The Black Dahlia: Film noir. Starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart,
Hilary Swank and Scarlett Johansson. Directed by Brian De Palma. (R. 130
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
The world of “The Black Dahlia” is beyond bleak, beyond film noir. Based on the
novel by James Ellroy, it takes place during the postwar era, which gave birth
to noir, but shows crimes more gruesome and corruption more endemic than the
noirs ever depicted. Director Brian De Palma invests careful attention in
creating this world, building lush tableaux that impart an aura of glamour and
doom. But, with the exception of Aaron Eckhart, De Palma’s actors can’t live up
to the period or the atmosphere. Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Hilary
Swank — talented people who’ve done good work in the past — ultimately
come off like lightweights, like kids playing dress up.
This impression takes a while to settle in. It doesn’t happen immediately,
and it certainly doesn’t happen as soon as we see them. On the contrary, all
three look great. Yet, in each case a sense of baseline believability gradually
erodes, through performances that are neither lived in nor filled in. And all
at once the mask is off, and “The Black Dahlia” begins to look like a bunch of
children just found their way into their grandparents’ clothes closet.
Were they too young? At the time of filming, Hartnett was 27, Johansson,
21, and Swank, 31, but then Robert Mitchum was 29 and Kirk Douglas was 30
during the making of “Out of the Past,” and Jane Greer was 22. Lauren Bacall
was 21 when she made “The Big Sleep.” In fact, the actors are about the right
age for the characters they’re playing. Maybe 27 means something different in
2006 than it did 60 years ago. Maybe the experience of a world war puts miles
on people, giving them a weariness, a perspective and an understanding of their
place in the grand scheme.
In any case, what is certain is the result: When Swank slinks around like
a femme fatale, it’s funny. When Hartnett stares off pensively, as if the world
is on his shoulders, there is nothing on his shoulders. And when he picks up
Johansson and throws her down on the dinner table, both of them too overcome by
lust to go upstairs to the bedroom, all we can think of is the waste of a
perfectly nice meal. They look clumsy and silly, and they’re making a mess.
Later, when you stop laughing, take time to marvel at what they can’t
accomplish and what Mitchum and Greer could, with just a close-mouthed kiss on
the beach.
It would be tempting to blame De Palma for this and say that the film’s
hyperstylized atmosphere infected the performances in some negative way, except
that Eckhart strikes exactly the right note. As the hotshot cop Blanchard, a
former boxer turned police detective, he’s driven, obsessive, effusive and
unknowable. He leaves no doubt that the poison he encounters in his police work
is in his bloodstream and that maybe it was there from the beginning.
Hartnett as Dwight, another boxer turned cop, is paired with Blanchard,
and they become inseparable buddies, with Dwight the third wheel on dates and
dinners with Blanchard and his girlfriend (Johansson). Gradually it becomes
silently understood by the characters and subtly communicated to the audience
that Blanchard may be the flashier cop, but that Dwight is the better man.
Already working on another case, the two are soon pulled into the Black Dahlia
investigation. It blows everything else off the headlines: A young woman, a
would-be actress who worked in lesbian porno films, is found dismembered and
disemboweled.
The case brings a lot of eccentrics out of the woodwork, including Swank
as Madeleine, an heiress who likes to dress like the Dahlia and slink around
lesbian bars, even though she seems to like men. Swank’s not much of a slinker,
but she tries. Mia Kirshner, who plays the Dahlia, is seen only in audition and
stag footage, but she makes a real impression of the Dahlia as a sad, lonely
dreamer, a pathetic figure.
Josh Friedman’s screenplay could have been streamlined more around the
Dahlia story. Dwight and Blanchard pursue one case too many, and a minor plot
element involving a murderer who preys on children and the elderly could have
been cut in the interest of clarity. Then again, if all the actors were as good
as Eckhart, the movie would not feel long.
De Palma’s visual intelligence is palpable. In depicting the murder
victim’s body, he shows very little — a few seconds of the victim’s face, a
close-up of the victim’s hands — and the effect is horrifying rather than
disgusting. In one scene, he films down a Los Angeles side street, and we see a
man and woman talking to each other on the steps. It’s just a snapshot of
people, of life in a dangerous, seductive place, suggesting stories we’ll never
know. The only place De Palma fumbles — or could this be intentional? —
is in the scene in which a mystery man commits a murder.
We don’t see the face, but the identity of the killer is unmistakable,
even from behind: Just look at the ears.
– Advisory: This film contains gruesome images, blood, violence, nudity
and simulated sex acts.
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E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.