Confidential begins by clearing away any hope you had left after the end of the big nowhere. Many of the characters were first introduced in an earlier work, clandestine, which is also a hell of a book. There was always a question that came up for me regarding this film. Adapting a novel into a screenplay is an extremely difficult prospect as the film has to convert the image that was captured over several hundred pages into a few hours of video. James elroys novel, from which the movie was taken, is chock full of 1940s cop. As such, the ending is very different as well smith survives the novel one of the few that does, and ends white jazz in a retirement home.
Noir movies werent really in vogue in hollywood during the 1990s, though the genre did offer up some selections. Then ellroy rubs his hands together and really gets going, with this shaggy, incredible novel of justice, violence, politicking, and redemption. Every mystery or crime novel ive read since has been chasing the dragon of l. Confidential is not only a great movie but is a great adaptation of its source. Confidential and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. A horrific mass murder invades the lives of victims and victimizers on both sides of the law. Confidential feels like the book that james ellroy has been preparing for and working up to during his entire career up to this point. When someones killing imprisoned mob boss mickey cohens gang. He takes all of the themes he explored in previous novels and packs them into a book thats an even larger, more epic tale of crime, perversion, and hollywood corruption than any of his previous books. Detective lieutenant exley guy pearce, the son of a murdered detective, is out to avenge his fathers killing. Energetic, sprawling and often stylistically irritating police procedural that follows three lapd members over a tenyear period, beginning in 1950. Confidential is driven by astonishing actors and genious plot, and is way more dimentional and entertaining to those regular crime stories. And three lawmen are caught in a deadly spiral, a nightmare that. Spenser confidential ends with a classic tuneinnexttime cliffhanger, as wahlbergs pi, having successfully cracked one conspiracy, catches whiff of the next mystery to solve.
Those who arent somebody in hollywood are nobody, and with a cast of actors who in 1997 were all unknown faces, l. He feels guilty for going along with sids desire for headlines, and ruining matts life in the process. Confidential by brian helgeland based on the novel by james ellroy november 16, 1995 minor revisions. Confidential is a 1997 american neonoir crime film directed, produced and cowritten by. I have to kind of flip it for this one, though, because the film version of l. Confidential is one of my favourite books of all time, and my favourite james ellroy book.
Youve reached the hub for any and all dramatica analysis of l. Lance armstrongs secrets is a book by sports journalist pierre ballester and the sunday times sports correspondent david walsh. Confidential series based on james ellroys 1990 novel. However, it gives rise to the question as to what the award means. Sagalike narrative hardboils down to three gutsy, basically honest but flawed lapd officers. I could never underatand why lynn slept with ed exley in l. Confidential is a 1997 american neonoir crime film directed, produced and cowritten by curtis hanson. Confidential is epic noir, a crime novel of astonishing detail and scope written by the bestselling author of the black dahlia.
As such, the ending is very different as well smith survives the novel one. The screenplay by hanson and brian helgeland is based on james ellroys 1990 novel of the same name, the third book in his l. I read it for the first time at 16 and its the book that really got me interested in reading. Confidential if she had feelings for bud and she also knew how much he hated ed. The films climactic shootout at the victory motel actually occurs in the books prologue and ends with the death of buzz meeks. Confidential is on netflix, and get news and updates, on decider. Confidential, to discuss the main theme of honor that runs throughout the film. In the book, he accidentally kills a young couple, and to make it up to their kids, sends money each month. As i started reading the book, i thought id be of one of two minds by the end. Confidential is also a 1990 novel by american crime writer james ellroy. Three very different cops are all after the truth, each in their own style. Narcotics sergeant jack vincennes, recovering from. The book contains circumstantial evidence of cyclist lance armstrong having used performanceenhancing drugs.
Hancock park mansion ballroom night the mayor yanks a cloth to reveal a model of l. Confidential follows three police officers, ed exley. Ed exley, a patrician who venerates his herocop father, presumably holds high ideals and unassailable standards. So, ive finished reading anthony bourdains book kitchen confidential, which is basically about all the craziness that goes on behind the scenes in the restaurant world. After his twogrossing films the hand that rocks the cradle and wild river, he was able to get this. Based on a book by leading crime author james ellroy, l. Millers crossing from the same year was much better received, with the. Confidential is actually the third book in a series of four books called the l. Chinatown sequel the two jakes arrived in 1990 but despite jack nicholson both starring and directing it failed to reach the acclaim of the original. Bud white, ready to break the rules to seek justice, but barely able to keep his raging violence.
Ed exley, the golden boy of the police force, willing to do almost anything to get ahead, except sell out. Officer bud white, on the other hand, is brutal, violent, vengeful and jack trashcan vincennes, formerly of the. In the movie, he genuinely tries to help matt reynolds. Browse other questions tagged plotexplanation laconfidential. Confidential vertelt ellroy een moordzaak vanuit het perspectief van drie verschillende politieagenten.
The very first scene in the book stars buzz meeks in a massive. Dudley smith actually survives the book and goes on to be the antagonist of the novel white jazz, which ends with dudley being confined to a nursing home after he is attacked with an axe and rendered mentally retarded. The film tells the story of a group of lapd officers in 1953, and the intersection of police corruption and hollywood celebrity. The epigraph is a glory that costs everything and means nothing steve erickson. Which turns out by the end of the first chapter of the first section of the. I found it on my dads night table and read it breathlessly, the stories of reefer parties, multiple divorces, wifeswapping and. They are the black dahlia 1987, the big nowhere 1988, l. Confidential was a key magazine of the 1950s, a monthly that sold millions of copies with its seamy exposes of celebrity drugs and sex. The fantasy is pierced, the shimmering facade shattered. James ellroy on his nervous breakdown, tv adaptations and. Ellroy was asked by a member of a book talk audience if he wasnt guilty of overdoing his staccato style just a touch and ellroy, apparently an absolute pussycat, agreed that, yeh, she was probably right.
Confidential by brian helgeland based on the novel by. Ellroy is a master of crime, seamlessly weaving three narratives in his deliciously dark. Confidential feels like the book that james ellroy has been preparing for and working. How does ed exley hear whats said outside the interview room. Confidential 1990 is a neonoir novel by james ellroy, and the third of his l. Movie, a title that sufficiently demonstrates my preternatural brilliance for nomenclature, i am that motherfucker. He is the novels most compromised character from a moral standpoint, and yet he is, by virtue of being the only one left standing at the end and having the most power in the universe of the book, the closest thing we have to a clear main character. As far as he was concerned, history ended as did his 2009 book.
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