To Live and Die In L.A.
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: B Film: A-
Some
films take too long to come to video, and even with the DVD boom, there are still gems not available yet. Part of the problem comes about when the film
is an independent production.
Originally, SLM Inc. financed William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. with a deal to have 20th
Century-Fox (when they still had the hyphen in their name) distribute. They also had James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) at Fox, but new owner
Rupert Murdoch was reportedly apprehensive of the content and distribution fell
through.
MGM/UA
picked up the film, already having high expectations that Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon (1985) would be his
big comeback hit. It was not, but is now
a minor classic. With that, MGM/UA went
on with Friedkin’s film, but the commercial results were mixed. However, it was made with such a low budget
that it did not need much to make its money back, and it had a soundtrack by
Wang Chung that even charted the title song.
That did not work out either, but it is now easily considered one of the
1980s best film scores.
When the
film finally came to home video, it was issued by the long-defunct Vestron
Video, who gave us Dirty Dancing. A 12” LaserDisc was even issued, but even
that was not widescreen. Vestron
eventually went under, and then DVD eventually supplanted Lasers, so why the
hold up for this film? The rights!
Vestron
was absorbed by IVE, which became Live Home Video, which became Artisan, which
was just bought by Lion’s Gate. There were rumors that Artisan would do a
special edition of the film. Then,
contrary rumors surfaced that Anchor Bay was going to do it. Then MGM, who did not have the film on video
to begin with, said they thought they would.
However this finally worked itself out, MGM emerged with the rights and the
DVD is here and in its proper widescreen aspect ratio for the first time ever
since it was released in theaters.
The film
involves sex, murder, and money in the dark side of Los Angeles, but the twist is that a good
deal of the money is actually being made by an expert counterfeiter Eric “Rick”
Masters (Willem Dafoe). In an era before
digital printing was so common, this film has a brilliant pornographic moment
of the money being duplicated in graphic detail. Many were shocked, others were outraged, and
it is one of the greatest moments of staged criminal activity in cinema
history. As all coin and dollar bill
collectors will tell you, one of the greatest secrets of U.S. currency is that each one is a
total work of art. Great designers and
minters are constantly making it as beautiful, valuable and complex as they
can, so to see it being “ripped off” can only be equated with people illegally
downloading music artists’ work. Unlike
that digitally easy act, it takes some serious craftsmanship to duplicate paper
money.
Dollar
bills had not changed much in all the decades before this film was made, but
you can instantly see the changes paper currency has gone through in a much
shorter amount of time. That still does
little to tarnish or diminish the sequence, which helps make the actual
counterfeit cash one of the stars of the film.
However, this is an incredible thriller about mature, adult,
three-dimensional characters and Friedkin keeps this shock on the sleazy level
of the other intense action throughout the film.
That is
where the opposition to the crime at hand comes in. Richard Chance (William L. Petersen, a great
actor far and beyond his TV work) is a U.S. Treasury Agent who has this case on
one hand, and his partner retiring on the other. When things take a very ugly turn, Chance
intends to hunt down the elusive Masters at all costs. In one way, this sets of the film
spectacularly, but it turns out that everyone else rises to this height of
intensity one way or another and the California heat is far from the only reason.
Instead,
the screenplay by Friedkin and Gerald Petievich, based on Petievich’s book and
experiences, shows that all the characters have the same potential violence and
anger. This is set off by the high
stakes that can mean wealth, prosperity, various kinds of freedoms, and the
thrill of risk-taking, not all of which is necessary. However, this is a fast-lane way of life and
the lines that separate right and wrong dissipate very quickly, especially of
the surfacing of all kinds of pent up, repressed
emotions
and desires that are more likely to surface under such a pressure cooker of
possibilities. How well these people
known each other is at least as valuable as how much they know themselves, and
many of the surprises happen when they either forget or simply do not know.
The
acting is exceptionally coy in being gutted out and laced with a street-obscene
mentality. Though the dialogue crosses
gender lines as a dark joke expressing the empty sense of self everyone tends
to have, the actions and visuals (including the editing) take this to a new
level of controlled breakdown and blurring.
Add the high stakes of wealth, death, and how the pleasure drive is inseparable
form all this, and you have an extremely intense, suspenseful thriller like few
others. The film moves in a way only a
master filmmaker like Friedkin could pull off.
If you are too easily impressed by the lame “end twist” trend we have
had to suffer through in recent bad, overrated thrillers, you will find this
especially intense.
