In the 60’s, French film critics
began seeing patterns in some of the (mostly low-budget) American
dramas made post WWII. Seen as a symptom of post-war trauma and as
a reaction against the burgeoning suburban "Happy Days"
denial, they noted that films (many made by expatriate Europeans)
like The Big Heat, Out cf The Past, Kiss of Death and Double
Indemnity, besides greatly relying on nighttime exteriors, all
shared a cynical and dark view of humankind, hence their new term,
"film noir," literally, "black film."
Writer/director John
Dahl’s three films, Kill Me Again, Red Rock West, and the
upcoming The Last Seduction, work extensively with the
themes of film noir—moneylust, entrapment, deceptive women, societal
corruption, the double, triple and even quadruple cross, innocents
caught up in rapidly snowballing criminal circumstances, and the
inability to escape our troubled pasts.
Unlike the "Naked
City" settings of the past, Dahl’s films inhabit the world
he knows best-that of stifling, small town white America. A world
of beat-up 70sera white Cadillacs ("a great symbol of decaying
America"), nameless gas stations on the edge of town, no-tell
motels ("the kind with rubber sheets that haven’t been rented
in a month but still smell like smoke" laughs Dahl), truck
stops, and ugly small town bars ("those are special places,"
he says, without a hint of sarcasm).
Not surprisingly, Montana-born
Dahl started filmmaking at a decidedly backwoods locale, Montana
State University Film School.
"I had a great time there," he says of his days
at MSU. "In those days they sorta just gave you the equipment,
and as long as you could afford to put film in the camera you
could do what you wanted. There was not a lot of film theory offered,
but what I did was take a lot of drama courses and English courses,
because I realized early on I needed to be able to write and work
with actors if I was gonna make movies. For such a small school,
there are a lot of MSU grads working in the film business in LA."
 |
| Lara Flynn Boyle and Nicolas Cage in Red
Rock West . |
The Death Mutants, Dahl’s first feature, "a totally irreverent send-up of
a horror film" was made in his senior year at MSU ("and
not seen since") with the help of David Warfield, who would
go on to co-write Kill Me Again.
Moving to Los Angeles,
Dahl found work in music video production and used those connections
(and experience as storyboard artist for Robocop, Something
Wild, and Married To The Mob) to shop around spec scripts,
the seventh of which became his first official feature release.
Produced for $4.5 million
by Propaganda Films (Kalifornia, Wild At Heart), primarily
a music video company, Kill Me Again marks the initial
exploration of themes that would come to full fruit in his later
films. Like all of Dahl’s films to date, Kill Me Again was
met with strong critical and industry acclaim, and studio indifference.
Red Rock West, made
in 1992 and currently in theatrical (and video) release, shows
Dahl moving up from the more derivative (if enjoyable) detective
fiction stylings of Kill Me Again to fully forge his own
style – a giddy, thrill-ride mix of film-noir conventions transposed
to recession-hit small town U.S.A., watchspring-tight plotting,
but with enough looseness to let the humor of absurd natural situations
come to life.
With a $7.5 million budget
again put up by Propaganda Films, the script was strong enough
to gain the services of three top stars: Nicolas Cage, Dennis
Hopper and Laura Flynn Boyle. Dalil feels the casting was paramount
to the film’s success.
"With Red Rock," he remembers, "we thought
we were walking the edge between where it’s gonna be pretty good
or just terrible, where people would be watching it and saying,
‘Oh, yeah – this is ridiculous. I can’t believe he would do that.’
We were very fortunate to be able to get Nicolas Cage for the
lead role because he really can walk that line between dramatic
reality and comedic absurdity better than almost anybody.
"Hopper, too, is amazing in his ability to be totally
menacing and yet bring out this complete nervous laughter. Near
the end of the movie there’s a real dopey line where he’s impaled
on this statue, dyin,’ and he says to Nicolas Cage’Hey,come back
here! I’m not done with you!’ and Nick says, ‘You know what? I
am better than you.’ At one point we took those lines out
because we thought it was too on the nose, bad, just overkill.
But Nick and Dennis could get away with lines like that, and every
time I’ve seen it, people just go bananas at that scene."
Hopper, whose former
reputation as a drugged hell-raiser (including stabbing people,
performing stunts with explosives at rodeos and appearing in a Hustler magazine photo spread!) is legendary, is quite
a different man since his post – Blue Velvet sobriety.
"He’s one of the
nicest guys I met in Hollywood," Dahl says, "really
easy to work with, a complete gentleman. I think he feels he missed
out on those years he was intoxicated, and so he works harder
than anyone around. But I must admit, it was a little intimidating
working with him because at this point he’s directed seven movies,
and this is only my second movie. He coulda’ chewed me up and
spit me out!"
The story of a down-and-out
vet (Cage) who gets confused with a hired killer (Hopper), Red
Rock West, like classic film noir and the best drama, concentrates
not on the act of murder or robbery but on the human dramas and
moral dilemmas surrounding it.
Country singer Dwight Yoakam, who makes a strong debut as
a truck driver who almost shoots Cage, had contacted Dahl after
seeing Kill Me Again to work on a long-form music video.
