Understanding L.A. Confidential
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ค. 2024
- James Ellroy popular noir crime thriller was adapted into a critically acclaimed movie with Russel Crowe, Guy Pierce, and Kevin Spacey. The book is very complex, so the question is: how were they able to make such a successful and faithful adaptation of an "adaptable" book?
Book plot video • L.A. Confidential plot...
The Black Dahlia book vs movie • The Black Dahlia Book ...
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00:00 intro
01:09 book review
06:55 movie review
09:47 Ed Exley and Bloody Christmas
12:36 Bud White
13:05 Jack Vincennse
14:42 Bud, Jack, and Ed
15:59 The Night Owl case
19:20 Inez Soto
21:34 Jack and Fleur-de-Lis
24:00 Lynn Bracken and Bud
26:05 Re-opening the Night Owl
27:56 Book ending
32:43 Movie ending
37:23 book and movie thoughts
41:52 Women in the book
44:02 Book vs Movie
Drinking game idea-take a drink of water every time I say confusing/confused! By the time the video is over, you will be very well hydrated 😆
So you had complaints about the novel, and none for the movie, and the book wins? uhm, ok... that doesn't track
@leebrandt8597 yeah I probably should have said the movie 😆
@@WhytheBookWins let's call it a draw :)
I had a great time listening/watching this. You're really good at making eye contact and being on point with your dialouge. I absolutely love the film, I think now I'll read the book thanks to you ❤
Thank you so much! Yeah if you like the movie I tin you will find the book really interesting.
Thank you for the shout-out!! I love supporting your channel and this video is exactly why: a thoughtful and thorough - really, really thorough - examination of a great book and movie! This video and the Ellroy Wall video are so neat-o!
thank you so much! Glad you liked the LA videos :D
Really liked this movie. Thanks for sharing the differences to the book. I've only read Brown's Requiem and it in itself is a dope LA crime drama. Probably one of the best Private eye type stories I've read. I actually went to a book signing / police story screening that James Ellroy hosted. He was cool. kind of almost felt like a character out of one of his books. Had lots to say about what David Fincher was going to do with "The Black Dahlia" when he was going to direct. But yeah.. with LA Confidential .. I watch it once every couple years. And it's always a great solid flick. Always holds up in my opinion. Nice to hear the differences.
Glad you liked the video! Yeah i really liked the movie!
Thanks to my high school teacher who showed this to us as part of our film class. I didn’t read the book till afterwards, but it definitely managed to streamline the book’s narrative to a better degree for a film audience
For sure! I think the book would have been easier to follow had I watched the movie first even though their plots differ.
There's no way Titanic should have gotten the Academy Award over LA Confidential
Yeah it's been a while since watching Titanic but it didn't leave too much of an impression on me tbh.
Good review. Smith and Exeley square up in the last book, White Jazz. I really think Brian Hegeland read Ellroy's earlier book Clandestine and swapped in some of the L.A. Confidential characters and wrapped it up with the end of Big Nowhere for his screen adaptation. The movie is masterful in pacing and does just enough with the cast to root for Crowe's White and Pearce's Exeley with Smith sitting as a huge villian that the movie reveals only at the end. Book readers know Smith is evil from earlier books. The movie was Curtis Hanson's love letter to L.A. in the 1950's closer to what it probably was than the marketed image. The opening of the movie frames it all. Again great review, great work! Keep it up!
Thank you! And that's for commenting! This was definitely an interesting one to cover.
George Clooney has the movie rights to "White Jazz" but he's flaking out saying he does not want to play a character this evil even though they know cuts to the book for the movie have to be made??!!!
Holy cannoli this was MESMERIZING. Good stuff!! How would you feel about doing a Hubert Selby series w Last Exit to Brooklyn (fave book of all time) and Requiem for a Dream… and maybe Thomas Harris if you haven’t done so yet! Anyway I’m glad I found this channel!!
thank you! I have definitely considered Requiem for a Dream! It's so heavy though so I keep putting it off lol
Back when films were plot and character driven and exciting. I miss the 90s. Please do more 80s/90s film/book comparisons.
