8mm - eight millimeters

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Movie
German title 8mm - eight millimeters
Original title 8mm
Country of production USA , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 1999
length 123 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Joel Schumacher
script Andrew Kevin Walker
production Gavin Polone ,
Judy Hofflund ,
Joel Schumacher
music Mychael Danna
camera Robert Elswit
cut Mark Stevens
occupation
synchronization

8mm is an American thriller from 1999 with Nicolas Cage in the lead role. The film achieved relative fame for its work on confirming the existence of snuff films . The film title is based on the Super8 film format.

action

One day private detective Tom Welles receives an unusual assignment from Mrs. Christian, a wealthy widow. The old woman and her lawyer Daniel Longdale show him a Super 8 film from her husband's bequest. It is believed to be a snuff film in which a masked man tortures a girl to death. Welles' job is to verify the authenticity of the shocking film.

Welles finds the name of the murdered girl in a missing person file and visits her mother. The trail leads him on to Hollywood , where the girl wanted to get rich and famous. Welles meets Max California, a sex shop employee, who introduces him to the world of BDSM porn movies. The mediator Eddie Poole, who casts young actresses for the porn industry, looks at the photo submitted by Welles for a conspicuously long time before he denies knowing the girl. After listening to Poole, Welles came across producer Dino Velvet from New York .

Welles and Max watch Velvet's films: There a frequently appearing, always masked man with the pseudonym “Machine” has the same tattoo on his hand as the murderer in the film that led to the assignment. In New York, Welles hires Velvet to produce a hardcore bondage film in which “Machine” will also play. He also wishes to be present during the shooting. He sends Max home and promises to visit him. Max is visibly disappointed and, it seems, is starting the journey home. Welles, Velvet and Machine's meeting at a warehouse for Welles' film assignment takes an unexpected turn, as Poole and Longdale are not there, but girls. Welles is threatened with a crossbow by Velvet, disarmed and tied to a bed.

Welles learns that Longdale once made common cause with Poole and Velvet. Longdale was paid a million dollars by the widow's husband to get a snuff movie. Longdale had one produced - the girl was actually cruelly murdered. With Max hostage, the criminals force Welles to get the film out of his car. He has to watch as he is burned and Max is murdered by Machine cutting his throat.

Welles distracts the criminals from themselves as the next victim by telling Poole, Velvet and Machine that Longdale received $ 1 million from Mr. Christian for filming the snuff video. Since Longdale only passed on a fraction of the budget and put the majority in his own pocket, he is confronted by the defrauded. Longdale pulls a gun and tries to escape. Velvet manages to shoot him in the chest with his crossbow, but Longdale hits his carotid artery with a bullet. Both die. Welles manages to break free, seriously injures Machine in the stomach with a knife and has to flee from Poole.

After Welles reported his findings to his client, she committed suicide. Welles receives two envelopes from their butler. One includes his fee, the other money for the mother of the girl who was killed.

Welles starts a campaign of revenge. He overpowers Eddie Poole when he tries to escape and forces him to show him the place where the girl was murdered. When the two arrived at a dilapidated hut on a hill outside of town, Poole describes what happened that night. He is then knocked down by Welles. Welles ties Poole up and threatens to kill him. Outside the scene he calls the mother of the murdered girl and tells her the terrible truth. Then he asks her permission to "hurt" the murderers. He storms back into the cabin and repeatedly slams Poole with his pistol. While he dies, he throws the search porn videos at Eddie and sets him on fire, along with the tapes.

By phoning the emergency rooms of the surrounding hospitals and inquiring about abdominal injuries treated in the past few days, Welles can find out Machine's real name and address from his mother. When she drives to the church, he sneaks into the house armed with a pistol, where he is discovered and surprised by Machine. In a scuffle, they both rush from the first floor into the neighboring cemetery. At gunpoint, Welles forces his opponent to take off his mask. He tells him that there is “no secret”, that he does “the things he does because he enjoys it”. Machine throws a knife at the surprised Welles, but the latter stabs him in a duel.

Welles carried out his chosen assignment. One day he receives a letter from the murdered girl's mother, who thanks him for writing to her and telling her what happened. With the money she will first begin psychotherapy.

production

script

Andrew Kevin Walker , who also wrote the screenplay for Seven , illuminates in 8mm the decayed world behind the facade of the normal, in which the social fringes are fighting for survival. Unlike in thematically related films, the perpetrators, such as the snuff director Dino Velvet, are brought to the fore in 8mm . In addition to the producer Eddie Poole, played by James Gandolfini , who embodies more of a typical red light figure, the silent killer “Machine” appears. The latter drives the tension to a climax when he is forced by Detective Welles to take off his mask. Welles is completely upset when he realizes that behind “Machine” there is only a normal, “innocent” looking person who also lives with his old mother in a house and leads a very normal life during the day. In a fit of rage, Welles finally makes himself guilty when he kills the murderer of the tortured girl.

The script, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, was revised by Joel Schumacher and Nicholas Kazan after Walker left the project due to discrepancies with the director. The reason for this was that Walker did not share the studio's opinion that the dark mood of the film had to be softened further. With Schumacher's unauthorized changes to his script, Walker did not agree and drew the consequences.

Pre-production

Mark Wahlberg turned down the role of Max California. Originally, David Fincher should take over the direction of the film. Director Joel Schumacher decided to give stripper Jenny Powell , who was hired as a double , the role of Mary Ann Mathews in the 8mm snuff film.

