Culture news “No, it’s rubbish” This masterpiece of cinema has achieved the impossible by adapting this very complex novel… but the author really doesn’t agree and even spits on the actors!
The history of cinema confirms this to us day after day, release after release: it is never easy to obtain total consensus. There are always fairly virulent and more or less constructive criticisms, and some hurt more than others. Inspired by a major novel in the detective genre, this film, considered a masterpiece, absolutely did not please the original author and he goes out of his way to explain it: it’s rubbish and the actors are no better!
This detective film achieved an almost impossible feat and even won two Oscars
As a filmmaker, it is not always easy to adapt a literary work. Some are not afraid to try this exercise, like Martin Scorsese. In his personal case, the future, the box office results and even the public reception showed him that he was right to make this choice. We could see this with Shutter Island, The Irishman or, more recently, with Killers of the Flower Moon. Luckily, in the case of Shutter IslandScorsese managed to convince Dennis Lehane whose approval he had when the film was released, and that is not given to everyone: director Curtis Hanson learned this the hard way.
In the mid-90s, the director of Hand on the cradle And 8 Mile decides to tackle a major work in the category of historical detective novels, namely LA Confidential. Third centerpiece of a literary series spanning no less than four novels (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere And White Jazz), the feature film received numerous awards after its release and brilliantly met the seemingly impossible challenge of adapting a portion of this tetralogy with a very complex storyline, mixing fiction and real facts. Acclaimed by critics and praised by the public (99% and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.2/10 on IMDb), LA Confidential tells the investigation of three inspectors with diametrically opposed methods who will have to cooperate to elucidate a massacre to which a former police officer also succumbed in the mid-1950s.
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LA Confidential, a masterpiece? It’s quite the opposite for the author of the novel!
Crowned with great commercial success, almost quadrupling its investment (35 million budget, 126 million at the box office), LA Confidential will, in addition to that, marked a turning point in the career of actress Kim Basinger, one of the stars of the film, by allowing her to win the Oscar for best actress in a supporting role. As we have said, Curtis Hanson’s feature film won more than one award at the time, even walking away with a precious distinction, that of the best adapted screenplay : proof of the attention and fidelity with which the director transcribed James Ellroy’s novel. However, when we question the original creator, he is far from sharing the general enthusiasm.
Unfortunately for Curtis Hanson, the author does not validate the final result at all, and even less the performances of his 5-star casting.. For him, LA Confidential is not a masterpiece: worse than that, ” it’s rubbish », like the interpretations of Guy Pearce, Jim Cromwell and Kim Basinger described in the same way by Ellroy. Although Kevin Spacey’s name is spared from the author’s fury, it is actor Russell Crowe who takes the most heat since James Ellroy did not hesitate to describe it as “ a shit ». Even the most skeptical and harsh critics have not gone so far as to make such a speech! The film is available on Disney+ (and paid on Amazon Prime Video), for those who would like to form their own opinion.
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