I have always loved the film--having seen it in the theater when it was released-and just this week finished the book. Ha ha glad that I wasn't the only person occasionally confused by the intricate plot and myriad characters. I was also surprised by how different the movie was from the book and how much of their back stories were cut (understandably)-but could still "see" and "hear" the actors cast in the film in my head as I read the book, which indeed made it great casting (particularly Crowe, Pearce, Spacey and Cromwell). That's probably a good idea to right down people's names to track them. I similarly found Ellroy's staccato approach to writing a bit confusing-as well as his sudden reliance in the book on long passages of conversation full of exposition!
Yeah the book was definitely an experience lol! I did love the movie though and I would for sure watch it again. (I think I said the book wins, and while I do respect how intricate the story is, I should have said the movie wins!)
@@WhytheBookWins did you say you never read "The Black Dahlia" because it did not win a Readers poll and LA Confidential did because James may come close but will never TOP "The Black Dahlia" an absolute masterpiece!!!!!
Appreciate you
The inside of the front and back covers of my L. A. Quartet are plastered with lists of the book's characters and what they do (less so The Black Dahlia). I can only describe that as - necessary! And quite fun. One felt as if I was interacting with the narrative in the fashion of a detective.
Oh that's so cool! I should buy the set. I am currently reading The Black Dahlia by the way! Book vs movie for that will be out in June.
Great review and well done setting out what is a very complex plot and characters. You should read The Big Nowhere (previous) and White Jazz (conclusion) as to a very significant extent its one long story covering the 1950s period when James Ellroy grew up (his mother/father had an acrimonious marriage followed by Divorce when he was 9. She was murdered (and possibly/probably raped) when he was 10. This is outlined in his first semi-autobiography My Dark Places). I wont go further (spoilers). No other films though:(
Oh wow! That's so terrible and sad 😔
Dudley ends up getting his at the end of "White Jazz". I have the Everyman Library edition of the quartet books and it's great. All four books together under one cover, so you get everything and all of the interconnections. The movie is one of my top three films.
I just read The Black Dahlia and want to read the other two as well! I love how they are interconnected while still having their own stand alone plots. I'll need to check out the Everyman Library Edition! thanks for commenting 😀
@@WhytheBookWins I also lived in Medford, MA for a few years. There's a small memorial there for Elizabeth Short. She grew up there before ending up in that vacant lot in LA in 1947.
I may be wrong and misremember, but my impression was part of the reason why Inez's suicide is an FU to Exley (it goes back to his/their motive for getting into the relationship in the first place given their complex relationship). My last read was quite a long time ago now.
Good review I read the novel LA. Confidential back in the 90s when I discovered James Ellroy and read couple of his books. Yes, it is a complex book and does have lot of characters and plot line did get very confusing that I lost my way a bit. The movie is lot better and much clearer.
Yeah the movie on its own can be a bit confusing, but compared to book the it is much more straightforward! Maybe next year I'll cover Black Dahlia because I would like to read another Ellroy.
Try reading My Dark Places which is brilliant. It's about James attempting to find who murdered his mother when he was a ten year kid. Heartbreaking and sad but a facinating book.
It's one of few times I thought movie was better than book . Cutting out exley father character and dreamland side plot was good. I read perfidia and this storm . This storm very hard to follow along I haven't seen a synopsis or review on TH-cam
I've never seen the movie, but I listened to the audiobook and I was completely lost half the time. My mind tends to wander when I listen to audiobooks and what with this book having a trillion characters, and with the author sometimes calling the characters by their first names and sometimes calling them by their last names, I just couldn't keep everything straight lol.
Yes! Even though I loved the narrator the audio was too confusing for a first time reader lol
When he was a boy James Ellroy's mother was brutally murdered in LA not long after Elizabeth Short was murdered. Her killer was never caught either
I have a more recent video on The Black Dahlia and talk about that 😔
@@WhytheBookWins i just found your channel, i'll check it out. Thanks
I love Ellroy, if you get absorbed its like a halucination/time travelling experience.
I really need to revisit him! What's one of your favorite books of his?
@@WhytheBookWins My favorite Ellroy is White Jazz. DO NOT READ WHITE JAZZ...yet. It's all actually connected. Chronology is a thing believe it or not. I would suggest The Black Dahlia into The Big Nowhere. That leads into L.A. Confidential, and then into White Jazz.
That means going BACK two books, and ending one ahead. But that's just the beginning of Ellroy..
@@markcollins2704 thanks for sharing! I'll cover Black Dahlia next year!
