read in the reviews about at the gore, and frankly I thought it was pretty tame. You’ll see much, much worse in your average PG-13 horror movie.
My problem is that the casing was terrible. I didn’t care about any of them. The main issue that I had personally, is that I loved LA Confidential, and I keep comparing the two films, and BD just got it’s ass kicked in that regard. Scarlett is nice enough, but a femme fatale? No way. Kim Bassenger was perfect in LAC, and this was essentially the same role. Same thing with Harnett. He sucked! Once again, that was the Russell Crowe part in LAC, and he was great.
This film was so disappointing. If you can’t make an unsolved murder in 1940s LA interesting, something is wrong.
Word on the casting. Hartnett, especially. That guy is dead weight in ever single thing he’s ever been in. I don’t know how he keeps getting work. He makes Keanu Reeves look like Pacino.
Sorry to bump, but this is appearing on the premium movie channels now and I caught it over the weekend.
To me, the murder of Short seemed to be a minor plot point in this movie. I was hoping for a detailed investigation with an emphasis on one of the theories of the crime. What I got was a confusing mess where the murder just happened to be another thing they had to deal with in and around boxing, former hooker girlfriends, and dirty cops.
Did de Palma deviate much from the book? I’d like to read it, but if it’s just like the movie I’ll give it a pass.
I liked the book a LOT more than the movie. Ellroy is one of my favorite writers, and The Black Dahlia is the first part of his excellent, loosely-connected L.A. Quartet of novels, the others being The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential (made into one of my favorite movies ever), and White Jazz (apparently a movie is in the works for this one).
The book goes into more detail regarding the investigation of Betty Short’s murder, but keep in mind it is still a work of fiction, and just serves as the catalyst for the rest of the action involving Bleichert and Blanchard. Ellroy is a master of juggling several complicated plots and tying them all together in the end – as complex as the L.A. Confidential movie was, even that was simplified A LOT from the novel.
Why would he be kidding? Aaron Eckhart is an excellent actor, and has been excellent in everything I’ve seen him in. Even when the movies are profoundly stupid (looking at you, The Core), it’s not his fault. He’s adept at playing utter scumbags (In the Company of Men, Thank You For Smoking) and absolute nice guys (Erin Brockovich, Possession). He may not have quite the range of, oh, say, Sean Penn, but then, I haven’t seen everything he’s done.
Although he has admittedly appeared in several very mediocre films, Aaron Eckhart has always been regarded with respect as an actor by critics and people who know film. Your response perplexes me. What’s it based on?
Regarding the OP, it was a beautiful-looking film (cinematography, costumes, set decoration and all that), and the subject matter was fascinating, but it didn’t quite work for me, not as well as I hoped.
) but I’ve read the book by James Ellroy. It was a superb book, although it was in no way an explanation of what really happened to Elizabeth Short. I would suggest you read it, rather than trying to unravel De Palma’s version of it.