STORY STUDY - MEDIUM: FILM - “L.A. Confidential”
- Jeffrey Tung
- Aug 6, 2018
- 2 min read
“Come to Los Angeles… It’s paradise on Earth. That’s what they tell you anyway.” And based on this film and the world of 1950s Los Angeles, it doesn’t look like the city has changed much over the years.
Directed by Curtis Hanson, screenplay by Hanson & Brian Helgeland, and based on the novel of the same name by James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential is the story of three Los Angeles policemen who become involved in a power vacuum left behind when criminal Mickey Cohen is left behind.
What starts off as an investigation in a robbery at a restaurant that leaves one former cop dead slowly becomes an untangling of corruption within the Los Angeles law enforcement and politicians.
The cinematography and set design of 1950s Los Angeles is breathtaking. It’s like watching a film noir if the color film technology existed during that time.
The story is constructed by mingling fictional events with true life, such as criminal Mickey Cohen and the Bloody Christmas scandal in 1951. They are never the focus; only the driving force for the plot.
While it feels like one of the three cops doesn’t get much development, the other two, “Bud” White and Ed Exley have a perfect arc for a story like this. Exley wants to be a by-the-book cop in a dark world; White is a hardened cop who aims to protect women from violent men. However, when both these cops are pushed to the edge, they become what they sworn to fight against.
It’s a tone that is not for me, but it’s the story and character arcs that make me unable to hate it.
I was introduced to this film in screenwriting courses in college; the screenplay had won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars in 1997. In my own time, I was able to watch the whole film and was just fascinated with the time period and how it was presented here.
L.A. Confidential is a dark, cynical take of the City of Angels that argues that in order to achieve your dreams, sometimes you have to become the one thing you told yourself you weren’t going to become in order to attain them… and that’s alright.
Check it out, and remember… just the facts.
