The Black Dahlia

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Movie
German title The Black Dahlia
Original title The Black Dahlia
Country of production United States ,
Germany
original language English ,
German
Publishing year 2006
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 16
Rod
Director Brian De Palma
script Josh Friedman
production Rudy Cohen ,
Moshe Diamant ,
Art Linson ,
Avi Lerner
music Mark Isham
camera Vilmos Zsigmond
cut Bill Pankow
occupation

The Black Dahlia (alternative title: The Black Dahlia ) is a feature film by the US director Brian De Palma from 2006 , which belongs to the genre of film noir . The crime film is based on the novel The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy , which in turn is based on the actual, unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short . The film ran from September 15, 2006 in US cinemas and from October 5, 2006 in German-speaking cinemas.

action

Los Angeles in 1947. The metropolis is shaken by the brutal murder of the 22-year-old starlet Elizabeth Short. The corpse of the young woman, who was called by friends because of her beauty because of her beauty " Black Dahlia " (English: Black Dahlia ), is found in a meadow near Hollywood . The murderer severed the woman's body at the waist, removed her organs and disfigured her face.

The two police officers and amateur boxers Leland "Lee" Blanchard and Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert are entrusted with solving the case, which, despite the withholding of crime scene photos, soon keeps the entire nation in suspense. While the murder investigation becomes an obsession with Blanchard that strains his relationship with his girlfriend Kay, Bleichert succumbs to the charms of the equally seductive Madeleine Linscott. The dark-haired beauty, who is one of the most influential families in town, is also among the suspects. She was having an affair with the murder victim who looked very much like her.

In their investigation, the two police officers penetrate deeper and deeper into the cauldron of Los Angeles, a swamp of pornography , corruption and murder that extends into the ranks of the local police department . Blanchard, who finances his luxurious lifestyle with embezzled money from a bank robbery years ago, dies at the hand of Madeleine, who tries to prevent blackmail and a scandal over her person caused by her love affairs.

Bleichert avenges the murder by shooting her. It turns out that Elizabeth Short's murder was committed by Madeleine's mother, Ramona. Her husband had found the girl for a disfigured henchman who was really Madeleine's father, to which Ramona reacted jealously and killed her. Bleichert, traumatized by the events, returns to Kay, with whom he has a short but intense liaison.

History of origin

With The Black Dahlia , James Ellroy began his so-called LA Quartet in 1987 . City of Devils (Engl. Title LA Confidential ), the third part of the tetralogy about the Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s was in 1997 with a very large commercial and artistic success of Curtis Hanson filmed Service.

In The Black Dahlia , Ellroy accesses a true story behind the murder of Elizabeth Short (1924-1947), which in the late 1940s by Medford ( Massachusetts ) after California had moved to become an actress. However, Short never got a film role in Hollywood. She was last seen on the evening of January 9, 1947 in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. A week later, on the morning of January 15, her severely mutilated body was found in an unused lot at Block 3800 on South Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park neighborhood . Although the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office investigated 22 suspects and are still well-known today such as Norman Chandler (1899–1973), editor of the Los Angeles Times , Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) and Orson Welles (1915–1985) with the The search for the perpetrator remained unsuccessful. Investigators reported that Short had moved from place to place for the last five months before her death and had known at least fifty men.

Based on the murder, the American television film Who Is the Black Dahlia? (English title: The Black Dahlia ), in which Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Ronny Cox took on the lead roles as investigators under the direction of Broadway and television director Joseph Pevney .

Ellroy himself became aware of the case as a child through Jack Webb's book The Badge (1958) and was also influenced by the murder of his own mother, who died when he was ten years old. "Elizabeth Short and my mother were intertwined in a way," says the author.

The American film producer Art Linson first considered a cinematic adaptation of Ellroy's novel at the end of the 1990s . After filming Fight Club (1999), he convinced director David Fincher of his idea, but despite years of preparation, the two did not succeed in getting a serious script for the material. After Fincher withdrew from the film project, Linson offered Brian De Palma, with whom he had worked on the 1989 war drama The Damned of War , to direct.

De Palma received critical acclaim in the 1980s with similar works such as the gangster films Scarface (1983) and The Untouchables (1987), but he has not had a box office success since the action film Mission: Impossible (1996) with Tom Cruise can book more. The director himself had read the novel in the mid-1990s and, despite the numerous subplots and complex twists and turns in the plot, agreed to take over the direction. When selecting the actors, he resorted to Josh Hartnett, who had already been the first choice for the part of Bucky Bleichert under David Fincher. For the role of Hartnett's partner Lee Blanchard, Mark Wahlberg was initially intended, but he canceled because of the simultaneous film project The Italian Job (2003). The singer Gwen Stefani was originally traded for the role of Kay Lake, Lee Blanchard's friend . She was replaced by the 22-year-old actress Scarlett Johansson . The part of the femme fatale , Madeleine Linscott, went to the two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank after the Frenchwoman Eva Green had rejected. In the title role, which has been expanded compared to the novel, played the Canadian Mia Kirshner, who gained fame in 1993 through Denys Arcand's black-humor comedy comedy love and other cruelties . The film script was provided by screenwriter Josh Friedman ( War of the Worlds , 2005) , who is still little known .

The shooting of the film, which was financed to a large extent internationally due to its subject matter, began on April 4, 2005. The shooting was on location in Los Angeles and in Pernik , Bulgaria , with Brian De Palma using old friends. Oscar winner Vilmos Zsigmond was responsible for the camera , who had already created the images for the director for Black Angel (1976), Blow Out - Death Erases All Traces (1981) and Purgatory of Vanities (1990). For the average was film editor Bill Pankow responsible, the previously seven films of De Palma had cut last Femme Fatale (2002). He also cast the biological father of Madeleine Linscott, George, with William Finley, who had the leading role in the de Palma film The Phantom in Paradise (1974) and appeared similarly disfigured. The equipment of Black Dahlia was created by production designer Dante Ferretti , the score for which James Horner was originally in discussion was created by Mark Isham.

reception

The Black Dahlia celebrated its world premiere on August 30, 2006 at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival , but received no award there. James Ellroy was particularly positive about Hartnett's performance, but without having seen the final cut.

