The Color of Money

The 1970’s saw the rise of the Movie Brats, a collection of filmmakers that had grown up watching and studying films. They made challenging films that reflected the times in which they were made and were revered by cineastes as much as some of the actors appearing in them. Directors like William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, Hal Ashby and Martin Scorsese made intensely personal films that blended a European sensibility with American genre films. However, the one-two punch of Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) and the failure of expensive passion projects like New York, New York (1977) and Heaven’s Gate (1980) ended these directors’ influence and saw the rise of producers like Joel Silver, Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, and movie star-driven blockbusters in the 1980’s and beyond. It got harder and harder for the Movie Brats to get their personal projects made. Most of them went the independent route, making films for smaller companies like Orion and doing the occasional paycheck gig with a Hollywood studio.


For years, Scorsese had been trying to fund a personal project of his own – an adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ. It was a tough sell and he ended up making After Hours (1985) and The Color of Money (1986) as a way of keeping busy while he tried to get Last Temptation made. At the time of The Color of Money much was made of it being Scorsese’s first movie star-driven film and some critics and fans of the director felt that he was selling out. It would not only be promoted as a film starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise (and not as a Martin Scorsese film), but was a sequel (something that the director was never fond of doing) of sorts. Newman had been interested in reprising his famous role of "Fast" Eddie Felson from The Hustler (1961) for some time but he had never met the right person for the job – that is, until he met Scorsese.

The Color of Money begins twenty-five years after the events depicted in The Hustler and we find that Eddie (Paul Newman) is enjoying a comfortable existence as a savvy liquor salesman with his bar owner girlfriend Janelle (Helen Shaver) and occasionally fronting a pool hustler. His current investment, a cocaine addict named Julian (played with just the right amount of sleazy arrogance by John Turturro), is getting roundly beaten by a young turk named Vincent (Tom Cruise) who catches Eddie’s attention with his “sledgehammer break.” He becomes fascinated watching Vincent play and his cocky behavior between shots, like how he works the table. Eddie also watches the dynamic between Vincent and his girlfriend Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). What really catches his attention is not just Vincent’s raw talent but also his passion for the game. He’s even willing to play Julian after he’s won all of the guy’s money because he just wants his “best game.”

There’s a nice bit where Eddie tests Carmen’s skill as Vincent’s manager, exposing her lack of experience and schooling her on the basics of pool hustling in a beautifully written monologue by Richard Price that Newman nails with the ease of a seasoned pro. We get another healthy dose of Price’s authentic streetwise dialogue in the next scene where Eddie takes Vincent and Carmen out for dinner and continues to school his potential protégés: “If you got an area of excellence, you’re good at something, you’re the best at something, anything, then rich can be arranged. I mean rich can come fairly easy.” The scene is also nicely acted as Tom Cruise plays the cocky upstart with just the right amount of arrogant naiveté without being a typical goofball. As Eddie puts it, “You are a natural character. You’re an incredible flake,” but tells him that he can use that to hustle other players. The ex-pool player lays it all out for the young man: “Pool excellence is not about excellent pool. It’s about becoming something … You gotta be a student of human moves.” And in a nice bit he proves it by making a bet with them that he’ll leave with a woman at the bar. Of course, he knows her but it certainly proves his point. This is a wonderful scene that begins to flesh out Vincent and establish how much he and Carmen have to learn and how much Eddie has since The Hustler.

The young man is a real piece of work – brash, directionless but with raw talent. It is clear that Eddie sees much of his younger self in Vincent and decides to take the young man under his wing and teach him "pool excellence" by taking him and Carmen on the road. It’s an opportunity to make some money while also getting back Eddie’s passion for playing pool. The Color of Money proceeds to show the three of them on the road for six weeks, getting ready for an upcoming nine-ball tournament in Atlantic City. Of course, there are the predictable bumps in the road as Vincent’s impulsive knack for showing off costs them money and Eddie feels like the young man’s not listening to him. It’s a formula we’ve seen used in countless films but Scorsese does everything he can visually to keep things interesting, especially in the dynamic way he depicts the numerous games of pool, the use of music (for example, one game is scored to “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon) and the actors that play some of the opponents along the way, like a young Forest Whitaker as a skilled player that manages to hustle and beat Eddie at pool.

However, it is the camerawork by veteran cinematographer Michael Ballhaus that impresses the most. He and Scorsese depict each game differently, employing a variety of techniques, like quick snap zooms in and out, and floating the camera gracefully over the pool table or gliding around it. He even has the camera right on the pool table following the balls around. The camera movement and editing rhythm of each game is dictated by the mood and intensity of each match, like the grandiose techniques employed when Vincent shows off during a game of pool. As he revels in his own showboating moves, the camera spins around him as if intoxicated by his bravado. However, much like the chaotic pool hall brawl in Mean Streets (1973), the camera movement goes nowhere symbolizing the futility of Vincent’s actions. Sure, he beat the top guy at that pool hall but in doing so scared off an older player that had much more money.

While The Color of Money was made fairly early on in Tom Cruise’s career, his relative inexperience actually suits his character. His youthful energy mirrors Vincent’s. It is his job to come across as an arrogant flake of a human being, which he does quite well (too well for some who were unimpressed with his performance). Cruise has always been an actor that performs better surrounded by more talented and experienced people and with the likes of Paul Newman acting opposite him and Scorsese directing, it forces the young actor to raise his game. One imagines he learned a lot on the job much like Vincent does in the film. Scorsese knew exactly what he was doing when he cast Cruise and got a solid performance out of him. In the late ‘80s, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio acted in a series of high profile roles like The Abyss (1989), The January Man (1989) and this film. She’s given the thankless job of the girlfriend role but manages to make the most of it. One gets the feeling that Carmen is a fast learner and smarter than Vincent. She is much like Eddie in understanding the business side of pool hustling.

