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glitter_n_gore) wrote2014-08-04 11:11 am
glitter_n_gore) wrote2014-08-04 11:11 am
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A Life Worth Remembering: Brandon Lee
2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the 1994 adaptation of James O'Barr's The Crow. Which, sadly, makes it also the 20th anniversary of star Brandon Lee's untimely death.
I feel like The Crow is one of those movies like Jacob's Ladder and Silent Hill that I've seen dozens of times, and I talk around it every so often without going into a lot of depth. This week, before realizing thanks to an article in the current issue of Rue Morgue that it has been twenty years now (!), I had already started a mini-marathon focusing on Bruce and Brandon Lee's movies. I'm taking it as a sign. I'm also going to assume you've seen it already, and leave out my usual plot summary partly for the sake of brevity, but mostly because the plot is not really my main talking point here.
I have been a fan of this movie since the first time I saw it, which was roughly seven/eight years ago. I remember seeing a lot of hype back in the day, but vaguely, since I was still kinda living under a rock in 1994--I'd discovered The Beatles and Star Wars, but contemporary pop culture was too dark and weird for me. (Ironic, considering my interests now, I know.) So I avoided it for a long time, erroneously convinced because of the artwork that Eric Draven was some kind of demonic villain.
Honestly, I feel fortunate to have been able to watch it fresh several years after the fact, removed from the media storm over Lee's death and the conspiracy theories surrounding it. What's strange is I also wound up seeing it for the first time just months before Heath Ledger died, and an eerily similar media storm kicked up around me. Comparisons were drawn based on the similar character designs of Eric Draven and the Joker. Rumors ran rampant, the way rumors are wont to do. The shock of the news threatened to overwhelm critical and audience reception of the movie itself. Still, there are two key differences between these two tragedies: 1) Ledger had finished filming when The Dark Knight came out, and had moved on to other projects; and 2) Ledger died pretty much the way we expect celebrities to, awful as it was--from a drug overdose--whereas Lee was the victim of a horrific on-set accident. I don't know how hard it must've been for people who were as huge fans of Lee's as I was of Ledger's. I can tell you I still haven't fully recovered, and I know several others feel the same way.
One of the most frustrating things about The Crow is how difficult it is to classify. Most sellers stock it under Horror, but is that right? It's dark and violent, but not really scary. It's surprisingly romantic--I included it in my "Love Stories That Don't Suck" countdown on Valentine's Day a few years ago--but not a true, category Romance since it begins and ends with death. The plot is fueled by murder and revenge, but it's ultimately more about love and redemption. This, along with movies like Blade and Underworld, is why I wish there was a cinematic equivalent to the Urban Fantasy label.
More frustrating still is it ticks a lot of boxes on things I've been saying I want more of in Horror lately, such as a return to the true Gothic and an emphasis on emotional, character-driven stories rather than cheap scare tactics and gore. This is one of the most authentically Gothic films of the late 20th century, and emotionally poignant both because of the subject matter and the circumstances that nearly overshadowed its original release.
Keep in mind when I say "frustrating," that's not a critique on the film. It's just tricky to explain as a reviewer what sort of movie this is. Except as, you know. One of my favorite movies of all time.
Let me go back to The Dark Knight for a moment, because one of the reasons The Crow stands out is because it stands alone. The world and characters of Batman are known entities, with a large, active fandom that's been more or less mainstream since the 1960s. There was a long history of film and television adaptations with iconic portrayals of the central characters already in our collective consciousness before director Christopher Nolan ever approached the material. The original graphic novel for The Crow, published in 1989, was much deeper underground from the beginning. Lee's performance is still perceived as the best, despite a handful of sequels, a television spin-off, and a projected remake that's supposed to start production this year. He became The Crow so completely that it's impossible to conceive of the franchise without him. Even referring to it as a "franchise" feels misleading--there's the comic, there's this movie, and then there's everything else.
The Crow's appeal is very niche, closer to the realm of cult cinema than anything Batman-related has ever been. From the bleak, urban tone of the setting and costumes, to director Alex Proyas' washed-out camera filters, to an alternative soundtrack that's at turns aggressive and melancholy, to Graeme Revell's haunting score, the cumulative result is a film that's both firmly a product of its time, and strangely timeless. There's no attempt to levy the violence with humor, except as a creepy underscore to a storyline that's already grim to begin with. When it veers into melodrama, it does so with a sincerity and respect for a target audience it knows is enchanted by shadows, and not interested in being accepted by the middle-American mainstream.
