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L.A. Confidential (film)

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L.A. Confidential
Theatrical release poster
Directed byCurtis Hanson
Screenplay by
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyDante Spinotti
Edited byPeter Honess
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Production
companies
Regency Enterprises
The Wolper Organization
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release dates
  • May 14, 1997 (1997-05-14) (Cannes)
  • September 19, 1997 (1997-09-19) (United States)
Running time
138 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$35 million[1]
Box office$126.2 million[2]

L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American crime film directed, produced and co-written by Curtis Hanson. The screenplay by Hanson and Brian Helgeland is based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same name, the third book in his L.A. Quartet series. The film tells the story of a group of LAPD officers in 1953, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity. The title refers to the 1950s scandal magazine Confidential, portrayed in the film as Hush-Hush.

At the time, actors Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe were relatively unknown in North America. One of the film's backers, Peter Dennett, was worried about the lack of established stars in the lead roles. However, he supported Hanson's casting decisions, and the director had the confidence also to recruit Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito.

The film grossed $126 million worldwide and was critically acclaimed.[3][4] It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning two: Best Supporting Actress (Basinger) and Best Adapted Screenplay; Titanic won every other category it was nominated in. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected L.A. Confidential for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[5]

Plot

In early 1950s Los Angeles, Sergeant Edmund "Ed" Exley, son of legendary LAPD detective Preston Exley, is determined to live up to his father's reputation. His intelligence, insistence on following regulations, and cold demeanor isolate him from other officers. He exacerbates this resentment by volunteering to testify in the "Bloody Christmas" case against his fellow officers in exchange for a promotion to Detective Lieutenant. This goes against Captain Dudley Smith's advice that a detective should be willing to shoot a guilty man in the back for the greater good. Exley's ambition is fueled by the murder of his father, killed by an unknown assailant whom Exley nicknamed "Rollo Tomasi".

Officer Wendell "Bud" White, whom Exley considers a "mindless thug", is a plainclothes officer obsessed with violently punishing woman-beaters. He confronts a former cop named Leland "Buzz" Meeks, a driver for Pierce Patchett, operator of Fleur-de-Lis. His call girl service runs prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to resemble film stars. White dislikes Exley after White's partner, Dick Stensland, is fired due to Exley's testimony. Smith later recruits White to torture out-of-town criminals who attempt to gain a foothold in Los Angeles when crime kingpin Mickey Cohen is imprisoned for tax evasion. The "Nite Owl case", a multiple homicide at a coffee shop, becomes personal after Stensland is found to be one of the victims.

Sgt. Jack Vincennes is a narcotics detective who moonlights as a technical advisor on Badge of Honor, a TV police drama series. He provides Sid Hudgens, publisher of the Hush-Hush tabloid, with tips about celebrity arrests that will attract more readers. When Vincennes becomes involved in Hudgens' scheme to set up actor Matt Reynolds in a homosexual tryst with L.A. district attorney Ellis Loew. After Reynolds is killed, Vincennes becomes determined to find the killer.

Three African Americans are charged with the Nite Owl murders and are later killed in a shootout after escaping from police custody. Although the Nite Owl crime looks like a botched robbery and appears to have been solved, Exley and White individually investigate it to discover indications of corruption all around them. White recognizes Nite Owl victim Susan Lefferts as one of Meeks' escorts, which leads him to Patchett. He begins a relationship with Lynn Bracken, a Veronica Lake look-alike prostitute. The body count rises when White searches the crawl space under Lefferts' mother's house, finding the decomposed corpse of Meeks.

Vincennes visits Smith with the evidence he found with Exley. As Vincennes explains this, Smith brandishes a gun and shoots Vincennes - who dies after uttering "Rollo Tomasi", the origin of which Exley told him in confidence. Exley's suspicions are aroused when Smith asks him who Rollo Tomasi is. During an interrogation of Hudgens, Smith arranges for White to see photos of Bracken having sex with Exley, which sends White into a rage and prompts him to go after Exley. Shortly afterwards, Smith kills Hudgens.

Exley discovers Meeks and Stensland used to work closely with Smith. White drives to the police station and fights Exley, which ends with the two realizing Smith is corrupt and scheming to take over Cohen's heroin empire. They decide to work together in order to take down Smith. After gaining evidence against Smith by threatening Leow, the two find Patchett murdered and deduce that Smith has been taking over after Cohen. All of the killings have been Smith tying up loose ends.