Naturally, Newman owns the film, slipping effortlessly back into Eddie’s skin after more than 20 years and it’s like he never left. The scenes between him and Cruise are excellent as the headstrong Vincent bounces off of the world-weary Eddie. Over the course of the film something happens to the elder pool player. As he tells Vincent at one point, “I’m hungry again and you bled that back into me.” We see that youthful spark fire up in Eddie again after so many years dormant and Newman does a fantastic job conveying that. While many felt that his Academy Award for the performance he gives in The Color of Money was really a consolation prize for a career of brilliant performances, this does a disservice to just how good he is in this film and how enjoyable it is to watch him get to work with someone like Cruise and Scorsese, watching how their contrasting philosophies towards acting and filmmaking co-exist in this film. There is an energy and vitality that Cruise brings and Newman feeds off of it and Scorsese captures it like lightning in a bottle.

When Paul Newman read Walter Tevis’ sequel to The Hustler it made him wonder what “Fast” Eddie Felson would be doing now and wanted to revisit the character. He had seen Raging Bull (1980) and was so impressed by it that he wrote a letter to Scorsese complimenting him on such a fine piece of work. The director was just coming off of After Hours and was attached to several projects, including Dick Tracy, with Warren Beatty, a fantasy film entitled Winter’s Tale, Gershwin, with a screenplay written by Paul Schrader, and Wise Guy, a book about the New York mafia written by Nicholas Pileggi. However, they all took a backseat when Newman invited him to direct a sequel to The Hustler. The actor had been working on it for a year with a writer. Scorsese was interested but didn’t like the script Newman showed him because it was “a literal sequel. It was based on at least some familiarity with the original.” Scorsese felt like he couldn’t be involved with the project if he didn’t have some input on the original idea of the script.

Scorsese wanted to go in a different direction and brought in a new screenwriter, novelist Richard Price who had written The Wanderers and also a script for the director based on the film Night and the City (1950). Scorsese liked the script because it had “very good street sense and wonderful dialogue.” For The Color of Money, Price and Scorsese’s concept was basically what became the film, exploring the director's preoccupation with redemption but with what Newman saw as "recapturing excellence, having been absent from it, and then witnessing it in somebody else." Newman liked it and Price and Scorsese came up with an outline and began rewriting the script. Price studied pool players and wrote 80 pages of a script. They took it to Newman and got his input. By the end of nine months, Price and Scorsese decided to make the film with Newman.

For Scorsese this was the first time he had ever worked with a star of Newman's magnitude. "I would go in and I'd see a thousand different movies in his face, images I had seen on that big screen when I was twelve years old. It makes an impression.” As a result, Scorsese and Price made the mistake of writing for themselves when they should have tailored the script to suit Newman and his image, or as Scorsese later said, "we were making a star vehicle movie." The actor wanted to explore aging and the fear of losing his “pool excellence.” He also wanted the character of Minnesota Fats, played so memorably by Jackie Gleason in The Hustler, to return but Price couldn’t get the character to fit into the script. He and Scorsese even presented a version of the script with Fats in it to Gleason but he “felt it was an afterthought,” said Scorsese.

It was Newman that suggested Cruise for the role of Vincent to Scorsese. The young actor had met Newman before when auditioning to play his son in Harry & Son (1984). Scorsese cast Cruise before Top Gun (1986) had come out but he was a rising movie star thanks to Risky Business (1983). He had seen the young actor in All the Right Moves (1983) and liked him. The project was initially at 20th Century Fox but they didn’t like Price’s script and didn’t want to make it even with Cruise and Newman attached. Eventually, it went to Touchstone Pictures.

Newman was not fond of improvising on the set and suggested two weeks of rehearsals before filming. Scorsese wasn’t crazy about this and found them “aggravating. You are afraid that you are going to say ridiculous things, and the actors feel that way too.” However, he agreed to it and brought in Price so that he could make changes to the script. Fortunately, everyone felt secure in character and with each other. Price and Scorsese didn’t have the film’s ending resolved and felt that they had written themselves into a corner. The studio wanted them to shoot the film in Toronto but Scorsese felt that it was too clean and chose Chicago instead. Both Cruise and Newman did all their own pool playing with the former being taught how to do specific shots that he played in the film with the exception of one, which would have taken two additional days to learn and Scorsese didn’t want to spend the time. Cruise had dedicated himself to learning how to play pool: “All I had in my apartment was a bed and a pool table.” He worked with his trainer and the film’s pool consultant Mike Sigel for months before shooting started.

In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, “The Color of Money isn't Mean Streets or Raging Bull. It is, however, a stunning vehicle – a white Cadillac among the other mainstream American movies of the season.” Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “There is a ferocity in Cruise's flakiness that he has not previously had a chance to tap. That, in turn, gives Newman something to grapple with. There is a sort of contained rage in his work that he has never found before, and it carries him beyond the bounds of image, the movie beyond the bounds of genre.” The Globe and Mail’s Jay Scott wrote, “It may be true that in gambling money won is twice as sweet as money earned, but in art, only the earned has savor; The Color of Money earns enough of it to turn most other movies persimmon with esthetic envy.” In his review for the Washington Post, Paul Attanasio wrote, “But in the final third of the movie, the real drama takes place within Fast Eddie himself, as his dissatisfaction with what he's become almost imperceptibly grows, and he tries to decide, in middle age, who he wants to be. That involves a shift in the movie's focus to Newman alone; and if what's lost is the excitement that Newman and Cruise had generated together, what's gained is a kind of depth another, simpler story wouldn't have had.” However, Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, “Maybe the problems started with the story, when Newman or somebody decided that there had to be a young man in the picture; the introduction of the Cruise character opens the door for all of the preordained teacher-pupil clichés, when perhaps they should have just stayed with Newman and let him be at the center of the story.”

Some Scorsese fans marginalize The Color of Money as one of his paycheck films – the first he did for the money – and while it may not have the personal feel of a film like Taxi Driver (1976), it still has its merits, a strong picture that fits well into the man's body of work. I would argue that it is one of his strongest films stylistically with some truly beautiful, often breathtaking camerawork capturing all the nuances of playing pool: the energy and vitality of the game is there without sacrificing any of the story or the characters. This film also shows how a director like Scorsese can take a hired gun project and make it his own. It looks, sounds and, most importantly, feels like one of his films and not a commercial studio picture. Others must have agreed as the film not only became Scorsese's most financially successful film at the time but a critical hit as well. The director proved to the studios that he could deliver the goods at the box office while to himself he was still able to invest the film with some of his own personal touches. Ultimately, The Color of Money is about Eddie’s redemption and rekindling the spark he had in The Hustler before the screws were put to him. As with many sports movies, the story builds towards the climactic big game or, in the case of this film, the big tournament but Price’s script offers a slight twist in that Eddie’s victory is a hollow one and the real one is at the very end when his love for playing pool has finally come back completely. He is reinvigorated and excited about where his life and game will go from here and this is summed up beautiful in the film’s last line – “I’m back.”

