I'm on my noir and neo-noir journey right now and I've recently seen
The Black Dahlia by
Brian De Palma. And man... what a mess. I thought that James Ellroy's novel was such a great material for a movie and itâs impossible to mess it up... isnât it (just look at the fine
L.A. Confidential)? Well, De Palma managed to do it somehow.
I know that David Fincher was attached as director and that he originally envisioned a five-hour, $80-million mini-series made in black & white. Too bad the studio didnât let him do it his way.
Although itâs visually brilliant, it feels like everything has been thrown at the screen, but nothing really sticks. The movie has so many threads that go nowhere, itâs sluggishly paced and confusingly constructed, and the ending is disappointing as well. Thereâs never any sense of how much time has passed or what the dynamic has shifted to (e.g. Aaron Eckhartâs character all of the sudden is obsessed). And half of the movie is not even concentrated on The Black Dahliaâs case.
Here goes a problem with miscasting: 25-year-old Josh Hartnett as a hard-boiled, cynical detective? And Hilary Swank as a femme fatale? No dice. Only Mia Kirshner as Elizabeth Short is really convincing. Too bad she couldnât play Swankâs role.
An hour was removed from the final cut of the movie and I know that Ellroyâs praised the original version. I wonder if that cut material would improve the movie a lot (at least it wouldnât have had so many plot-holes). Iâd really like to see it. The trailer looks better than the actual movie:
Anyway, do you guys think that this movie can be fan-edited into something
decent or more
watchable? Some heavy cuts maybe?