In THE BLACK DAHLIA (2006), Brian de Palma works fully within a classic 40s noir vernacular – the voice-over narration, the fedoras and ceiling fans, police head-quarters and the boxing ring, blackmail and vice, ‘deviant’ sexuality and murder, all lit for shadows and sin. The film is based on James Ellroy’s 1987 novel – the first in the LA QUARTET series – which is itself based on the real murder of Elizabeth Short, a young woman on the fringes of the film industry who was brutally killed in 1947, her corpse mutilated and bisected. The story was so lurid, it became a national talking point, designated the ‘black’ dahlia case with reference to THE BLUE DAHLIA (George Marshall, 1946), a hit with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake the previous year.
THE BLACK DAHLIA is designed by Dante Ferreti, lit by Vilmos Zsigmond, and directed with real imagination and flair by De Palma. It is so beautiful visually – breathtaking really – that it’s a sorrow that it doesn’t quite work narratively. The story as told seems quite convoluted and at moments incomprehensible. When first released, the actors – Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett, Fiona Shaw, Aaron Eckhart, Mia Kirshner — were found to be at fault, though I like them all very much except for Hilary Swank, who seems miscast in a part that calls for a young Ava Gardner. The director’s cut was originally three-hours, a version praised by Ellroy, and one I’d like to see. What’s available now are aspects and moments so extraordinary they hint at a greatness that the film itself doesn’t deliver upon. Perhaps a directors’ cut would.
As is I loved so much of THE BLACK DAHLIA: the look, the style, the direction, the subject matter and setting, the references to Lana Turner (Johanssen is dressed to evoke her 40s personae), Rita Hayworth, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (Paul Leni, 1928), detecting the influence of THE BIG SLEEP (Howard Hawks, 1946) and other forties noirs; oh and the great K.D. Lang performing LOVE FOR SALE in a lesbian nightclub is another wonderful moment in a film full of them.
José Arroyo
