Painted sunrise is barely the sum of its colors

chaos-rampant

I was intrigued going in. Robert Towne working from a script of his, Gibson, Pfeiffer and Russell at their most fresh. Conrad Hall handling the camera, a wise assignment to the rookie Towne. It would be taking place in LA, the most noir of cities. What could have gone so wrong?

I guess one thing to note is that Towne isn't up to it. He films a hodge podge of scenes where romance, conflict or drug plot are sped along to be whatever the story demands them to be at that point. You'll see angles and shots awkwardly hanging about like discarded fabrics from something that was badly sewn. Heartfelt exchanges between the trio of characters but they all feel patched on. A Spanish guitar twirls wistfully now and then to remind that this is all fundamentally tragic.

So it's all in disarray here but the real problem as I see it is deep in the fabric of the imagination that gives rise to it.

A way to think about it is that America had caroused into apathy since the time of Chinatown, both in a larger sense and the Hollywood mirror. It was "morning again" but a kind of fake morning like someone had filmed the idyllic sunrise in an studio backlot of the 50s (much like Reagan's ad feels).

This isn't a matter of the film not being dark or cynical enough as though either were a virtue. Chinatown was both but it was from having its ear on the ground. It's that the cinematic mirror here is pointed without care, showing no particular thing. It has a slapdash feel that to my mind serves as reflection of this larger dissipation of vision.

(You can practically watch this disconnect take place in Lethal Weapon the previous year; a noir plot where cops come to investigate a mysterious suicide, by the end we don't get to know anything about the girl who leaped to her death, but we have all this time devoted to explaining the whole drug trafficking plan with its cartoon villains.)

There's one scene that stands out; the one that begins with Pfeiffer and Gibson kissing in front of the azaleas, cuts to prowling shots outside the house, gives us their lovemaking inverse reflected on steamy waters, intercut with shots of voyeur cops "viewing" intently, and intercut again with Russell making an important discovery by looking at photos (that he magically procured from thin air to serve the story). But even that stands out as clumsy bravura, trying to be Welles for a few minutes out of the blue.

It just goes to waste the youthful energy of these actors, Pfeiffer in particular. She brings to life one of the screen women truly worth knowing; aloofness that glides with kind dignity, guards herself without ego, spirited enough to stay and find out.

Noir Meter: not a noir

score /10

chaos-rampant 29 May 2016

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3478549/