The Big Lebowski

I’ve always wondered if The Big Lebowski (1998) was an attempt by the Coen brothers to address their critics, chief among them J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum, who accuse the filmmaking duo of anti-semiticism in films like Miller’s Crossing (1990) and Barton Fink (1991). This is a rather odd charge considering that Joel and Ethan Coen are in fact Jewish. Keeping this in mind, one has to wonder what to make of Walter Sobchak (John Goodman), a character in The Big Lebowski who is proudly Jewish and even married and converted to Judaism for his wife. Then, when they were divorced, remained Jewish, defiantly so.


Clearly, the Coens were playfully thumbing their noses at Hoberman and Rosenbaum and this is further reinforced in the faux scholarly introduction to the film’s screenplay, which claims that it won the 1998 Kochba Award, “honouring achievement in the arts that defy racial and religious stereotyping and promote appreciation for the multiplicity of man.” Yeah … right. Furthermore, the unidentified writer (probably the Coens) goes on to explain the nature of humor with a hilariously in-depth analysis of what makes The Three Stooges funny and thereby making the point that if you have to explain why something is funny to someone else then they’ll never get it. So, are the Coens saying that critics like Hoberman and Rosenbaum don’t “get” their films?

Set in Los Angeles during the first Persian Gulf War, the Coens weave a decidedly unconventional tale about a man known as The Dude. Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) is a laid-back kinda guy, an aging Hippie who spends his days drinking White Russians, smoking pot, and bowling with his buddies — Walter, a bitter Viet Nam veteran, and Donny (Steve Buscemi), a not too-bright surfer. One night, two thugs invade the Dude’s home, rough him up, and urinate on his rug. It seems that they have him confused with another Lebowski, a rich millionaire (David Huddleston) whose young trophy wife Bunny (Tara Reid) owes money all over town. Bummed at having his prized rug ruined, The Dude decides to contact the other Lebowski and in doing so becomes immersed in a very strange, convoluted plot that involves nihilists, a kidnapping, Busby Berkeley dream sequences, British performance artists, and, of course, bowling.

I’m not going to write my usual in-depth article with production information, as that has already been done and better than I ever could. Rather, here are 24 of my favorite moments:

1. The Two Dumbest Flunkies. You’ve got one who pees on The Dude’s rug and the other who’s apparently never seen a bowling ball before. I love the one’s reaction when he realizes that The Dude’s humble abode does not resemble that of the wealthy millionaire they’re looking for.

2. The introduction of Donny, Walter and The Dude is awesome in how it shows the dynamic between these friends, like how The Dude and Walter bicker like an old married couple while Donny is the conversation cheerleader, occasionally commenting on what’s being said, like “a child who wanders in the middle of a movie,” as Walter puts it.


“Forget it, Donny. You’re out of your element.”

 3. I love the scene where The Dude first confronts the other Lebowski and after schooling him on how he prefers to be addressed is then chastised by the blustery rich man – “The bum’s lost!” This sets up a class struggle between haves like Lebowski and the have-nots as represented by The Dude.


“…or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing.”

 4. “I’m just gonna find a cash machine.” Bunny Lebowski’s offer of oral sex comes at a high cost and Brandt’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) reaction is hilarious (“That’s marvelous.”). Hoffman is so funny as the terminally uptight toady Brandt.


"That's marvellous."

 5. “If you will it, it is no dream.” This is the first declaration of Walter’s Jewish pride as he quotes Theodore Herzel but this is unfortunately quickly forgotten when he freaks out all over Smokey’s (Jimmie Dale Gilmore) breaking of the rules of bowling. After all, this isn’t ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules. Fortunately, Smokey narrowly avoids entering a world of pain.

6. The Dude’s easygoing nature deflates the other Lebowski’s theatrics as he tells of Bunny being kidnapped by the nihilists. Jeff Bridges’ reaction shot at one point as he takes a drag off a joint and says, “Fuckin’ A,” is hilarious. Hoffman is also excellent in this scene as Brandt acts all upset over the news but as soon as he’s required to spring into action drops the act.


“This is a bummer, man.”


7. One of the greatest introductions of a character that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot ever. John Turturro makes the most of this scene as one of The Dude’s bowling opponents, from the licking of his ball to the little dance moves he pulls off after bowling a strike. The long pinky nail (for cocaine) and hairnet are nice touches as is the music that accompanies his intro – a cover of “Hotel California” by the Gipsy Kings. I also love The Dude’s laidback retort to Jesus’ bowling taunt: “Yeah well, that’s just, ya know, like, your opinion, man.” We even get a brief insight into Jesus’ life as a convicted pederast. Eight year-olds, dude. It is these little details that make this film so enjoyable to watch as even minor supporting characters are given a rich backstory.


“Nobody fucks with the Jesus!”

 8. After The Dude’s team advances to the next round in the bowling tournament (amazing considering that Walter pulled a gun on a fellow bowler), Walter loses his shit when Donny tells him that their next game is scheduled for Saturday, the Jewish day of rest thereby forbidding him from bowling on that day.


“Shomer shabbas”

 9. Logjammin’. Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), a feminist performance artist/painter, shows The Dude a cheapo porno film that Bunny starred in with her nihilist boyfriend Karl Hungus (Peter Stormare) in which he plays a cable T.V. technician who arrives to “fix” her cable. When she scoffs at its predictable plot and how it will end, The Dude deadpans, “He fixes the cable?”

10. The Dude is suddenly manhandled by the other Lebowski’s burly limousine driver causing him to spill a glass of one of his beloved White Russians.


“Hey, careful, man. There’s a beverage here!”

 11. The nihilists bust into The Dude’s place (“Hey, this is a private residence, man.”) and interrupt his relaxing bath by throwing a ferret into his bath water, thereby blowing his high and then threatening castration. Peter Stormare and Flea’s Eurotrash German accents sound like they came straight from the Saturday Night Live skit Sprockets!