Filming

The film was shot on locations in New York , Florida , Pennsylvania and California . One scene from the film was shot at the Old Westbury Gardens manor on Long Island , New York State . Filming began on 3 February 1998 and ended on May 15, 1998. The budget of the film is 40 million dollars estimated. On February 19, 1999, the film celebrated its world premiere at the Berlinale . The film was shown in the USA from February 26, 1999. The film was shown in Swiss cinemas on March 10, 1999 and was first shown in Germany on April 1, 1999. On the opening weekend, the film grossed over $ 14.2 million in the US, with total US revenues of almost $ 36.3 million. 787,000 visitors were counted at the German box office.

The Oscar that Nicolas Cage received for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas can be seen in the scene in which Tom Welles breaks into Eddie Poole's office to equip his phone with a bugging device, wrapped in bondage- style black cords .

synchronization

The production was carried out by the dubbing company RC Production Rasema Cibic in Berlin, based on the dialogue book and under the dubbing direction of Andreas Pollak.

role actor speaker
Tom Welles Nicolas Cage Martin Keßler
Max California Joaquin Phoenix Charles Rettinghaus
Dino Velvet Peter Stormare K. Dieter Klebsch
Eddie Poole James Gandolfini Michael Walke
Daniel Longdale Anthony Heald Till Hagen
Amy Welles Catherine Keener Martina Treger
Mrs. Christian Myra Carter Tilly Lauenstein
Janet Matthews Amy Morton Eva Kryll
Machine Chris Bauer Hans-Jürgen Wolf
Mr. Anderson Don Creech Kaspar Eichel
Senator Michaelson Anne Gee Byrd Barbara Adolph
Warren Anderson Norman Reedus Julien Haggége

reception

criticism

The editors of the Encyclopedia of the international film judges 8mm was "a repulsive and bigoted film that makes doing business with the desire for some picturesquely voyeuristic insights advantage, but in the end a vigilante propagated that has to eliminate the criminal excesses of pornography . The script runs out of tension all too quickly, the main role remains consistently inaccessible and its final motivation is incomprehensible. "

Heiko Rosner from Cinema is of the opinion that the film is a "disturbing thriller in the porn scene". It is about a “morbid psychological thriller” that “takes place in the world of porn shops, sadomasochism bars and the darkest abysses of Hollywood”. The viewer is confronted with "disturbing visions of social and moral decay" and "left with incredulous horror and panic dismay". "Perfectly staged, coldly lit and without unnecessary physical brutality in the snuff scenes," 8MM "paints an apocalyptic but never unreal picture of the dirty war of survival in the fringes of society." Joel Schumacher "proves a high degree for this difficult topic of sensitivity without shrinking from the merciless consequences of the dark feverish dream ”.

Carsten Baumgardt from Filmstarts praises Joel Schumacher's work as a director and Nicolas Cage's performance, which is "believable". Among the supporting actors, Joaquin Phoenix and Peter Stormare would convince with “charismatic” appearances. The “scenes of violence shown” are “not to be recommended to the sensitive cinema-goers”. In addition, the conclusion that draws the end of the film is "questionable". Baumgardt awarded three out of five possible points.

Subject and motifs

In the past, the production was repeatedly criticized as a sadophobic because it placed the topics of BDSM , sexual abuse and snuff films in a direct context. In the United States, there were public demonstrations by BDSM activists against the film.

The film takes up the theme of "bad people - bad music". Gdansk posters hang in Machine's “youth room” . Probably the outfitters of the film just wanted to furnish the room “badly”, because the posters shown were already about ten years old at the time of shooting. In addition, the song Come to Daddy by Aphex Twin plays during the scene in Machine's house , which underlines the gloomy mood. The music track can still be heard in one of the porn films shown, the music video can be seen on a small television in Dino Velvet's office.

The plot of the film shows clear parallels to the American drama Hardcore - A Father Sees Red by Paul Schrader , published in 1979 , in which a private detective is hired to look for a runaway daughter and ultimately an 8 mm film with pornographic recordings of the young woman finds. The plot of the film also has similarities with the 2002 book The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh , in which a real estate auctioneer finds harrowing images in a customer's porn collection and then decides to find out whether the girl photographed was actually killed.

Awards

Joel Schumacher was nominated for a Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 1999.

Other productions

In 2006 what appeared to be a sequel entitled 8mm 2 - Hell of Velvet . However, apart from the title, this erotic thriller has nothing to do with 8mm - eight millimeters .

The band SITD released a song called Snuff Machinery , which contains quotes from the film. The use of the song in the Lord of the Rings parody Lord of the Weed helped, among other things, the film quote “If you get involved with the devil, the devil doesn't change. The devil changes you! ”To great fame.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k background information according to the Internet Movie Database
  2. ↑ a b locations according to the Internet Movie Database
  3. ↑ a b c d budget and box office results according to the Internet Movie Database
  4. ↑ a b c Start dates according to the Internet Movie Database
  5. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | 8MM - eight millimeters. Retrieved September 12, 2017 .
  6. ↑ 8mm - eight millimeters. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ a b c d e Cinema : Film Review , Heiko Rosner
  8. ↑ a b c d e film starts : film review , Carsten Baumgardt
  9. ↑ Nominations and awards according to the Internet Movie Database