Exley and White are set up with a trap against Smith and his hitmen. After a gunfight that kills the hitmen, Smith appears and shoots White in the face - only for Exley to hold him at gunpoint. As the police arrive, Exley kills Smith by shooting him in the back. At the police station, Exley emulates Smith's criminal activities to explain the events that he uncovered with White and Vincennes. The LAPD cover-up Smith's crimes by saying he died in the shootout, to protect the department's image. In exchange, Exley is hailed a hero and receives a medal for his bravery. Upon leaving City Hall, Exley sees Bracken and she tells him she plans to return home to Arizona with White. Exley and White shake hands before the former watches Bracken driving off into the sunset with the latter.

Cast

Production

Development

Curtis Hanson had read half a dozen of James Ellroy's books before L.A. Confidential and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. He said, "What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn't like them - but as I continued reading, I started to care about them."[6] Ellroy's novel also made Hanson think about Los Angeles and provided him with an opportunity to "set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the '20s and '30s, was being bulldozed."[6]

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland was originally signed to Warner Bros. to write a Viking film with director Uli Edel and then worked on an unproduced modern-day King Arthur story. Helgeland was a long-time fan of Ellroy's novels. When he heard that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to L.A. Confidential in 1990, he lobbied to script the film.[6] However, at the time, the studio was only talking to well-known screenwriters. When he finally did get a meeting, it was canceled two days before it was to occur.[6]

Helgeland found that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was making The River Wild. They found that they not only shared a love for Ellroy's fiction but also agreed on how to adapt Confidential into a film. According to Helgeland, they had to "remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out."[6] According to Hanson, he "wanted the audience to be challenged but at the same time I didn't want them to get lost".[7] They worked on the script together for two years, with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing seven drafts for free.[6]

The two men also got Ellroy's approval of their approach. He had seen Hanson's films The Bedroom Window and Bad Influence, and found him to be "a competent and interesting storyteller", but was not convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the eventual director.[6] He later said, "They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main theme. Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny."[6]

Warner executive Bill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO of New Regency Productions, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get the approval from the owner of New Regency, Arnon Milchan. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of L.A. mounted on posterboards, and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in the San Fernando Valley, and the opening of the Hollywood Freeway to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public.[6]

Building used for movie premiere scene in L.A. Confidential

In the pitch, Hanson showed the darker side of Ellroy's novel by presenting the cover of scandal rag Confidential and the famous shot of Robert Mitchum coming out of jail after his marijuana bust. He also had photographs of jazz musicians Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan, and Chet Baker to represent the popular music people of the time.[6] Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground.[8] Milchan was impressed with his presentation and agreed to finance it.

Casting

Hanson had seen Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper and found him "repulsive and scary, but captivating".[6] The actor had read Ellroy's The Black Dahlia but not L.A. Confidential. When he read the script, Crowe was drawn to Bud White's "self-righteous moral crusade".[9] Crowe fit the visual preconception of Bud. Hanson put the actor on tape doing a few scenes from the script and showed it to the film's producers, who agreed to cast him as Bud.[10]

Guy Pearce auditioned like countless other actors, and Hanson felt that he "was very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley."[6] The director purposely did not watch the actor in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, afraid that it might influence his decision.[10] As he did with Crowe, Hanson taped Pearce and showed it to the producers, who agreed he should be cast as Ed. Pearce did not like Ed when he first read the screenplay and remarked, "I was pretty quick to judge him and dislike him for being so self-righteous ... But I liked how honest he became about himself. I knew I could grow to respect and understand him."[11]

Milchan was against casting "two Australians" in the American period piece (Pearce wryly commented in a later interview that while both he and Crowe grew up in Australia, he is British by birth, while Crowe is a New Zealander). Besides their national origins, both Crowe and Pearce were relative unknowns in North America, and Milchan was equally worried about the lack of film stars in the lead roles.[6]

However, Milchan supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. Hanson cast Crowe and Pearce because he wanted to "replicate my experience of the book. You don't like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn't want actors audiences knew and already liked."[12]

A third Australian actor unknown to American audiences at the time, Simon Baker, later to star in the TV series The Mentalist, was cast in the smaller but noteworthy role of Matt Reynolds, a doomed young bisexual actor. He was billed as Simon Baker Denny in the film's credits.

