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| "She called me a dirty word." |
What I do know is that Brick has become one of my favorite neo-noirs. It was bold and unique, while at the same time echoing the genre's past in loving and respectful ways.
I tripped down a noir hole this weekend, and decided to revisit one of my favorite modern noirs in celebration. Also, the wife was out of the house, and I wouldn't get in trouble for rewatching a movie we'd both seen.
Summary:
Emily's (Emilie de Ravin) in trouble, and she calls and old flame,Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), for help. When she goes missing, he makes it his mission to find her and find out who has it in for her. Brendan is plunged back into the darkness he fought so hard to escape. Before the end, people will die, drugs will be bought and sold, and labyrinthine plots will writhe together. Also, this is all set in high school.Pros:
A Revelation: This was Rian Johnson's first feature film, and he knocked it out of the park. He would go on to direct episodes of Breaking Bad, and write and direct a pair of films before landing the unenviable job of writing and directing Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Love him or hate him, the man has made the most of his slingshot into the big time. And it all started with Brick. Johnson's love of cinema and his vision are apparent in every frame and spoken word. The script burns like it is possessed by Dashiell Hammett's ghost; the score evokes elements of old school noir jazz, spaghetti western, and eerie clinking bottles; the camera snap pans and rotates playfully. Johnson took a shoestring budget and a cast of relative unknowns, and crafted a neo-noir masterpiece.A Haunting Score: Johnson's cousin, Nathan, composed the score to this film on an Apple Powerbook. He gave each character a feel and a motif: Em and Brendan get those wonderful bottles and piano; The Pin is pure jazz; Tug is a blend of bluesy guitar and thrashy metal. Nathan Johnson weaves in found instruments like a soda straw, filing cabinets, and various kitchen utensils. The score is at once recognizably noir, and incredibly original. Both elements do battle for space in the film, and Johnson finds ways to make them both work together.
A Stoic Shamus and a Dangerous Dame: The cast are all here to play: they take Johnson's (who wrote and directed) dialogue and root it in a believable manner. No one does it better than Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Nora Zehetner. JGL's Brendan is stoic, and self-assured, willing to be physically beaten (multiple times) to get what he wants, and to keep popping up for more. Zehetner's Laura is a femme fatale if there ever was one. Her doe eyes, and trendy clothes mask a ruthless player, and Brendan is never sure how much he can trust her. Their chemistry is kinetic and they share some of the film's best scenes together, rattling off hard-boiled zingers with aplomb. Kudos, also, to the supporting cast: Lucas Haas is a picture of calm, rationale menace, replete with a bird-head cane and a cloak; Noah Fleiss' Tug is murderous rage bottled in a compact space; Noah Segan's Dode is a whimpering opportunist; Megan Good's Kara is slinky noir sex-worker repackaged is a serpentine theatre kid. You can't make this film without actors who are game to sell the dialogue, and Johnson has assembled a fine rogue's gallery.
What's Old Is New: Noir is notable for its character archetypes and common themes. Rian Johnson found a way to repackage these types, and explore those themes in a unique context: he set his noir in a Southern California high school. At first, that sounds absurd, and the movie really has no business working as well as it does. But think about this: where else is everything taken deadly serious on a daily basis? Where else do the people speak a patois so aggressively inclusive? Where else are people shunted into stereotypical roles? High school is actually the perfect noir analog, and Johnson mines it for every ounce of gold he can. The police are now the school's front office; lorded over by the vice principal, played by genuine badass Richard Fucking Roundtree. Our shamus is a social outsider who pontificates about the shallowness and falsity of everyone around him; our femme fatale is the "it" girl; Brendan's underworld contacts are represented by a gang of rockabilly stoners, the theatre kids, and a kind of hacker genius dubbed, "The Brain." Johnson carefully weaves the noir types into the high school world to rewarding results.
