yorrick brown
10-10-2007, 09:12 PM
from the director of NARC AND SMOKIN ACES`S
clooney is already signed to play the main character DAVID KLEIN
based on the novel from the writer of LA CONFIDENTIAL and BLACK DAHLIA.
The title alone is cool and smooth, so how did brothers Carnahan do with their big screen adaptation of James Ellroy’s White Jazz?
First off lets make sure you know what White Jazz is all about.
White Jazz is a 1992 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. It is the fourth in his L.A. Quartet, preceded by The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential.
Lieutenant David Klein is a veteran policeman who moonlights as a hitman for organized crime. When he is assigned to investigate a robbery at the home of the LAPD's sanctioned heroin dealer, he uncovers a plot to bring city's crime syndicates into collusion with the channels of justice.
The stories of many characters that appeared in earlier L.A. Quartet novels, including Edmund Exley and Dudley Smith, have their ends tied up in White Jazz, which also introduces Pete Bondurant, one of the central characters in Ellroy's "American Underworld" novels.*
Earlier today we received an email from a longtime reader Sealcrab who sent in a script review of the latest draft from the Carnahan’s White Jazz script dated 9/16/07. So how was it? Continue reading!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sealcrab here with a script review for one of two upcoming and semi-dueling follow-ups to LA CONFIDENTIAL (which my mother still believes to this day is a French film).
WHITE JAZZ, based on James Ellroy's novel, is written by it's director-to-be Joe Carnahan and his brother, Matthew Michael Carnahan (working together for the first time). This draft is recent (dated about two weeks ago) so consider this off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.
We begin in 1983 with a depressed, aged version of our narrator and star, David Klein (to be played by George Clooney, the only announced cast member so far), regretfully talking about all the evil he's done in life and staring longingly at a photograph of his lost love.
Almost immediately, we're taken back to 1958 and reintroduced to Klein as a young police Lieutenant and his much-younger partner, Richard "Junior" Stemmons. Klein's pretty much a dirty cop, out for himself and Junior is less so a partner and more so a thorn in his side - especially when it comes to Klein's less-than-moral tactics.
Klein's really a hitman first and a cop second, easily bought off to work from inside the department, eliminating problems for whoever can pay. When he throws a suspect out a window, claiming it a suicide, he winds up blackmailed by the LAPD to do their own dirty work.
From there, we're taken all across 1950's Los Angeles; We've got drug dealers, movie stars, politicians and millionaires. Of course, there's a million criminal connections between them all and a blonde Hollywood starlet that becomes Klein falls for.
I won't get bogged down with specifics as the story follows Ellroy's book pretty closely but I will say that, unlike LA CONFIDENTIAL where we've got an ensemble cast, this is Klein's story through and through. There's not a single scene not told from his point of view.
In fact, the one-perspective narrative is the most fascinating thing about the script; It's actually written in the first person. The character isn't written as "KLEIN" whenever he speaks. It actually says, "ME". All the action is first person, too, to the point that it blends right in with the ongoing narration. It makes for a very, very good read that's so noir-ishly hardboiled that you feel cool just reading it.
The dialogue and pacing is actually smooth enough that it's almost a shame Clooney's playing the part. Not that he doesn't fit - he's probably dead-on for Klein. It's just that Clooney's personality already radiates "cool" and the part is good enough that whoever plays it becomes a certified badass.
And Klein is a badass. He's a corrupt cop and a heartless killer. We sympathize with him only because the film's narration makes the whole ordeal into his confession and because his are the only eyes we ever see things through. Like CONFIDENTIAL, it's a dirty, dirty world and Klein wins out only by comparison.
At times, the narration falters a bit. Every single character gets a mini-monologue history by Klein, even historical figures like Howard Hughes. One of the benefits of having a super-confident lead is that you can force the audience to feel like they need to catch up rather than have to have everything laid out for them. We don't need to be told that a lounge singer has specific mob ties when we can just see it play out in the scene.
There's also two nightmare sequences that are so brief and pointless that they really have no business being there, especially given the flashback narration.
But these are minor quibbles. The elephant in the room is going to be "how does it compare to LA CONFIDENTIAL?" The story seems to be that Joe Carnahan originally intended to include CONFIDENTIAL's Exley character (present in the novel) but was asked to drop him when a more direct sequel began development.
The solution to this is to substitute a fake Exley (called Bradley here) and I have to say the script is probably better for it. There's a whole different style at work in JAZZ and it's unfair to compare it against it's older brother. A Guy Pearce cameo would be cute and all but would probably only detract.
Set to begin filming in December, White Jazz looks to be in very good hands. The Carnahan brothers have an incredibly solid screenplay and it's pretty clear they know exactly how to handle the material. I don't envy anyone who has to live up to the high standard set by LA CONFIDENTIAL, but WHITE JAZZ is poised to pull it off.
