TONY SCOTT: AN APPRECIATION
Aug. 20th, 2012 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogTony Scott – the film director, and brother of Ridley – is gone. He jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in LA, evidently. It’s a clear case of suicide, though at press time I haven’t heard anything about motivation.
Anyway, I know it’s awful to say, but it sounds like something a character in one of his movies would do. Which is another way of saying if you ever expected someone like him to commit suicide, it wouldn’t be via a drug overdose.
Either way, it’s sad. And I have to say I liked Scott as a movie director, though his movies are the kinds of movies Michael Bay makes nowadays – Simpson and/or Bruckheimer-produced big-budget A-list action spectaculars with cheesy music-video production values and multiple pop-culture references – only watchable.
And that’s a key difference. It’s hard for me to watch Michael Bay films, with his shaky cams and slo-mo hero walks and All AmericanHooters Waitresses Women posing against azure skies. But even the silliest, OTT Tony Scott film (and I would categorize Top Gun as one of them) is exciting and compelling to watch, even when the story makes little sense. Not many people can make NASCAR look more exciting than an actual NASCAR race.
That said, Scott’s always had the advantage of working with top-notch actors to help sell the story. Which is why two of my favorite Tony Scott films are the ones with Gene Hackman shouting in them. (That would be Crimson Tide and Enemy Of The State, the former of which is brilliant post-Cold-War paranoia, the latter of which is fun post-9/11 surveillance paranoia, complete with improbable technology, cheesy psycho mobsters and the silliest lingerie store scene ever filmed.)
Still, I think his best films are the ones that don’t get as prominent a mention in the general-public news obits:
1. True Romance
I guess Top Gun was his most successful and popular film, but it’s hard to believe the news reports have mentioned Beverly Hills Cop 2 more than this one, considering the screenwriter is Quentin Tarantino. But then it’s got four of my favorite character actors in it – Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper and Samuel L Jackson. All in one film! So I would say that, wouldn’t I?
The Sicilian scene alone should have gotten someone an Oscar nomination. Tarantino may have written it, and Walken and Hopper may have brought it to life, but Scott’s direction and editing style plays a large part in making it riveting. Imagine Michael Bay directing a scene like that.
You can’t, can you?
I rest my case.
2. That BMW car commercial
Who else would make a ten-minute car commercial about a drag race with the Devil? With Gary Oldman, Danny Trejo AND James Brown?
Respect.
Darkness is death’s ignorance and the devil’s time,
This is dF
Anyway, I know it’s awful to say, but it sounds like something a character in one of his movies would do. Which is another way of saying if you ever expected someone like him to commit suicide, it wouldn’t be via a drug overdose.
Either way, it’s sad. And I have to say I liked Scott as a movie director, though his movies are the kinds of movies Michael Bay makes nowadays – Simpson and/or Bruckheimer-produced big-budget A-list action spectaculars with cheesy music-video production values and multiple pop-culture references – only watchable.
And that’s a key difference. It’s hard for me to watch Michael Bay films, with his shaky cams and slo-mo hero walks and All American
That said, Scott’s always had the advantage of working with top-notch actors to help sell the story. Which is why two of my favorite Tony Scott films are the ones with Gene Hackman shouting in them. (That would be Crimson Tide and Enemy Of The State, the former of which is brilliant post-Cold-War paranoia, the latter of which is fun post-9/11 surveillance paranoia, complete with improbable technology, cheesy psycho mobsters and the silliest lingerie store scene ever filmed.)
Still, I think his best films are the ones that don’t get as prominent a mention in the general-public news obits:
1. True Romance
I guess Top Gun was his most successful and popular film, but it’s hard to believe the news reports have mentioned Beverly Hills Cop 2 more than this one, considering the screenwriter is Quentin Tarantino. But then it’s got four of my favorite character actors in it – Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper and Samuel L Jackson. All in one film! So I would say that, wouldn’t I?
The Sicilian scene alone should have gotten someone an Oscar nomination. Tarantino may have written it, and Walken and Hopper may have brought it to life, but Scott’s direction and editing style plays a large part in making it riveting. Imagine Michael Bay directing a scene like that.
You can’t, can you?
I rest my case.
2. That BMW car commercial
Who else would make a ten-minute car commercial about a drag race with the Devil? With Gary Oldman, Danny Trejo AND James Brown?
Respect.
Darkness is death’s ignorance and the devil’s time,
This is dF
