Below zero (movie)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Under zero
Original title Less than zero
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1987
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Marek Kanievska
script Harley Peyton
production Jon Avnet ,
Jordan Kerner
music Thomas Newman
camera Edward Lachman
cut Peter E. Berger ,
Michael Tronick
occupation

Unter Null (original title: Less Than Zero ) is the literary film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis . The German premiere took place at the International Film Festival in Berlin in 1988 ( Berlinale ).

action

The focus of “Unter Null” is the student Clay, who is returning from college on the east coast to his hometown Los Angeles over the Christmas break to visit family and friends. He's also trying to win his former girlfriend Blair back over. She has given up her academic ambitions, now works as a successful photo model and now lives with Julian, his best friend from school together. Julian is heavily in debt after failed professional projects and is addicted to cocaine. But the common past still connects. The high school friends get together again on nightly forays through the clubs and at parties. When Blair finally chooses Clay again and Julian sees no other way out than to pay off his debts through prostitution , the situation escalates. Clay and Blair want to save their mutual friend one last time. Vain. Julian dies of an overdose.

General

Rarely has a film been so unanimously criticized as a failed literary adaptation as 'Unter Null'. Film and book essentially have the rough plot structure and the names of the protagonists in common. The literary clay tends to be bisexual, sniffs cocaine and is indifferent to everything and everyone. The movie Clay is a white knight who rejects drugs, loves his girlfriend, and cares for his boyfriend's life. CINEMA reviewer Karl Heinz Schäfer said: (quote): '... - everything that was explosive and daring has been defused by the scriptwriters '.

Bret Easton Ellis was considered a shooting star of the literary scene when his first work was published (he wrote 'LTZ' at the age of 21 - as a college student) and was in the tradition of JD Salinger ( Welt am Sonntag of January 8, 2006 (see web link)). Obviously, with the autobiographical sketch of his protagonists and their living conditions, he had hit the nerve of the times.

The cinematic implementation does not have this quality. Beautiful people in chic places are the show values ​​of this Hollywood production. epd film reviewer Rudolf Worschech sums this up in his review as follows: (quote) “Below zero is decoration, and the people are only part of it” . Loneliness, boredom, drugs and alcohol consumption are the dark side beneath the beautiful surface. The Heyne Film Yearbook 1989 adds: (Quote) “Marek Kanievska's film has dedicated itself entirely to the cool, synthetic appearance of this consumer-hungry crowd” . If there is any intended message at all, it is a drug abuse warning. The film thus reduces almost all the intentions of the novel to absurdity (see, among others, Hollywood Film Flash).

In particular, the performance of Robert Downey Jr. (as Julian) was well received in many other reviews. Tragically, there are parallels between his character and the actor's private life. Downey Jr. has been tried several times for drug offenses.

The soundtrack is also remarkable. The cover version of the Simon & Garfunkel classic: 'A Hazy Shade of Winter' as a single release brought the pop group Bangles a world hit. The instrumental passages not included on the album were composed by the young Thomas Newman . Meanwhile, Newman is one of the most renowned film music composers of our time.

The soundtrack impresses above all with the track You and Me by Glenn Danzig And The Power And Fury Orchestra. The track was not released on any official Danzig album. You and Me is one of the early Danzig tracks in which Danzig's voice as a combination of Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley comes into its own.

An official second soundtrack for the film was released in October 2016. It only contains the instrumental pieces composed by Thomas Newman (14 tracks plus 4 bonus tracks).

With US box office earnings of around $ 12.4 million and additional international cinema, video and TV exploitation, 'Less Than Zero' could at least be described as a commercial success.

From today's perspective, the film version has a different meaning. 'Less Than Zero' was a role model and offered plenty of templates for storylines of successful TV series of the early 90s, such as Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place .

side note

Brad Pitt can be seen in "Unter Null" in an extra role. In the American database IMDb it can be read that he received a salary of 38 dollars for his performance.

Bret Easton Ellis is amused by the film adaptation of his first novel in his 2010 novel Imperial Bedrooms , a sequel to Less Than Zero . "They made a film about us," reads Imperial Bedrooms at the beginning . The heroes of the novel complain about the film's poor faithfulness to the original. "They let me die," says Julian in the continuation of the novel. And that in the film “nothing can actually be found in the book”, says the literary Clay at least.

Matthias Wulff quotes these passages in particular in his literary review of Imperial Bedrooms in Rolling Stone magazine of the October 2010 issue.

Reviews

can be read in: CINEMA 5/1988, Fischer Film Almanach 1989, Heyne Filmjahrbuch 1989 (quoted from 'Zoom'), epd Film 5/1988

In the lexicon of international film it says, 'Unter Null' (quote) “... treats his subject in an all too textbook-like manner and indulges with preference in fashionably lacquered images of a sophisticated world populated by a consumer-hungry crowd. Too many clichés of a life in synthetic externality mean that he finally loses its persuasiveness ” .

In the 5/1988 issue of the film magazine CINEMA, the praise and criticism of American film journalists in Hollywood is summarized on a ' Hollywood Film Flash' : The Reporter : Hollywood has constructed a deadlock from Bret Easton Ellis' brilliant perspective . Los Angeles Times : Anti-cocaine parable mixed with sentimental fuss . LA Weekly : Full of compromises and deadly weaknesses. The film dilutes the dreary atmosphere of the original and invents "positive scenes" and uses incompetent actors. The only bright spot: Robert Downey Jr.

A positive review can be found in the Heyne Film Library book: '1000 cult films on video' by Jean Lüdeke: He praises a production with a lot of feeling and atmosphere. Thomas Newman's film music is also described as 'getting under your skin'.

Web links