White Jazz - Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan & Joe Carnahan. Draft dated 9/16/07, 124 Pages.
clooney is already signed to play the main character DAVID KLEIN
based on the novel from the writer of LA CONFIDENTIAL and BLACK DAHLIA.
The title alone is cool and smooth, so how did brothers Carnahan do with their big screen adaptation of James Ellroy’s White Jazz?
First off lets make sure you know what White Jazz is all about.
White Jazz is a 1992 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. It is the fourth in his L.A. Quartet, preceded by The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential.
Lieutenant David Klein is a veteran policeman who moonlights as a hitman for organized crime. When he is assigned to investigate a robbery at the home of the LAPD's sanctioned heroin dealer, he uncovers a plot to bring city's crime syndicates into collusion with the channels of justice.
The stories of many characters that appeared in earlier L.A. Quartet novels, including Edmund Exley and Dudley Smith, have their ends tied up in White Jazz, which also introduces Pete Bondurant, one of the central characters in Ellroy's "American Underworld" novels.*
Earlier today we received an email from a longtime reader Sealcrab who sent in a script review of the latest draft from the Carnahan’s White Jazz script dated 9/16/07. So how was it? Continue reading!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sealcrab here with a script review for one of two upcoming and semi-dueling follow-ups to LA CONFIDENTIAL (which my mother still believes to this day is a French film).
WHITE JAZZ, based on James Ellroy's novel, is written by it's director-to-be Joe Carnahan and his brother, Matthew Michael Carnahan (working together for the first time). This draft is recent (dated about two weeks ago) so consider this off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush.
We begin in 1983 with a depressed, aged version of our narrator and star, David Klein (to be played by George Clooney, the only announced cast member so far), regretfully talking about all the evil he's done in life and staring longingly at a photograph of his lost love.
Almost immediately, we're taken back to 1958 and reintroduced to Klein as a young police Lieutenant and his much-younger partner, Richard "Junior" Stemmons. Klein's pretty much a dirty cop, out for himself and Junior is less so a partner and more so a thorn in his side - especially when it comes to Klein's less-than-moral tactics.
Klein's really a hitman first and a cop second, easily bought off to work from inside the department, eliminating problems for whoever can pay. When he throws a suspect out a window, claiming it a suicide, he winds up blackmailed by the LAPD to do their own dirty work.
From there, we're taken all across 1950's Los Angeles; We've got drug dealers, movie stars, politicians and millionaires. Of course, there's a million criminal connections between them all and a blonde Hollywood starlet that becomes Klein falls for.
I won't get bogged down with specifics as the story follows Ellroy's book pretty closely but I will say that, unlike LA CONFIDENTIAL where we've got an ensemble cast, this is Klein's story through and through. There's not a single scene not told from his point of view.
In fact, the one-perspective narrative is the most fascinating thing about the script; It's actually written in the first person. The character isn't written as "KLEIN" whenever he speaks. It actually says, "ME". All the action is first person, too, to the point that it blends right in with the ongoing narration. It makes for a very, very good read that's so noir-ishly hardboiled that you feel cool just reading it.
The dialogue and pacing is actually smooth enough that it's almost a shame Clooney's playing the part. Not that he doesn't fit - he's probably dead-on for Klein. It's just that Clooney's personality already radiates "cool" and the part is good enough that whoever plays it becomes a certified badass.
And Klein is a badass. He's a corrupt cop and a heartless killer. We sympathize with him only because the film's narration makes the whole ordeal into his confession and because his are the only eyes we ever see things through. Like CONFIDENTIAL, it's a dirty, dirty world and Klein wins out only by comparison.
At times, the narration falters a bit. Every single character gets a mini-monologue history by Klein, even historical figures like Howard Hughes. One of the benefits of having a super-confident lead is that you can force the audience to feel like they need to catch up rather than have to have everything laid out for them. We don't need to be told that a lounge singer has specific mob ties when we can just see it play out in the scene.
There's also two nightmare sequences that are so brief and pointless that they really have no business being there, especially given the flashback narration.
But these are minor quibbles. The elephant in the room is going to be "how does it compare to LA CONFIDENTIAL?" The story seems to be that Joe Carnahan originally intended to include CONFIDENTIAL's Exley character (present in the novel) but was asked to drop him when a more direct sequel began development.
The solution to this is to substitute a fake Exley (called Bradley here) and I have to say the script is probably better for it. There's a whole different style at work in JAZZ and it's unfair to compare it against it's older brother. A Guy Pearce cameo would be cute and all but would probably only detract.
Set to begin filming in December, White Jazz looks to be in very good hands. The Carnahan brothers have an incredibly solid screenplay and it's pretty clear they know exactly how to handle the material. I don't envy anyone who has to live up to the high standard set by LA CONFIDENTIAL, but WHITE JAZZ is poised to pull it off.
White Jazz - Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan & Joe Carnahan. Draft dated 9/16/07, 124 Pages.