“We believe in nothing!”

 12. Ah, Sam Elliott as the film’s narrator known as the Stranger and who makes an appearance in full western garb to give The Dude some sage advice and comment on his usage of cuss words. With his awesome mustache and deep voice, Elliott is ideally cast as a mysterious cowboy cum Greek chorus.


“I like your style, Dude.”

 13. And just what the hell is David Thewlis doing in this film as video artist Knox Harrington, armed with an annoying high pitched laugh and shaved head? Nothing really except yet another oddball that The Dude meets along the way. Knox and Maude seem to be sharing a private joke in their scene together, much to The Dude’s chagrin.


“Who the fuck are you, man?”

 14. “Lookin’ Out My Back Door” I love the use of this fantastic Creedance Clearwater Revival song in the scene where The Dude tries to evade a mysterious car that is following him. The little yelp that Bridges lets out when his character drops a lit joint in his lap while driving is priceless.

15. Goodman’s best scene in the film is when Walter and The Dude visit an insolent high school kid they believe stole his car and a million dollar ransom that was intended to free the kidnapped Bunny. The scene becomes funnier the more frustrated Walter and The Dude get as the kid refuses to buckle under their “intense” questioning culminating in Walter’s memorable insult, “This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass!” over and over while trashing a sports car he thinks the kid bought with the ransom money.


“This is what happens…”

 16. Ben Gazzara as Hugh Hefner. The John Cassavetes film veteran turns up late in the game as a classy smut peddler Jackie Treehorn who drugs The Dude. I love the way Gazzara says, “feelings,” when he tells Bridges how the porn biz has changed over the years. This scene is also notable for showing The Dude doing some actual detective work. Too bad it amounts to nothing.

17. Gutterballs. While there are two dream sequences in the film, this is by far the best as a drugged Dude dreams of teaching Maude how to bowl while a chorus line of beautiful women engage in a Busby Berkeley style dance sequence all scored to “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” by Kenny Rogers during his psychedelic period. Oh yeah, and Saddam Hussein gives The Dude bowling shoes and the dream ends with him being chased by the nihilists wielding huge scissors in a sequence that Freud would have a field day with.

18. The Dude hates the Eagles. Man, I’m so with him on this one.

19. I love the moment between Jeffrey and Maude where they bond after having sex. It’s a nice, quiet and amusing scene as we take a break from all the crazy people The Dude encounters and learn that he was briefly a roadie for Metallica (“Bunch of assholes.”). He was also a member of the anti-war group the Seattle Seven and helped write the original Port Huron Statement – not the compromised second draft. The chemistry between Bridges and Julianne Moore is excellent and The Dude’s reaction to Maude’s true intentions for their sexual rendezvous is funny. Plus, she helps him free up his uptight thinking about the mystery he’s embroiled in.


“Jeffrey, love me.”


20. Long-time Coen brothers collaborator Jon Polito pops up as a “brother shamus,” a private snoop trailing The Dude in order to find Bunny who has run away from home in Minnesota. The Dude tells him to back off from his “lady friend” (a.k.a. Maude) and alas that’s the last we see of Polito for the rest of the film.


“Like an Irish monk?”

 21. “3,000 years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax…” We get Walter’s full-on justification for why he still practices Judaism despite being divorced. There’s something admirable about his devotion to this religion.

22. Why’d they have to kill Donny? Poor Donny didn’t hurt anybody and is taken out when he suffers a heart attack as the nihilists confront him, The Dude and Walter outside of their beloved bowling alley, which leads us to…

23. Donny’s Eulogy. Walter delivers a heartfelt if not misguided eulogy to Donny. Due to their modest means, Walter and The Dude transport their friend’s ashes in a Folgers coffee tin to a cliff where they plan to scatter his remains. However, the wind blows some of them back into The Dude’s goatee. Fortunately, not even Walter’s ineptitude ruins this poignant moment.

24. Despite Donny’s death, The Dude and Walter advance to the next round in the bowling tournament and our hero is visited by the Stranger once again. As The Dude departs to bowl another round, he offers the parting words of wisdom, “The Dude abides,” and the Stranger wraps things up and brings the film full circle to the soulful strains of “Dead Flowers” by Townes Van Zandt.


“The Dude abides.”

 The Big Lebowski is my favorite Coen brothers film. For me, it is the perfect mix of their flashy style, eccentric characters, and distinctive dialogue. It is a rare comedy that can be watched over and over and never gets old. They have created a richly detailed world that is so inviting and entertaining that you want to revisit it again and again.

So, what are some of your favorite moments/scenes/lines of dialogue from this film?


NOTE: Screencaps from this film came from THE best Coen bros. site - You Know, For Kids!

Grace of My Heart

Grace of My Heart (1996) is Allison Anders’ unabashed love letter to three decades of popular music, from the doo-wop era of the late 1950’s, to the rise of girl groups in the 1960’s to the psychedelic era of the 1970’s, all seen through the eyes of a female songwriter cast in the mould of Carole King, among others. Anders’ passion project finally gave a substantial role to character actress Illeana Douglas who, finally freed from the shackles of numerous supporting character roles over the years, delivers a career-defining performance. Despite the pedigree of having Martin Scorsese as executive producer and the likes of John Turturro and Matt Dillon in supporting roles, Grace of My Heart was not a commercial hit, and was quickly eclipsed by another nostalgic look at popular music from the ‘60s that came out the same year – Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do! (1996), which, incidentally, wasn’t a huge hit either but had much more advertising muscle behind it. For all of its flaws, which include a weak third act, Grace of My Heart is a fascinating look at a time when the craft of writing a good song mattered. It is a film that deserves to be rediscovered.


Edna Buxton (Illeana Douglas) comes from a wealthy suburban Philadelphia family whose mother has her life all figured out – marry a man from another wealthy family and live the rest of her life as an obedient housewife. Let’s not forget that the film begins in 1958 where this was the prevailing attitude. However, a chance encounter with a talented singer by the name of Doris Shelley (Jennifer Leigh Warren) backstage at a local talent contest inspires her to pick a different path in life for herself, one that is not planned by her controlling mother. Edna wins the contest, receives a recording contract and moves to New York City to make it as a singer.

