La vita della star televisiva Bob Crane e la sua strana amicizia con l'esperto di elettronica John Henry Carpenter.La vita della star televisiva Bob Crane e la sua strana amicizia con l'esperto di elettronica John Henry Carpenter.La vita della star televisiva Bob Crane e la sua strana amicizia con l'esperto di elettronica John Henry Carpenter.
- Regia
- Sceneggiatura
- Star
- Premi
- 6 candidature totali
- Richard Dawson
- (as Michael Rodgers)
- Melissa
- (as Donnamarie Recco)
- …
Recensioni in evidenza
`Auto Focus' certainly does not shy away from revealing many of the salacious details of this true-life story. Schrader deals head-on with the disturbing nature of a mind so all consumed with the subject of sex that all other aspects of life become obliterated and distorted. What's fascinating about Crane at least in the way he is depicted in this film is that he seems to have had some sort of self-destructive death wish, for not only does he risk his career by sleeping with countless women, but he insists on leaving behind the evidence by videotaping many of his encounters, and then flaunting his `accomplishments' to others in the Hollywood community. In a way, such a cavalier attitude only underlines the sickness at the core of Crane's soul which in a perverse, paradoxical way, actually makes Crane a more sympathetic figure than he otherwise might be. An enormous amount of credit for this also goes to Greg Kinnear who does a superb job of not only replicating Crane's style of acting but of showing us the tortured man Crane became in his later years. He was truly a man driven to madness by the demons within him, and we can all identify in some sense with that condition (our demons may not be sexual in nature, but they probably eat away at us just as ravenously as they did Crane). Kinnear gets outstanding support from Willem Dafoe as Carpenter, the Svengali-like figure who lures Crane into his world of photographed sex, and Ron Leibman, as Crane's well-meaning, caring agent who can do little but stand by helplessly as his client throws his career and his life away to feed this devouring passion.
The filmmakers have done an amazing job capturing the sights and sounds of the era in which the film is set. Especially impressive are the scenes recreating `Hogan's Heroes,' with Kurt Fuller, in particular, a standout as Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink). It's also fascinating to see the evolution of videotape technology as portrayed in the film. How many of us knew that such equipment existed for home consumption as early as the mid-60's?
There's a real sadness to the final stretches of the film, made all the more poignant by having the dirge-like musical score run uninterrupted under the action. The effect is that we really get a sense of the total desolation of Crane's life at that point as he has lost his family, his career, and his self-respect to the master he chose early on to serve. The loss of his life seems almost de rigueur given all that has gone before. `Auto Focus' is not always an easy film to watch, but for its unflinching look at an often-unappetizing subject, it deserves to be seen.
The movie hints very strongly that the killer was Bob Carpenter, played here by Willem Dafoe. Carpenter was a close friend of Crane's. Greg Kinnear does a credible job of portraying the television star.
However, the part about Crane's murder is only dealt with in the final minutes of the film! That was very disappointing and I was hoping to find out something or at least be given more information. They just kind tacked this on the end of the film.
Most of the film was about Crane's and Carpenter's escapades with women.....lots of women, beautiful and big-chested women, which you see in abundance in this film. Dafoe is the sleazy friend who introduces Crane to the beginning of the VCR age. That led to a whole bunch of sex-on-film and really whetted Crane's big sexual appetite.
Anyway, for people who watched "Hogan's Heroes," and there were plenty, this is a bio of him and perhaps, for those who know nothing about his death, who killed him.
The film follows the sexual exploits of Greg Kinnear as Bob Crane, the real-life star of Hogan's Heroes, who during and after the show became a full-blown sex addict, ruining two marriages and possibly sabotaging his career in the process. Willem Dafoe is John Carpenter (no, I know what you're thinking, and he's not), Crane's partner in crime who lacks Crane's charisma with women but is fed some scraps by Crane in return for his extensive knowledge of and access to video equipment. Crane's fetish is using the home video cameras to record his sexual trysts, which he reviews over and over again, looking for something that we can't see, and that he probably can't see either.