As usual, my top requirement for liking a movie starts at character, and The Crow is one of those rare films in my collection in which the main protagonist is actually my favorite. Even its harsher critics tend to agree that Lee's performance is the most memorable, enjoyable thing about it. I love how he plays Eric as this hammy, wise-cracking anti-hero without sacrificing any of his tenderness or vulnerability. Still, it took many repeated viewings for me to appreciate what else is going on in the casting. The only "stars" here, apart from Lee himself, are character actors like Bai Ling, Tony Todd, Michael Wincott, and Ernie Hudson--names you might not recognize unless you're a hard-core movie buff with a taste for the weird. And because this is the sort of thing I've trained myself to notice now, allow me to point out that the cast includes four major female characters, AND four major characters of color*, all with names and speaking roles, and it passes the Bechdel Test. Considering the allegedly progressive times we live in where big-budget comic-book movies like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and even The Dark Knight can maybe claim one of those things if we're lucky, that's kind of a big deal.
*Five if you count Lee since he's technically mixed-race, being Bruce Lee's son and all, but I feel like that's debatable.
Don't get me wrong--it's not perfect, as nothing made by human hands can be perfect. There are some unfortunate tropes going on here--Fridging and Black Guy Dies First** to name a couple, which is to say nothing of the graphic rape scene that keeps coming back in flashbacks. But it is a classic, and I'm hard-pressed to imagine things they could have done differently. (Maybe give Shelley a bigger part next time? I'm fascinated by Shelley, and she gets almost nothing to do on-screen. The reason she gets killed at all--she started a petition to fight tenant eviction--is because Top Dollar saw her as a threat. Eric wasn't even on the hit list until he walked in on the thugs. Think about that.) Like many other fans, I'm nervous about this new remake coming up. (Eventually. Someday. When they get around to it.) The new star, Luke Evans--whom you might know as "the other Orlando Bloom" from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug--seems like a good guy, and can play the role competently enough, I'm sure. It might even turn out to be a more faithful adaptation of James O'Barr's work.
**Also debatable--technically the first to die are Eric and Shelley--but I'm thinking in terms of on-screen deaths here.
But here's the thing: the 1994 movie is much more than an adaptation. It is a story about death and loss, told through the death and loss of its main star, a harrowing combination that we have never seen elsewhere and hopefully never will again. What was intended as a breakout role for Brandon Lee became a tribute to him, somehow transcending the tragedy and creating a sort of mythic eulogy on film. If I had to capture the whole thing in one word, it would be "sublime"--not in the generic sense of simply very, very good, but in Edmund Burke's philosophy on aesthetics from the mid-18th century: the sublime takes traditionally undesirable elements like pain, terror, ugliness, and grief, and transforms them into something beautiful.
In the words of the man himself:
"The key to immortality is first to live a life worth remembering." --Brandon Lee
Cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rhoda_rants.
I feel like The Crow is one of those movies like Jacob's Ladder and Silent Hill that I've seen dozens of times, and I talk around it every so often without going into a lot of depth. This week, before realizing thanks to an article in the current issue of Rue Morgue that it has been twenty years now (!), I had already started a mini-marathon focusing on Bruce and Brandon Lee's movies. I'm taking it as a sign. I'm also going to assume you've seen it already, and leave out my usual plot summary partly for the sake of brevity, but mostly because the plot is not really my main talking point here.
I have been a fan of this movie since the first time I saw it, which was roughly seven/eight years ago. I remember seeing a lot of hype back in the day, but vaguely, since I was still kinda living under a rock in 1994--I'd discovered The Beatles and Star Wars, but contemporary pop culture was too dark and weird for me. (Ironic, considering my interests now, I know.) So I avoided it for a long time, erroneously convinced because of the artwork that Eric Draven was some kind of demonic villain.
Honestly, I feel fortunate to have been able to watch it fresh several years after the fact, removed from the media storm over Lee's death and the conspiracy theories surrounding it. What's strange is I also wound up seeing it for the first time just months before Heath Ledger died, and an eerily similar media storm kicked up around me. Comparisons were drawn based on the similar character designs of Eric Draven and the Joker. Rumors ran rampant, the way rumors are wont to do. The shock of the news threatened to overwhelm critical and audience reception of the movie itself. Still, there are two key differences between these two tragedies: 1) Ledger had finished filming when The Dark Knight came out, and had moved on to other projects; and 2) Ledger died pretty much the way we expect celebrities to, awful as it was--from a drug overdose--whereas Lee was the victim of a horrific on-set accident. I don't know how hard it must've been for people who were as huge fans of Lee's as I was of Ledger's. I can tell you I still haven't fully recovered, and I know several others feel the same way.
One of the most frustrating things about The Crow is how difficult it is to classify. Most sellers stock it under Horror, but is that right? It's dark and violent, but not really scary. It's surprisingly romantic--I included it in my "Love Stories That Don't Suck" countdown on Valentine's Day a few years ago--but not a true, category Romance since it begins and ends with death. The plot is fueled by murder and revenge, but it's ultimately more about love and redemption. This, along with movies like Blade and Underworld, is why I wish there was a cinematic equivalent to the Urban Fantasy label.