However, Edna finds out that there are all kinds of women who sound just like her and sing the same kinds of songs. A kindly yet condescending engineer (Richard Schiff) tells her that guy groups are where it’s at. Her life changes when she meets Joel Milner (John Turturro), a brilliant record producer who convinces Edna to write songs for others. She figures that this will do until she can record her own material. He also changes her decidedly unglamorous name to the catchier Denise Waverly. They work out of the legendary Brill Building, the headquarters for pop-music during the ’50s and ‘60s and which saw the likes of Burt Bacharach, Neil Diamond, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Phil Spector and many others write some of the biggest hits at the time.

With Denise’s insistence, Joel records one her songs with a girl group known as the Stylettes and it is a hit, bucking the prevailing trend of popular guy groups. Joel then pairs her up with Howard Caszatt (Eric Stoltz), a Beatnik poseur who injects social issues into the songs he writes with her. I like that Anders shows Denise and Howard writing a song together and we see them coming up with ideas for lyrics and melodies. They soon become romantically involved and get married after she becomes pregnant. After she has the baby, Denise continues to work, quite unusual for the times, but it becomes obvious that she has a real knack for creating hit songs while Howard appears to be holding her back. This causes tension in their personal lives and it’s not long before she catches him in bed with another woman.

The next man in Denise’s life is popular radio disc jockey John Murray (Bruce Davison) who becomes smitten with her and uses his show to promote a controversial song she wrote. He’s a nice enough guy and seems like the one she should be with instead of the pretentious Howard; it’s just too bad that he’s married. During the course of the film, Anders also shows the rivalry between fellow female songwriters, like when Joel brings Cheryl Steed (Patsy Kensit) in to write hit songs and Denise immediately sees her as direct competition. Cheryl even gets a better office then Denise who has been there longer. Cheryl quickly becomes Joel’s new favorite songwriter, much to Denise’s dismay but she puts on a brave face in public.

Joel then decides to team her up with Cheryl as an experiment and the two women are instructed to write a song for bubblegum pop singer Kelly Porter (Bridget Fonda channeling Leslie Gore). Initially, they don’t know what to write about but after being privy to a secret part of Kelly’s personal life they figure it out. Cheryl and Denise bond over the Porter song, become close friends, and generate a hit. After years of writing songs for other people, Joel reminds Denise that she started working for him to create her own music and sets her up with Jay Phillips (Matt Dillon), a brilliant yet temperamental musician from the West Coast, to produce her single. It is at this point that Grace of My Heart shifts from songwriters working in the Brill Building to the experimental West Coast psychedelic scene and some momentum is lost. It may be that Jay and his world is just not as fascinating as Joel and his. It also doesn’t help that John Turturro’s performance is so strong and memorable, while Matt Dillon seems miscast as the mercurial Brian Wilson-esque Jay.

Illeana Douglas is an unconventional choice to play Denise. Her speaking voice doesn’t really match up with the person cast as her singing voice (the fantastic sounding Kristen Vigard) but it is refreshing to see someone who doesn’t look or act like your traditional A-list movie star and it would only happen in an independent film like this one. Douglas makes it work, using her considerable talents to show the different sides of her character – her doubts, fears and aspirations – while also running through the spectrum of emotions. There are scenes where she breaks down completely, is romantic, funny, and really digs deep within herself to fully inhabit Denise. The veteran actress shows a vulnerability that is fascinating to watch, especially the scene where she records her first single, the soulful and soaring “God Give Me Strength” (written by Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello no less!). This is a criminally underrated performance that should’ve won her every acting award the year it came out.

John Turturro, with his black suit, goatee and sunglasses, plays a nicer, more neurotic version of Phil Spector, the legendary record producer and pioneer of the Wall of Sound production technique, mixed with Don Kirshner, a rock producer who gave Neil Diamond and Carole King their starts. Of all the men that pass in and out of Denise’s life, he is a consistent presence and the voice of reason, constantly reminding her about her considerable talent while never candy-coating his opinions on her music or her life. He plays a flashy personality and one of the film’s pleasures is watching how he plays off of Douglas. There is a wonderful scene between them where Denise apologizes for her first single leading to Joel’s financial ruin but he dismisses that notion, reminding her that she wrote his first hit and many after as well as inspiring him to take chances he would have never done otherwise. It a touching moment between the two characters – one in which we see Joel let his guard down for moment and in doing so it reveals a lot about him. It is so rare that Turturro plays nice, decent guys and so it is a real treat to see him refreshingly cast against type in this film.

In 1994, Allison Anders was gearing up to direct Paul Is Dead from an autobiographical screenplay with Hugh Grant lined up to star. Then, a month before the start of filming, the actor pulled out and with it the financing, which was contingent on his participation. Understandably upset, Anders was woman without a film. In stepped Martin Scorsese who had written a fan letter to Anders after seeing Gas Food Lodging (1992). He was eager to team up his then girlfriend and actress Illeana Douglas with Anders for a film that he would produce. After making Cape Fear (1991), Douglas had acted in but was ultimately cut out of a string of impressive films: Jungle Fever (1991), Husbands and Wives (1992), and Quiz Show (1994). Feeling depressed as a result of these snubs, she talked to Scorsese who recommended she start developing relationships with directors. Douglas went on to make a low-budget film called Grief (1993) and went to the Sundance Film Festival with it. There, she met Anders and they became friends. Afterwards, the two women kept in contact in the hopes of making a film together.

Initially, they wanted to do a biopic about American poet Anne Sexton but couldn’t get the film rights to her life. They were both obsessed with music, in particular Anders with girl groups from the ‘60s. Douglas told her about how she used to work in the Brill Building as an assistant for infamous New York publicist Peggy Segal and that maybe they should do a film about it. As a result, Anders wrote the role of Edna/Denise specifically for Douglas. When it came to writing the screenplay, both women put a lot of personal details into it. For example, Denise’s relationship with Jay was reminiscent of Douglas and Scorsese. When Anders thought of Douglas for the film, she was looking for an actress to “embody all sorts of contradictions. I have to find the right woman to speak to other women.” However, the actress was worried about how women would react to Denise’s habit of getting involved with men who aren’t good for and tended to sidetrack her dream of recording her own album, “because women don’t want to think Edna would let a guy interrupt a career. But that’s the big secret: Women always think that being loved is much more important than being talented.”