Playful: This movie KNOWS that it is pastiche. It has fun with it. Johnson's camera snap pans and swings around, showing us characters posed in dead-pan seriousness: The Pin sitting regally in his basement lair; Brendan trying to stay upright, standing in the back of a van, doubled over comically; Brendan snatches a straw out of one of Dode's stoner minions and ties it in a knot before sticking it back between the goon's lips. The film goes dark, for sure, but alleviates some of its pressure with playful comedy bits.
The Locations: Pay close attention to the sets and locations in this film: every place feels real and lived in. The high school looks like a real school (it was shot at Johnson's actual high school), slightly rundown and shaggy around the edges. The Pin's house is retro 70s chic: all wood panels, garish colors, and cutesy accouterments. There is something about the juxtaposition of the hard boiled dialogue with the hyper-realistic sets that plays well to me.
Shoes: The characters in this film are defined, in small ways, by their footwear. Brendan and Em both wear beaten, scuffed, old school leather shoes. They are idealistic, reminiscent of another, simpler time, and both have been chewed up and spit out by the world. Dode wears an old pair of snappy cowboy boots, belying his cowardly wannabe-tough-guy nature. Laura always wears boots or heels. Tug is outfitted in oversized romper-stomper combat boots. The Pin has an oversized corrective boot on one foot and a snazzy dress shoe on the other. These are minor details, but Johnson takes pain to show them to us in deliberate shots again and again.
The Little Things: I love so many of the little things in this movie that might escape notice on first viewing. For instance: during the scene where Brendan is called into the VP's office (a "bull," in the parlance of this film), both he and VP Trueman are shot from below in a hero shot. Both men are on equal footing here: the camera angle lets us know that Trueman isn't in a position of power over Brendan. Another instance is the use of the mirror in The Pin's house. Brendan uses a large oval mirror to reflect light into a darkened room in order to find the titular brick of drugs on the floor. Brendan is using a classic tool of self-reflection to shine light upon the central mystery of the movie. While he finds what he's looking for, he is still missing key, very personal, details that have large ramifications on the story and the mystery at hand (he didn't use the mirror for what it's made for: self-reflection). Then there's the chase scene where a thug tries to knife Brendan. Brendan takes off running across campus, the CLOP CLOP CLOP of both of their feet thundering in the halls. Brendan cuts around a corner, takes off his shoes (so the goon won't hear him coming), and baseball slides into the oncoming attacker from around a corner, sending the assailant headfirst (with a comical metallic BONG!) into a pole. I loved how clever and tough that made Brendan, without any dialogue or exposition. He's a kid who knows how to handle himself. I could probably write for pages and pages about all the little things I loved about this movie, but, in the interest of time, I will refrain. Just watch it already.
Cons:
A Bit Complicated For Its Own Good: In an effort to play by noir's rules, Brick starts and rarely lets up. The problem is that it twists itself into knots, often insisting on being a little too complicated for its own good.In Conclusion:
I loved this movie the first time I saw it. I still love this movie. I'm glad that's still the case. I found it hard, actually, to write about this movie, because I love it so much.Should You Watch It?
If you're a fan of noir, consider this a must. If you dig Rian Johnson's recent work, and want to see where he got his start, check this one out. It streams on Netflix.Miscellany:
- Johnson has cited the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and the anime, Cowboy Bebop, as visual inspirations for the movie. JGL's performance as Brendan is even reminiscent of Spike Spiegel, the protagonist of Cowboy Bebop.
- Johnson wrote the script in 1997. It took him six years to secure funding to actually make the movie. In fact, the movie was originally written as a novella, which the director made available on his website.
- While set largely at a high school, there are no scenes in an actual classroom.
- The film was shot in 20 days, with a budget of $475,000.
- The entire film is shot in Johnson's hometown of San Clemente, CA.
- Johnson wrote the script in 1997. It took him six years to secure funding to actually make the movie. In fact, the movie was originally written as a novella, which the director made available on his website.
- While set largely at a high school, there are no scenes in an actual classroom.
- The film was shot in 20 days, with a budget of $475,000.
- The entire film is shot in Johnson's hometown of San Clemente, CA.
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