In the US, 50 million received US dollars expensive production of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has an "R" rating : children under 17 were allowed to film there only if accompanied visit a parent or an adult.

Awards

  • 2006 - Nomination for the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival for Brian de Palma
  • 2006 - Nomination for the Satellite Award for cameraman Vilmos Zsigmond and costume designer Jenny Beavan
  • 2007 - Oscar nomination for cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond
  • 2007 - Nominated for the "ASC Award" of the American Society of Cinematographers for Vilmos Zsigmond
  • 2007 - Silver Ribbon from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists for production designer Dante Ferretti
  • The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

Reviews

“'Black Dahlia' has the look, instincts and attitude of a classic Brian De Palma / film noir thriller. During the first hour, the hope increases with every minute that the director is indulging in something really great. Then, gradually, the feverish, cloudy inventiveness of James Ellroy, on whose novel Josh Friedman's script is based, leads into De Palma's dark side. The violence increases absurdly, emotions are exaggerated and the film indulges once too much in its gleeful portrayal of corrupt, decadent Los Angeles. Disappointingly, the film dangerously gives in to kitsch. "

“The plot buzzes around indecisively, telling a few stories too many at once. Not every turn comes as a surprise, not all acting performances are at a high level. Aaron Eckhart as the tough cop and Hilary Swank as the mysterious sex bomb do such an excellent job that it is downright annoying that they have to share the screen with Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett, who are also cast as the sex bomb and cop. Johansson is more exciting to watch on the red carpets of the world than in this movie. Here she seems rather insecure. Teen crush Hartnett has the biggest role of all and is so hopelessly overwhelmed that you can feel sorry for him. "

“… A furious 1940s costume film that revives the aesthetics of old cinema […] The whole thing begins to develop into a classic noir story, the legacy of Sam Spade and Jake Gittes from ' Chinatown ' is evoked, the super-rich Upstarts, who spawned the property speculation of the early years, pull the strings in the city […] Bucky is trying to untangle the web of lies he is being served, and De Palma filmed it beautifully - 'Black Dahlia' is a trumpet -l'œil , full of mirrors and reflections. "

“It is probably not allowed to imagine what David Fincher would have made of the material that was long traded for directing. In this way, however, Tykwer's ' Perfume ', the festival director's refused opening film, would at least have set more scent notes, as he at least tries to break new cinematic territory and to make smells sensually perceptible with all means of cinematography. De Palma's 'Dahlia', on the other hand, is pure genre cinema, which sometimes suffocates on its own bombast, without setting new accents or even approaching Curtis Hanson's Ellroy filming 'LA Confidential'. "

“Brian De Palma largely succeeded in reviving that time, but despite all the care he took in the decor, costume and camera, he neglected to hit the keynote of Ellroy's stories. Of all things, the scene that cannot be found in the original (the murder of Blanchard) is the only moment that halfway hits the dark side of the original. Otherwise it was in no way possible to get the complex story under control. One would have had to delete entire storylines even more radically (as in LA Confidential ). So the whole thing remains a well-filled, colorful stripe that is halfway true to the color of the time, but it doesn't have much to do with the original. "

- Prisma online film database

“A murder case from the 1940s that has never been solved in reality and its novel-like spin-off serve Brian De Palma as a template for a film that aims to recreate the corruption and decadence of that period in Hollywood with the help of two police officers. Lost in too many details and missed in almost all of the main roles, the macabre story quickly drifts into arbitrariness and boredom. The director's once so fascinating cinematic virtuosity can only be seen in a few scenes. "

Remarks

  • The real mobster Mickey Cohen is mentioned twice in the film: on the one hand, the initial boxing bet, in which Bucky bets against himself, is placed with “a man from Mickey Cohen”; on the other hand, "a friend of Mickey Cohen" is said to be an occasional tipster of the police officer Lee.
  • In the computer game LA Noire , a number of cases are dealt with, which are called the "Black Dahlia Murder Case" because of their brutality.

literature

  • John Friedman, James Ellroy : The Black Dahlia. Screenplay . Signature Pictures, Santa Monica CA 2005 (English)
  • James Ellroy: Black Dahlia - The Black Dahlia. Novel (Original title: The Black Dahlia ). With an afterword by the author. German by Jürgen Behrens. Unabridged edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-548-26675-4 , 496 pp.
  • James Ellroy: The Black Dahlia . Mysterious Press, New York 1987, ISBN 0-89296-206-2 (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c The Black Dahlia. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Certificate of Release for The Black Dahlia . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2006 (PDF; test number: 107 507 K).
  3. ^ Age rating for The Black Dahlia . Youth Media Commission .
  4. Pat H. Broeske: A Dark Moment in the Sun Harsh Hollywood . In: New York Times , February 5, 2005
  5. Anke Westphal: The main thing is happy . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 31, 2006
  6. Film review by Kirk Honeycutt on hollywoodreporter.com, August 31, 2006 (English)
  7. ^ Daniel Sander: Venice Diary , Spiegel Online , August 31, 2006
  8. ^ Susan Vahabzadeh: film review by sueddeutsche.de, December 13, 2008
  9. ^ Peter Zander: When De Palma rings twice , welt.de, August 30, 2006; Movie review
  10. The Black Dahlia at prisma-online.de, accessed November 1, 2008