As for
Petersen, if this film and Michael Mann’s
Manhunter (1986) been the huge its they should have been, he would have
been an A-list action star and then some for years to come, but it is a loss to
filmmaking and all of us that this did not happen. The commercial success on CSI is both absolutely no surprise and
long, long overdue. The camera likes
this guy and he is an actor who knows how to carry himself, even in a comedy
like Joel Schumacher’s Cousins
(1988). Dafoe went on to become one of
the most risk-taking actors around, as did John Turturro (The Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing and Spike Lee’s early
successes), and Dean Stockwell. Even
John Pankow was willing to take on challenging films, like George Romero’s very
clever 1988 opus Monkey Shines – An
Experiment in Fear. The film reminds
us of a better time in filmmaking that was not that long ago.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is equal to practically any DVD issued
of a film from its time, including the recent issues of Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom (1984), Divimax Edition of
Michael Mann’s Manhunter, James
Cameron’s Aliens (from the newest Quadrilogy box) or near recent DVDs
like Real Genius or Paul Schrader’s Mishima – A Life in Four Chapters (both
also 1985). With some of the best Video
Black I have seen on an MGM DVD to date, it projected very well, and Friedkin
notes that the entire transfer was digitally color timed to his specifications. It looks it, though, there are some limits to
clarity and depth from the digital itself and the way it is downtraded to DVD
(NTSC encoding, MPEG-2 compression, etc.), as I recall the reds and green being
particularly more vivid on the film print and even in some promo material. Wim Wender’s cinematographer Robby Muller
shot the scenes with actors, but left the action to other cameramen, who
delivered brilliantly. The various hands
behind the camera did not hurt the look of the film that crosses the glamorous
with the sleazy in the most subtle ways.
This is also an exceptionally well edited film, with the cutting making
new meanings that otherwise would not be there.
The
original theatrical sound was Dolby A-type analog with the usual monophonic surround,
but even then, everyone was talking about the exceptional soundtrack by New
Wave music duo Wang Chung. Geffen
Records even reissued the soundtrack on CD a few years ago in a decent sounding
version. The only thing is, no matter
how good, it made me miss the film. Now,
the DVD offers a French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo option with Pro Logic
surrounds, Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, and an English Dolby Digital 5.1
AC-3 mix that is very impressive. Wang
Chung’s brilliant score really kicks in this remix, in which new materials and
master materials were brought in for better clarity and fidelity. Though some of the materials show their age,
this mix is comparable and worthy of the sound of the titles already noted on
their respective DVDs. Sound effects are
well thought out, yet very consistent in a narrative context, which is too
rare. With better sound systems, has,
unfortunately come more aural distractions to show script shortcomings, but not
with any of Friedkin’s films. Though the
Wang Chung music is multi-channel above mere ambience, I still hear limits in
warmth and bass versus the CD, however minute.
Too bad this was not one of MGM too-rare DTS editions, because this
upgrade is exceptional otherwise. We
will have to wait for Geffen and Universal Music to do the soundtrack as a High
Definition sound Super Audio CD or DVD-Audio to really appreciate the sonics of
the Wang Chung music.
The
extras are no letdown either, and once again, Friedkin delivers all on his own,
another one of the best audio commentary tracks (director or otherwise) you
will ever hear. Though he never gets
enough recognition for it, Friedkin is one of the smartest filmmakers of his or
any generation. His films alone are
often incredible, but add his words, and you have must-have archival DVDs that
belong in all serious collections. On
top of this, we also get a nice photo gallery in still/step form, a
preposterous alternate ending that insults anyone with a brain, a deleted scenes
that Friedkin says he wish he could reinsert into the film if it only existed
in a film print (and he would be right in doing so), the original teaser and
trailer from when MGM/UA distributed the film back in 1985, and a terrific
making of documentary appropriately entitled Counterfeit World. The only
extra I did not like is the summary of the film on the back of the DVD case
giving too much away.
For a
film that has been neglected and even forgotten for so many years, it is now
back with a vengeance, as it should be.
No one could have ever expected such an exceptional DVD or one that was
so loaded. Petersen’s hit TV series CSI, also on DVD and selling well
enough, sure did not hurt the cause. Either
way, this is now one of the gems in MGM’s catalog, which they have done right
by. Everyone should have To Live and Die in L.A.!
- Nicholas Sheffo