Kinnear and Dafoe's performances alone are worth the price of admission. This is the best, boldest, and most nuanced work that Kinnear has ever done. His performance is all subtlety and detail; he introduces Crane as a regular, aw shucks family man, but as the movie progresses we gradually see the facade fall as his quiet desperation and insatiable sexual appetite begin to consume him. Not content to go over the top and yell at the top of his lungs to be effective, Kinnear instead puts on a fake smile and charms with a velvety voice while openly degrading and hitting on women. The effect is one of the most genuinely creepy performances ever committed to film. Dafoe is the perfect companion to Kinnear's subtle predator; Carpenter is a pathetic loser, easily angered and easily hurt. He gets angry, yells, and does all of the things that you've seen Dafoe do in his other portrayals of guys you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, or a lighted one, for that matter. It's effective elsewhere, and it's effective here. Together, these men form a pair so utterly joyless and shallow that just seeing them on-screen together made my stomach churn. Their dialogue is only incidental, usually reminiscing on previous sexual escapades or planning new ones, but it's the little tics, gestures, Kinnear's untouchable confidence foiled by Dafoe's insecurity, Kinnear's hidden hunger foiled by Dafoe's overt desperation, that give these scenes their resounding power.
Not to shortchange Schrader's direction, though, which as usual is right on target for the material. He begins in a brightly colored, idealized suburban landscape, filled with all of the usual imagery you'd expect in this sort of light-hearted period and location. Then, slowly, he slides into darker territory, carrying us into the decadent seventies, breaking shots into shorter lengths, shaking the camera, depicting with his cinematography and editing the fall of his protagonist. Admittedly, the techniques Schrader employs here to depict Crane's breakdown have been used many times before, but I still found them extremely effective here.
For the last thirty minutes of the film, I felt genuinely ill; not because I thought the projector was out of focus, as many have complained, but because Schrader and Kinnear were taking me to a dark place and immersing me in it. As I said before, this type of film is not for everybody, but for those interested in the dark side of man, this film is not to be missed. I think that at the very least, the merit of these depressing morality tales is that they provide an exact blueprint of the way not to live our lives. I suppose that showing Crane checking himself into therapy and dealing with his problems and utimately healing himself would be valuable as well, but it wouldn't make for a good film, or a true one. Some people argue against the very existence of this type of movie. My response to them is that in real life for every strong-willed person who solves their problems and triumphs over adversity, there is another loser who ultimately fails to deal with life and implodes upon their own insecurity and weakness. Until this changes, someone needs to continue making these films.
Greg Kinnear is definitely in one of his best parts here, as he plays someone who is an actor who keeps his actor-like charms off the set as well. In Hollywood, away from the confines of Connecticut, his Bob Crane lands the lead on Hogan's heroes, but can't resist the first temptations of the night-life. This comes, in an introductory way and then throughout as a tag-along/counterpart, with John Carpenter (not the director, played with the best match by Willem Dafoe of being a creep and alluring at times), who shows him the ropes and hooks him up with video equipment. But as Crane goes deeper into his sexual drives, divorces, marries again and divorces again, his acting career and his livelihood seem to slip away. The themes of being perversely the 'All-American Male' are accentuated by Kinnear's Crane in voice-over as he talks about the unbridled joys of sex, and in an interview with a Christian publication he says 'I don't...make waves'. By the last third of his story, however, into the rot of the 70s, he's lost touch with the reality of his pleasures- or rather necessities.