@@WhytheBookWins I look forward to your opinion. Everything aside, Ellroy is a GENRE. Not just some random writer.
my humble opinion....'confidential' is a good book but much like stephen king 'elroy' has a distinct tendency to OVERWRITE and even if i like the book in question i find myself starting to lose interest and just wishing the book would end already.
that and i make allowances fer stephen king since his books are fantasy anyway but with a book like 'CONFIDENTIAL' i find myself continuously picking the narrative a part along the lines of "that would never happen in real life".
That’s a bizarre comment. Ellroys books are the most pared-down, direct and plot driven novels possibly ever written. Stephen King…wtf
The book is definitely superior. That said, the film adaptation is exceptional. These are two different mediums that engage the human imagination in different ways. The filmmaker took a great novel and adapted it to his medium while completely honoring the soul of that story. Both the book AND the novel remain high on my list.
Totally agree! I had a hard time picking which I prefer because both were great in their own mediums.
It's a great movie... couldn't get through the book.
Yeah, while the book is impressive and so expansive, I don't blame people who don't finish it because it can be tough to get through for multiple reasons.
Reading the number one form of entertainment because authors write alone and you read alone there has always been a debate wether The Postman Always Rings twice or Double Indemnity is better or The Black Dahlia or LA Confidential is better both DI And LAC are great books but TPART is a masterpiece and I read a review which said in The Black Dahlia James Ellroy basically reinvented Crime drama and created a new genre and I agree with that when In Postman Cora swam out a long way to give her husband a chance to drown her to prove their love I'm thinking man this is a twisted masterpiece BUT in Dahlia at the point when Bucky says I thought of Lee at my feet and I shuttered I'm thinking this is unbelievable better then Postman😂!!!!!
Plus I want to say you don't have to have seen your mother abused and murdered to be repulsed by violence towards women do you know ANYONE not repulsed by violence towards women or anyone "yeah I'm pro-life and pro-violence towards women"??? read James Ellroy said Russell Crowe was mis-cast or maybe even it was Russell Crowe who said this I forget but one said the actual character Bud White was supposed to be alot bigger and tougher looking then Russell Crowe??!!!
The titanic is in bits and pieces , so that works out
A dramatis personae would have made things much easier for the reader
No. Way. The movie is better than a book. Dream-a-dreamland? Ecksley marrying the young woman from E Los?
The great line - the brilliant line - “…Rollo Tomasi…” as Kevin Spacey dies… that’s not in the book.
It was a tough call! In many ways the movie was better than the book. I should have said it was a tie!
Honey, you don’t know Elroy. His mother was murdered near LA and lives in the 1950s. You need to read all his books to understand LA Confidential
I recently covered The Black Dahlia and that is when I found out about his mom. And reading the first book in the quartet definitely made me realize these are best read in order! Thanks for commenting, honey.
Kim Basinger won an Oscar and I don't get it! She is not memorable in any of her few scenes she's in. I would have given it to her for 8 Mile a few years later.
Yeah i thought she was good, but not oscar worthy... You're right about 8 mile though!
an award for not having an award before !
LA Confidential is a very overrated film, IMO. I will never understand how Kim Basinger got nominated AND won the Oscar. You could actually do a book vs. movie on Titanic. It's a truly fantastic blockbuster. The video would be interesting since the book James Cameron used is historical and not fiction.
I like the movie a lot, but I'll admit I was surprised Basinger won. And that would be interesting! I'll have to look into that
Personally love this flick, but yeah. Its not the 1st time I've seen or felt weird that she won for this performance. It was okay. She did a fine job but wasn't blown away. But also, I've never really been a fan of the Oscars or any award show. They never gave any love to the flicks I loved watching growing up.
@guerrillaworks there's so much politics going on with awards shows, like with who gets nominated and why. Even though I enjoy the Oscar's to an extent, realizing the truth about them has ruined the "magic" of it
Titanic was much more of an event film. It was ‘supposed’ to win. LA Confidential was a better story, we’ve been hearing about the Titanic for over 100 years.
You're completely wrong. Titanic is aging poorly with poor cgi and wooden acting. LA confidential is aging like fine wine and is still relevant today
People complain about Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Garcia Marquez, Dickens, among many others, for too many characters. Maybe a few deserve the denigration, not this one. Your note-taking advice is sound.