Brick (the Movie)
For those you have seen Brick, the directorial debut for Rian Johnson, this may remind you to see it again. For those of you who haven’t seen it, you’re in for a particular treat.
A true cinema classic, Brick overlays teen high school movie locations with the language and plot of hardball detective stories, most directly those of 1920’s author Dashiell Hammett. (A favorite of the Coen Brothers, Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest, and the main influence for the Coen’s Miller’s Crossing - The Glass Key.) The film’s visual style is a homage to classics such as Cowboy Bebop, Sergio Leone Spaghetti Westerns, and the 1974 classic Chinatown.
Writing the script and raising the money himself - mostly through family and friends - Johnson manages to avoid cuteness or artifice (as in the musical Bugsy Malone) or the aimlessness that often appears in post-film school DIY efforts. Brick is a completely focused, engaging piece of cinema, well deserving of its Sundance award for Originality of Vision.
Brick’s dialogue takes a short while to get into, but the effort is rewarded with gems that would otherwise be unavailable (its insider lingo detective talk sounds more like Shakespeare, or scenes from A Clockwork Orange).
Just as impressive as the script is the direction - with unconventional camera angles and action often occurring just outside of the picture frame, both propelling the action forward. Notably, it includes some of the funniest fight scenes in cinema. Also noteworthy is the acting of the young cast (including a very Heath Ledger-like Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The pace lags a little after the first half, but (thanks to months of rehearsals with the cast, and extensive location scouting and planning) each scene appears as a classic of its genre.
Shot in only 20 days, mainly in easily accessible locations, such as the director’s own high school (whilst closed for the weekend), an abandoned house (demolished shortly after shooting) and a borrowed, unfinished mansion, Brick also uses inexpensive and in-camera tricks (such as pulling black plastic off from the camera, or driving a car quickly backwards, and screening the footage in reverse). The soundtrack was composed by the director’s cousin (composed over iChat, and largely recorded with improvised instruments, directly into an Apple PowerBook’s inbuilt microphone). The film works with these constraints, however, and it would be hard to imagine any improvements given a greater budget or time.
An impressive work for any director, Brick is even more impressive as a first feature. It is all the better for repeated viewings. Pick up a copy from Amazon (cheap these days). Film or literature junkies can also read the lovely script online.
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