The script originally started as the story of one singer/songwriter but then Anders and Douglas started to add aspects of others: Joni Mitchell, Phil Spector and the Beach Boys. Legendary songwriter Gerry Goffin, who was married to Carole King at one time, was brought into write three songs for the film (including one with his daughter and recording artist Louise Goffin) and also gave Anders a lot of autobiographical information, which she incorporated into the script. Instead of using actual songs that came from the time period, Anders decided to have new songs that sounded like they came from that era because “it would have been very confusing to have these fictional characters writing songs that were already well-known to the public.” Originally, Douglas expected to do her own singing, having started out doing musicals, but the studio wanted to make a lucrative record deal and she had to lip-synch to Kirsten Vigard’s voice.

Grace of My Heart is a treasure trove of hidden gems for music fans who are hip to the music and the musicians of the eras it depicts. For example, towards the end of the film Denise uses her skill for crafting pop songs towards creating very personal ballads, much like Carole King did with her top selling record Tapestry, which inspired some of the songs. In her previous films, Anders used alternative rock (Gas Food Lodging) and hip-hop (Mi Vida Loca) as the soundtrack for stories about young women. While Grace of My Heart is about music from a bygone era, she had contemporary indie rockers team up with seasoned veterans. Gerry Goffin, the inspiration for Howard Caszatt, wrote a song with Los Lobos. Brill Building veteran Carole Bayer Sayer teamed up with Eurythmics guitarist Dave Stewart on a song. Easily the best collaboration on the film’s soundtrack saw Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach pen the signature song “God Give Me Strength,” which went on to become more successful than the film itself.

Grace of My Heart was made on a small budget and there wasn’t much money to advertise it. The film opened in only 39 theaters in North America and failed to make back its $5 million budget. To make matters worse, it was quickly overshadowed by Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do!, which came out shortly after. It received mostly mixed reviews with critics praising the time spent on the Brill Building era but criticizing the last third where Denise moves out to the West Coast to be with Jay. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Once Grace of My Heart leaves the Brill Building, the movie gets stranded in a parade of '60s clichés. It turns into the most banal of melodramas, complete with a ''tragic'' finale that plays as borderline kitsch. Still, there's no denying Anders' talent. She should have been content to make a catchy single and not stretched it into an overblown rock opera.” The Globe and Mail’s Rick Groen gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, “In its embracing of easy melodrama, of the wronged woman who endures and then prevails, Grace Of My Heart hopes to emulate the elegant simplicity of the pop music it celebrates. But that combination, as potent as it is rare, is hard to bring off – like her hired melody-makers, Anders gets the simplicity yet misses the elegance. All the trite notes are there, but none of the redeeming grace.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “Ms. Anders, who displayed such effortless, down-to-earth feminism in Gas Food Lodging, has to strain harder to make a heroine out of Denise. Ms. Douglas plays her eagerly, but the film casts her as an old-fashioned victim in many clichéd ways … This story offers so little novelty that the film's musical score and great retro costumes easily upstage its drama.”

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Edward Guthman wrote, “Anders is very good to her actors and writes smart, well-rounded characters. Her problem is loving them too much, embracing them too tightly and not knowing when to let go.” Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out four and wrote, “I would have preferred a more limited story that went deeper, instead of a docudrama that covers so much ground, so relentlessly, that we grow weary.” The Washington Post’s Richard Harrington wrote, “One major problem is that Grace of My Heart feels like a preview reel from some upcoming miniseries. Despite its two hours, events seem to unfold too quickly and in too little depth. Anders never really captures the communal bustle, competitive friendships or astounding productivity of the Brill Building's golden age.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Jack Mathews wrote, “Grace marvelously re-creates that atmosphere of sweatshop creativity, both the pressure and the joy, and Douglas' portrayal of a woman fighting for her own identity and a piece of the action gives the story a solid emotional footing.” USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Susan Wloszczyna wrote, “Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging) infuses her epic with joy and a keen eye for pre-feminist details, before the pill and pantyhose set us free.”

Ultimately, Grace of My Heart is the story of a survivor. Denise endures all kinds of ups and downs in her personal and professional life with music as the constant thread that runs throughout. It is always there for her whereas the men in her life come and go. Her personal journey propels the film and when it hits a lull this mirrors the lull in her life until someone like Joel comes along and gets her going and the film’s narrative starts up again. By the end of the film you really feel like you’ve been on a journey with this character. Denise channels all of her life experiences into her music and so it makes sense that the film climaxes with her finally recording and releasing the full-length album she had always wanted to do. It is rare when you see a film that is such a labor of love as this one. Anders and Douglas poured so much of themselves into this project and it shows. Grace of My Heart may strain at times under its own ambition but one has to admire its desire to do so in a day and age where so many films and filmmakers play it safe.

To Live and Die in L.A.

By 1985, William Friedkin had effectively burned all of his bridges in Hollywood with a succession of underperformers that included Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), and Deal of the Century (1983). With nothing left to lose, he returned back to the kind of film that made his reputation: a gritty, police procedural like The French Connection (1974). He made To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), the west coast answer to The French Connection, a slick, stylish nihilistic thriller that immersed itself in the world of counterfeiting. Made at the same time as Miami Vice was becoming a cultural phenomenon on television, Friedkin’s film is the best Michael Mann film not made by Mann. Like his films, To Live and Die in L.A. is obsessed with the lives and careers of elite cops and criminals. It takes a fascinating look at the minutia of how the cops go about catching crooks and how the crooks ply their trade with both sides employing ruthless methods.

Audiences in 1985 weren’t ready for Friedkin’s world of unsympathetic protagonists and even nastier antagonists. When it was released in theaters, the film failed to connect with a mainstream audience that was repulsed by its amoral, unlikable characters and downbeat, nihilistic ending. What did people expect from the same man who brought them the equally uncompromising The French Connection? Despite equally uncompromising films like King of New York (1990) and television shows like The Shield, To Live and Die in L.A. is still something of a freakish anomaly, one that its director has yet to equal.