Auto Focus isn't at times an easy movie to sit through; it's even cringe-worthy in a couple of scenes (notably for me was when he guest stars on a celebrity cooking show, only to keep on his sexually-driven side with audience members). Then there are other scenes (i.e. 'you have fingers up you-know-where', and the genital enhancement) where male masculinity is questioned, and in very peculiar ways between Crane and Carpenter; Crane is homophobic, but then what exactly is Carpenter's function? More than anything, less than being a friend, he becomes a kind of unintentional pusher, where the draw of going out on the town becomes a crux for both of the men. What's just as fascinating then is how Schrader aligns this with his style- the first half is mostly very slick and professional-looking, almost like an HBO bio-pic or something. But then as the characters lose a grip on everything except themselves, there's a hand-held, distorted view to everything. There's lots of nudity and on-screen sex (some blurred out, likely by MPAA request), yet Schrader gets something more shocking, in the mind at least, as Carpenter almost becomes the antagonist in a way as the story winds down (the last phone call marks this most).
Auto Focus has the ideal of the usual biographical drama of a somebody in Hollywood who soon loses himself to becoming a nobody, but there's plenty under the surface that makes it more intriguing. Crane's two sides to his persona- the celebrity one, and the personal 'lifestyle' one- become one and the same after a while, Kinnear being able to make such a near-irredeemable person somewhat sympathetic (or at the least very watchable). And Carpenter's more truthful, emotional, and scary turn is made palatable by Dafoe's equally nuanced performance. It's not great, but it's a near-classic of the tale-of-such-and-such-star when so many don't take in what's deeper into account. A-
Director Paul Schrader often dives into the darker side of humanity. It's a sad portrait well delivered by Kinnear. On the other hand, the movie is not always great at delivering the danger and tension. For half of the movie, Bob Crane is not threatened with discovery. This keeps the tension low. It's got a chipper tone which is weird. It would have been nice to speed up the first half. It takes too long to get to his downfall. Willem Dafoe is equally strong and necessary for this movie to work. There is interesting work here but this should be more intense.
Lo sapevi?
- QuizThe leather jacket that Greg Kinnear wears while playing Bob Crane in the Gli eroi di Hogan (1965) scenes of this movie is the one that the real Crane actually wore during the filming of that TV series. Crane's son Robert David Crane loaned the jacket to Kinnear for this movie. Prior to the original "Hogan's Heroes" show, Frank Sinatra wore this exact same jacket in Il colonnello Von Ryan (1965).
- BlooperThere is a glimpse of the famous Capitol Records building painted silver. At the time of the film, it was actually painted black to resemble a stack of records.
- Citazioni
Bob Crane: I think it's perfect for me. I mean, this character Hogan, he's quick on his toes, he's hip, he's a con artist. I don't wanna jinx it, but I think it's what I've been working toward my whole career!
Anne Crane: Really? You've been working towards a Holocaust comedy?
Bob Crane: Ann!
Anne Crane: What, Bob?
Bob Crane: Please, not in front of the children! They look up to me!
Anne Crane: They're small. They look up to everyone.
- Versioni alternativeThe following deleted scenes appear on the DVD:
- Victoria finds Bob's body.
- Hogan's Heroes Montage
- Bob unloads drums and some dirty magazines fall out.
- Anne and Bob talking by the pool.
- Anne in the darkroom.
- ConnessioniFeatured in Auto Focus: Featurette (2002)
- Colonne sonoreSnap!
Written by Paul Schrader and Angelo Badalamenti
Performed by David Johansen (as Buster Poindexter)
Produced by Brian Koonin
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Dettagli
- Data di uscita
- Paese di origine
- Sito ufficiale
- Lingua
- Celebre anche come
- Autofocus
- Luoghi delle riprese
- Aziende produttrici
- Vedi altri crediti dell’azienda su IMDbPro
Botteghino
- Budget
- 7.000.000 USD (previsto)
- Lordo Stati Uniti e Canada
- 2.063.196 USD
- Fine settimana di apertura Stati Uniti e Canada
- 123.761 USD
- 20 ott 2002
- Lordo in tutto il mondo
- 2.704.951 USD
- Tempo di esecuzione1 ora 45 minuti
- Colore
- Mix di suoni
- Proporzioni
- 1.85 : 1