When Dahl was impressed enough to offer him his first dramatic
role, Yoakam jumped at the chance.
"We had Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, J.T. Walsh and Laura
Flynn Boyle all staying at this tiny hotel in Wilcox, Arizona,"
Dahl remembers. "The town was like, ‘Yeah, this is exciting,’
but when Dwight showed up, everyone in that town just freaked
out."
Yoakam’s closing theme, 1000 Miles From Nowhere, which
was later a Top 10 country hit, was written in 1992 when the film
was being made.
"I told him I wanted a Roy Orbison sounding song to
end the movie with, and he saw the final cut and really wanted
to have it be one of his songs over the end credits. So I said
‘great.’ That was in the morning. In the afternoon he called me
up and sang me this song over the phone."
Despite glowing reviews and strong business in its recent
limited city-by-city theatrical release, Red Rock West was
originally dumped straight to cable TV and videocassette almost
a year ago.
"Red Rock was
financed with a negative pick-up deal," he explains, "selling
off the cable TV, video and overseas rights. It costs so much
to release a film in the U.S. – a minimum of $3 million for prints
and advertising with a major distributor- they have to feel like
there is a guarantee of recouping that, which is sad for moviegoers,
because a lot of interesting small films are having a harder and
harder time reaching the theater.
"Studios have this blockbuster mentality. They have this
desire to make $200 million dollars, even if they have to spend
$100 million to do it. If it costs them $10 million and it makes
$30 million, they’re somehow disappointed, even though most businesses
would be thrilled with a $10 million dollar profit."
"That’s the beauty of a company like Roxie Releasing,"
he says of the distributor who later bought the film’s theatrical
rights. "It’s one guy, Bill Banning, who owns an art house
theater in San Francisco, and every now and then he obtains the
rights to a small movie. He’s kinda like David fighting Goliath.
They have a vested interest in pushing it, gathering word
of mouth, good reviews, going from city to city to city, but to
him it’s worth it, but unless you’re talking about a hundred million,
to Columbia Tri-Star it’s not worth bothering with."
"Finishing Red Rock was a really grueling process,
and I really wasn’t in the mood to work on starting another screenplay,
and out of the blue this quirky, very original script was sent
to me."
Unlike the past, the desire that drove so many of the classic
film noir’s characters is not merely implied. Originally called Buffalo Gals, The Last Seduction is one of the more sexually
explicit films in recent memory, as Bridget Gregory fucks her
suitors in every sense of the word, playing with their minds,
plotting against them and sexing them in an emotionless, animal
like fashion.
"They (ITC) were kinda worried it would get an NC-17,
but it got an R (rating). I think it’s because she’s in the driver’s
seat, sexually, the whole time. And that changes the whole dynamic.
She’s using him. She’s raping him from the first time she sees
him to the end of the movie.
When we were shooting that scene where they’re goin’ at it
against the chain link fence behind the bar, and there are people
walking out the back door, Peter thought it was gonna be pornographic.
I said, ‘Peter, this isn’t a Zalman King movie-you’re doin’ it
next to the trash cans! This is gonna be funny!"’
While already having played Europe and Australia, at this
writing the only place Yanks can definitely catch The Last
Seduction is on cable.
"With a small independent film, when distributors in
Hollywood look at it they get nervous, but if it starts getting
a reaction from critics or festival audiences, they get a little
more faith. But the makers of the film jumped the gun, haven’t
screened it much and were content just to sell it to HBO.
There is a distributor interested in it because of Red
Rock, they feel there’s a different audience there that would
see it in the theater as opposed to watching it on cable. I think
the success of Red Rock has broken conventional ideas,
and proven that lotsa people: a) don’t have cable, or B) still
like to see things on the big screen."
With only three films,
Dahl is amused to find himself being stereotyped by critics and
industry people.
"I never set out
to be a `film noir director,"’ he says. "Only after
being given the opportunity to make a few movies have I begun
seeing themes and patterns, but I have to say that what is there
is totally subconscious, not deliberately thought out at all.
I do like the moral dilemma, which is a big theme in film noir.
I think that’s something everyone sorta wrestles with.
"When you make a
movie, I feel you should try to make it as timeless as possible.
When dealing with situations, and making choices in writing or
directing, I kinda think, `well, how’s this gonna look in 15 years?
Or 20 years? What can we do to make it call the least attention
to itself as far as the time in which it was made’?
"I’ve always liked
classic themes, the Greek tragedy kind of dramatic structures.
To me, film noir is dealing with those timeless themes of drama,
not just having people sit around and smoke, drink and talk like
they’re in a Micky Spillane book in rooms with Venetian blinds
on the windows."
Excited to be making
a sharp change of style, Dahl is currently in Austria shooting Meltdown, a John (Halloween) Carpenter nuclear power
suspense story which will star Dolph Lundgren.
"My goal is just
to try to make films that are entertaining," Dahl says. "People
look down on ‘entertainment’ – but I think it requires a great
deal of artistic ability to involve and amuse an intelligent audience.
That in itself, I feel is a major accomplishment."
Author Keith Bearden
has written for Fangoria, Psychotronic, The Nose, and other publications. He is a high school dropout, laughs really
loud, and loves peanut butter.