More frustrating still is it ticks a lot of boxes on things I've been saying I want more of in Horror lately, such as a return to the true Gothic and an emphasis on emotional, character-driven stories rather than cheap scare tactics and gore. This is one of the most authentically Gothic films of the late 20th century, and emotionally poignant both because of the subject matter and the circumstances that nearly overshadowed its original release.
Keep in mind when I say "frustrating," that's not a critique on the film. It's just tricky to explain as a reviewer what sort of movie this is. Except as, you know. One of my favorite movies of all time.
Let me go back to The Dark Knight for a moment, because one of the reasons The Crow stands out is because it stands alone. The world and characters of Batman are known entities, with a large, active fandom that's been more or less mainstream since the 1960s. There was a long history of film and television adaptations with iconic portrayals of the central characters already in our collective consciousness before director Christopher Nolan ever approached the material. The original graphic novel for The Crow, published in 1989, was much deeper underground from the beginning. Lee's performance is still perceived as the best, despite a handful of sequels, a television spin-off, and a projected remake that's supposed to start production this year. He became The Crow so completely that it's impossible to conceive of the franchise without him. Even referring to it as a "franchise" feels misleading--there's the comic, there's this movie, and then there's everything else.
The Crow's appeal is very niche, closer to the realm of cult cinema than anything Batman-related has ever been. From the bleak, urban tone of the setting and costumes, to director Alex Proyas' washed-out camera filters, to an alternative soundtrack that's at turns aggressive and melancholy, to Graeme Revell's haunting score, the cumulative result is a film that's both firmly a product of its time, and strangely timeless. There's no attempt to levy the violence with humor, except as a creepy underscore to a storyline that's already grim to begin with. When it veers into melodrama, it does so with a sincerity and respect for a target audience it knows is enchanted by shadows, and not interested in being accepted by the middle-American mainstream.
As usual, my top requirement for liking a movie starts at character, and The Crow is one of those rare films in my collection in which the main protagonist is actually my favorite. Even its harsher critics tend to agree that Lee's performance is the most memorable, enjoyable thing about it. I love how he plays Eric as this hammy, wise-cracking anti-hero without sacrificing any of his tenderness or vulnerability. Still, it took many repeated viewings for me to appreciate what else is going on in the casting. The only "stars" here, apart from Lee himself, are character actors like Bai Ling, Tony Todd, Michael Wincott, and Ernie Hudson--names you might not recognize unless you're a hard-core movie buff with a taste for the weird. And because this is the sort of thing I've trained myself to notice now, allow me to point out that the cast includes four major female characters, AND four major characters of color*, all with names and speaking roles, and it passes the Bechdel Test. Considering the allegedly progressive times we live in where big-budget comic-book movies like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and even The Dark Knight can maybe claim one of those things if we're lucky, that's kind of a big deal.
*Five if you count Lee since he's technically mixed-race, being Bruce Lee's son and all, but I feel like that's debatable.
Don't get me wrong--it's not perfect, as nothing made by human hands can be perfect. There are some unfortunate tropes going on here--Fridging and Black Guy Dies First** to name a couple, which is to say nothing of the graphic rape scene that keeps coming back in flashbacks. But it is a classic, and I'm hard-pressed to imagine things they could have done differently. (Maybe give Shelley a bigger part next time? I'm fascinated by Shelley, and she gets almost nothing to do on-screen. The reason she gets killed at all--she started a petition to fight tenant eviction--is because Top Dollar saw her as a threat. Eric wasn't even on the hit list until he walked in on the thugs. Think about that.) Like many other fans, I'm nervous about this new remake coming up. (Eventually. Someday. When they get around to it.) The new star, Luke Evans--whom you might know as "the other Orlando Bloom" from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug--seems like a good guy, and can play the role competently enough, I'm sure. It might even turn out to be a more faithful adaptation of James O'Barr's work.
**Also debatable--technically the first to die are Eric and Shelley--but I'm thinking in terms of on-screen deaths here.
But here's the thing: the 1994 movie is much more than an adaptation. It is a story about death and loss, told through the death and loss of its main star, a harrowing combination that we have never seen elsewhere and hopefully never will again. What was intended as a breakout role for Brandon Lee became a tribute to him, somehow transcending the tragedy and creating a sort of mythic eulogy on film. If I had to capture the whole thing in one word, it would be "sublime"--not in the generic sense of simply very, very good, but in Edmund Burke's philosophy on aesthetics from the mid-18th century: the sublime takes traditionally undesirable elements like pain, terror, ugliness, and grief, and transforms them into something beautiful.
In the words of the man himself:
"The key to immortality is first to live a life worth remembering." --Brandon Lee
Cross-posted to
rhoda_rants.