Right from the get-go and in very Mann-like fashion, Friedkin introduces the film’s protagonist and antagonist at work. Richard Chance (William Petersen) is a Secret Service agent that, along with his partner Jimmy Hart (Michael Greene), stops a terrorist from blowing up the President of the United States. Chance is the proverbial thrill-seeking cowboy, an adrenaline junky that gets his kicks in his spare time base-jumping off bridges. Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe) is a master counterfeiter, the Da Vinci of funny money and we see him go through the various steps of how he plies his trade in an engrossing montage. And when he’s not doing that, Masters creates abstract paintings and then burns them up afterwards.

Initially, the film hits you up with some of the oldest clichés in the book: the loose cannon cop and his older partner only days away from retirement (he even says at one point, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”). You think, oh man, this is going to be one of those films but then after Chance’s partner is killed by Masters, he’s assigned a new partner by the name of John Vukovich (John Pankow). Right from the start Chance lays down the ground rules: “I’m gonna bag Masters and I don’t give a shit how I’m going to do it.” All bets are off and Friedkin never looks back as he proceeds to turn all of the genre conventions on their head or present them in such a dynamic and exciting way that you don’t mind.

In some respects, To Live and Die in L.A. is the photo negative of The French Connection. While the latter is set during the cold wintery months in New York City, the former takes place in the sun-burnt streets of Los Angeles. With each film, Friedkin expertly captures the unique geography of both cities. Where New York is all vertical buildings and has a closed-in feel, L.A. is all open spaces and horizontal landscapes. He wastes no time immersing us in the sights and sounds of the cities with an uber montage of locales, accompanied by the very Hollywood New Wave sounds of Wang Chung. It’s like Friedkin made a list of every establishing shot used in L.A. films and then proceeded to avoid repeating them at all costs while still presenting an effective view of the city so that you feel it.

Like with The French Connection, Friedkin punctuates To Live and Die in L.A. with the occasional chase sequence but unlike a lot of action films they are integral to and drive the plot forward. For example, early on Chance chases one of Masters’ flunkies (a wonderfully slimy John Turturro) through a busy airport and this provides our heroes with their first lead on the counterfeiter’s operation. I was struck by this sequence and another foot chase (featuring Gary Cole, briefly) at how in these scenes the actors are really hoofin’ it. There’s none of this Hollywood bullshit where you see actors half-heartedly running. William Petersen is flat out running his ass off in these scenes, which is not just impressive to see but adds to the film’s authenticity.

Not content with having created one of the best car chase sequences ever committed to film, in The French Connection, Friedkin orchestrates To Live and Die in L.A.’s show-stopping chase sequence where Chance and Vukovich are pursued by a slew of gunmen in cars. It starts off dangerous and exciting and quickly shifts gears into a hellish, white-knuckled intense ride that truly has to be seen to be believed. Friedkin actually manages to top what he did in The French Connection by upping the scale (i.e. the number of cars, duration, etc.). The thing you notice right away is that no music plays over this sequence, just the sound of the engines of the cars and the protagonists freaking out. If you haven’t thought that Chance is certifiably batshit crazy by now then this scene will do it. Friedkin inserts reaction shots of a determined-looking Chance and a sweaty Vukovich on the verge of losing his mind – it is these shots that help make this sequence so tense and exciting because we can clearly see how what is happening is affecting these guys. Even though it defies any kind of rational logic, it is still one hell of an action set piece with the cars as characters, chewing up the scenery.

Done early in his career (he had a cameo in Mann’s Thief previously), William Petersen is not afraid to play an unlikable character. When we first meet Chance he’s a semi-respectable risk-taker but as the film progresses it becomes readily apparent that he doesn’t care about anyone and anything else except nailing Masters and avenging the death of his partner. He has a female informant (Darlanne Fluegel) that gives him tips and has sex with on a semi-regular basis. Her only value to him is for information and sex. He has outright contempt for authority and treats his partner like crap. Petersen fully commits to the character and brings an intensity that would also be evident in his next film, Manhunter (1986). In some respects, Chance is actually worse than Masters. At least, he has his own code that he adheres to, while Chance will do anything no matter how illegal to achieve his goal. There is a kamikaze-like air to Chance, like he has some kind of suicidal death wish. He pushes himself and those around him to the limit. Even though his personal life is staring him in his face it’s still irrelevant. He wants to exist on a different plane of existence than everyone else. His personal life is just a distraction to him.

Fresh from his bad guy role in Streets of Fire (1984), Willem Dafoe plays a different kind of sociopath in To Live and Die in L.A. Masters shows little to no emotion and Dafoe gives him a whiff of pretension, like he knowingly thinks of himself as some kind of artist but really he’s a sadistic crook who’s all about making money both real and fake. Dafoe brings the right amount of cold detachment to his character. Masters is an efficient criminal who perfectly internalizes his emotions making him incredibly hard to read — ideal for his chosen profession. The irony is that he is ultimately consumed by obsessions – literally and figuratively.

Director William Friedkin was given former Secret Service agent and author Gerald Petievich’s novel, To Live and Die in L.A., in manuscript form. While reading it, the filmmaker found himself drawn to the fact that “Petievich created these characters with feet of clay, and he’s one of them.” Once Friedkin struck a deal for the film rights to the book, Petievich was investigated by his direct rival for an impending office promotion and felt that there was, “a lot of resentment against me for making the movie,” and “some animosity against me in the Secret Service” by the agent in the Los Angeles field office who suddenly resigned a few weeks after initiating the investigation.

The screenplay took the basic plot, characters and much of the dialogue from Petievich’s novel but Friedkin added the opening terrorist sequence, the car chase and clearer and earlier focus on the cat and mouse game between Chance and Masters. Petievich says that Friedkin wrote a number of scenes but when there was a new scene or a story that needed to be changed he wrote it. The director admits that the writer created the characters and the situations and that he used a lot of the book’s dialogue but that he wrote the script and not Petievich.

SLM Productions, a tribunal of financiers, worked with Friedkin on a ten-picture, $100 million deal with 20th Century Fox, but when the studio was purchased by Rupert Murdoch one of the financiers pulled the deal and took it to MGM. After all the dust settled, Friedkin was given an $8 million budget to work with and this forced him to realize that To Live and Die in L.A. would have no movie stars in it. William Petersen was acting in Canada when he was asked to fly to New York City and meet with Friedkin. Half a page into his reading, the director told him he had the job. Petersen called fellow Chicago actor John Pankow and told him about the film. He brought Pankow to Friedkin’s apartment the next day and recommended him for the role of Vukovich.

