Word: noir
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Amidst this maelstrom in New York arrives "L.A. Confidential," a sumptuous bit of film noir set in 1950's Los Angeles. The movie features a cast of crime lords, dope dealers, tabloid photographers, wife-beaters, crooked cops, movie stars, and prostitutes. Navigating this menagerie of colorful filth are three police detectives, Bud White, Jack Vincennes, and Ed Exley. As we watch them attempt to solve a mysterious mass murder, we unexpectedly gain insight into the recent tragedy in Brooklyn...
Hanson shoots L.A. as a land of shadows, borrowing judiciously from film noir past and present, whether through atmosphere or little tricks like light beams through bullet holes in a door a la "Blood Simple." Fortunately, unlike distant cousins like "The Usual Suspects" (which tortures us with things like cross-fades from coffee cups to cave mouths), it's all very bearable and, more importantly, very enjoyable...
...imitates life. Vincennes, the flashy, morally enigmatic cop in the new film noir L.A. Confidential, is played by renowned character actor Kevin Spacey. But finding out who the real Spacey is can also be a daunting task, especially when you're sitting next to him on a Beverly Hills hotel patio on a blistering summer afternoon. Spacey doesn't look like a movie star; with his soft, nondescript features, scruffy beard stubble and receding hairline, he could pass for the vacationing salesman at the next table. He doesn't talk like a star either--declining to gossip about the movie...
...kind of guys to do it with--tough, canny realists who can follow a tangled thread to daylight. Well, hmmm, daylight. There's not much of that in L.A. Confidential. It's a movie of shadows and half lights, the best approximation of the old black-and-white noir look anyone has yet managed on color stock. But it's no idle exercise in style. The film's look suggests how deep the tradition of police corruption runs. And that, paradoxically, makes it as outrageous (and outraging) as tomorrow's headlines will surely...
That's the dilemma that's been facing Quentin Tarantino, whose 1994 Pulp Fiction jabbed a spike into the art of film noir and established him as a big kahuna in Hollywood. But instead of writing another original screenplay, Tarantino has staked his reputation on a different approach: he has acquired rights to a best-selling crime novel from the hot author of Get Shorty and adapted it around the retro-hip personae of the ultimate 1970s blaxploitation babe, Pam Grier...