For the money-making sequences, Friedkin consulted actual counterfeiters who had done time in prison with the film’s “consultant” actually doing the shots that did not show actor Willem Dafoe on camera even though he admitted to learning how to actually print money in preparation for his role. In fact, the son of one of the crew members tried to use some of the prop money to buy candy at a local store and was busted. Friedkin screened a workprint of To Live and Die in L.A. for three FBI agents from Washington, D.C. and they interviewed 12-15 crew members. The director even offered to show the film to the Secretary of the Treasury and take out anything that was a danger to national security. That was the last the production heard from the government.

As he did with The French Connection, Friedkin shot everything on location and worked very fast, often using the first take so as to give a sense of immediacy. He was not crazy about letting his actors rehearse and instead created situations where the actors thought they were rehearsing but actually the cameras were rolling. He allowed Petersen and actress Darlanne Fleugel devise their own blocking and then told cinematographer Robby Muller, “Just shoot them. Try and keep them in the frame. If they’re not in the frame, they’re not in the movie. That’s their problem.” An example of this is the scene where Chance visits Ruthie at the bar where she works. As he did with The French Connection, Friedkin wasn’t afraid to take chances during filming. For example, the scene where Chance runs along the top of the dividers between the airport terminal’s moving sidewalks was done without the airport police’s permission. This was mainly for the actor’s safety as the airport’s insurance would not have covered him had he been hurt. Petersen told Friedkin that they should do the stunt anyway and so the director staged it as a rehearsal but had the cameras rolling. Not surprisingly, this angered airport officials and got the production in hot water.

The film’s exciting wrong-way freeway chase had its genesis on February 25, 1963 when Friedkin was driving home from a wedding in Chicago. He fell asleep at the wheel of his vehicle and woke up in the wrong lane with oncoming traffic heading straight at him. He swerved back to his side of the road and for the next 20 years wondered how he was going to use it in a film. At the time of filming it, Friedkin was working with a stripped down crew and he told stunt coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker that if they couldn’t top the car chase in The French Connection then he wouldn’t use it. Interestingly, Petersen did a lot of his own driving, which would explain Pankow’s stressed out reactions, which were genuine. The chase took 22 days to shoot including three weekends where sections of the Long Beach Freeway were closed for four hours at a time to allow the crew to stage the chaotic chase.

In regards to the film’s infamous ending, as early as the day he cast Petersen, Friedkin thought about killing off Chance towards the end of the film, but according to editor Bud Smith, Vukovich was supposed to be the one who got killed. Friedkin approached Smith and told him about his ending. The executives at SLM Productions were divided with half wanting Chance to die and the other for him to live. To pacify them, Friedkin and second unit cinematographer Robert Yeoman shot an alternate ending with Petersen and Pankow. The director previewed it and then cut it out of the film.

After recording their first album, Wang Chung felt pressured to write commercial music. They asked their manager to look for soundtrack work and he came back with an offer from Friedkin. After he heard and enjoyed “Wait” off their 1984 album Points on the Curve, Friedkin wanted to have Wang Chung score To Live and Die in L.A. In particular, it was “the element of drama and tension” that he wanted in his film, according to the band’s lead singer Jack Hues. The band didn’t want to record a conventional soundtrack and Friedkin was willing to give them that creative freedom. He asked them to write and record 90 minutes of orchestral music despite not having seen any footage. They wrote the music and spent two weeks recording it. The band created a large instrumental piece called, “City of Angels,” and other cues grew out of it. They also wrote separate songs, like “Wake Up, Stop Dreaming” after most of the instrumental work was complete. After seeing a rough cut of the film with their music integrated, the band realized that a title song was missing and wrote “To Live and Die in L.A.”

Not surprisingly, To Live and Die in L.A. received mixed to negative reviews. The New York Times’ Janet Maslin wrote, “Today, in the dazzling, superficial style that Mr. Friedkin has so thoroughly mastered, it's the car chases and shootouts and eye-catching settings that are truly the heart of the matter.” In his review for the Washington Post, Paul Attanasio wrote, "To Live and Die in L.A. will live briefly and die quickly in L.A., where God hath no wrath like a studio executive with bad grosses. Then again, perhaps it's unfair to hold this overheated and recklessly violent movie to the high standard established by Starsky and Hutch.” Time magazine didn’t like its “brutal, bloated car-chase sequence pilfered from Friedkin's nifty The French Connection", and called it "a fetid movie hybrid: Miami Vile.”

However, Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars and wrote, "[T]he movie is also first-rate. The direction is the key. Friedkin has made some good movies ... and some bad ones. This is his comeback, showing the depth and skill of the early pictures.” Newsweek magazine’s David Ansen wrote, “Shot with gritty flamboyance by Robby Muller, cast with a fine eye for fresh, tough-guy faces, To Live and Die in L.A. may be fake savage, but it's fun.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote, “Pity poor Los Angeles: first the San Andreas fault and now this. The thing about it is, To Live and Die in L.A., for all its amorality and downright immorality, is a cracker-jack thriller, tense and exciting and unpredictable, and more grimy fun than any moralist will want it to be.”

After a lull in his filmmaking career, Friedkin came back with a vengeance with To Live and Die in L.A. He created an intense, harder-edged and visceral crime thriller that is of its time and out of time. The style and music are pure 1980s but the nihilism is reminiscent of the 1970s. Sure, the screenplay is riddled with clichés — the loose cannon agent and the partner who is killed only days before he retires — but Friedkin makes it all seem fresh and exciting because he believes in the material completely and goes for it all the way down the line. To Live and Die in L.A. was William Friedkin’s last great film. He has shown the occasional glimmer of brilliance (most notably with The Hunted) but has failed to deliver anything on the level of his 1985 film. However, his influence can be felt in films, like Narc (2003), which present a gritty world filled with morally questionable characters.


For more on this film, check out John Kenneth Muir's awesome take on the film and Jeremy Richey's tribute to it.