Hanson felt that the character of Jack Vincennes was "a movie star among cops", and thought of Spacey, with his "movie-star charisma," casting him specifically against type.[10] The director was confident that the actor "could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul," and when he gave him the script, he told him to think of Dean Martin while in the role.[10] Hanson cast Basinger because he felt that she "was the character to me. What beauty today could project the glamor of Hollywood's golden age?"[12]

Pre-production

To give his cast and crew points and counterpoints to capture Los Angeles in the 1950s, Hanson held a "mini-film festival", showing one film a week: The Bad and the Beautiful, because it epitomized the glamorous Hollywood look; In a Lonely Place, because it revealed the ugly underbelly of Hollywood glamor; Don Siegel's The Lineup and Private Hell 36, "for their lean and efficient style";[10] and Kiss Me Deadly, because it was "so rooted in the futuristic '50s: the atomic age."[6][10] Hanson and the film's cinematographer Dante Spinotti studied Robert Frank's 1958 photographic book The Americans and felt that the influence of his work was in every aspect of the film's visuals. Spinotti wanted to compose the shots of the film as if he was using a still camera and suggested to Hanson to shoot the film in the Super 35 widescreen format and in spherical lenses, which in Spinotti's opinion, conveyed the same feel of a still photo.[13]

Before filming took place, Hanson brought Crowe and Pearce to Los Angeles for two months to immerse them in the city and the time period.[12] He also got them dialect coaches, showed them vintage police training films, and introduced them to real-life cops.[12] Pearce found the contemporary police force had changed too much to be useful research material and disliked the police officer he rode along with because he was racist.[14] The actor found the police films more valuable because "there was a real sort of stiffness, a woodenness about these people" that he felt Exley had as well.[12] Crowe studied Sterling Hayden in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing "for that beefy manliness that came out of World War II".[10] For six weeks, Crowe, Pearce, Hanson and Helgeland conducted rehearsals, which consisted of their discussing each scene in the script.[15] As other actors were cast they would join in the rehearsals.[10]

Principal photography

Lynn Bracken's house. 501 N. Wilcox Ave., Los Angeles

Hanson did not want the film to be an exercise in nostalgia, and so had Spinotti shoot it like a contemporary film, and used more naturalistic lighting than in a classic film noir.[16] He told Spinotti and the film's production designer Jeannine Oppewall to pay great attention to period detail, but to then "put it all in the background".[10] L.A. Confidential was shot at the Linda Vista Community Hospital in the Los Angeles area.[17][18] Several famous Hollywood landmarks appropriate to the 1950s were used, including the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood, the Frolic Room on Hollywood Boulevard, and the Crossroads of the World, an outdoor shopping mall dressed as a movie theatre where a premiere takes place at the beginning of the film.[19] Pierce Patchett's home is the Lovell House, a famous International Style mansion designed by Richard Neutra. Lynn Bracken's house is at 501 Wilcox Avenue in the affluent Hancock Park neighborhood, overlooking the Wilshire Country Club.[20] The house required a $75,000 renovation to transform it into the Spanish-style home described in the script.[19] Historic Central Los Angeles neighborhoods were used for the scenes in which the police hunt down the Nite Owl suspects, including Angelino Heights, Lincoln Heights, and Koreatown.[19] The Victory Motel was one of the only purpose-built sets, constructed on a flat stretch of the Inglewood Oil Field in Culver City.[19]

Music

Main article: L.A. Confidential (soundtrack)

Jerry Goldsmith's score for the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, but lost to James Horner's score for Titanic.[21]

Reception

The film was screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.[22] According to Hanson, Warner did not want it shown at Cannes because they felt that there was an "anti-studio bias ... So why go and come home a loser?"[10] However, Hanson wanted to debut the film at a high-profile international venue like Cannes. He and other producers bypassed the studio and sent a print directly to the festival's selection committee, which loved it.[16] Ellroy saw the film and said, "I understood in 40 minutes or so that it is a work of art on its own level. It was amazing to see the physical incarnation of the characters."[6]

Box office

L.A. Confidential was released on September 19, 1997, in 769 theaters, grossing $5.2 million on its opening weekend. On October 3, it was given an expanded release in 1,625 theaters. It went on to make $64.6 million in North America and $61.6 million in the rest of the world, for a worldwide total of $126.2 million.[2]

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, L.A. Confidential holds an approval rating of 99% and an average rating of 8.81/10, with 109 out of 110 reviews being positive. The website's critical consensus reads, "Taut pacing, brilliantly dense writing and Oscar-worthy acting combine to produce a smart, popcorn-friendly thrill ride."[3] On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[4] On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.[23]

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and described it as "seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted, and one of the best films of the year."[24] Later, he included it as one of his "Great Movies" and described it as "film noir, and so it is, but it is more: Unusually for a crime film, it deals with the psychology of the characters ... It contains all the elements of police action, but in a sharply clipped, more economical style; the action exists not for itself but to provide an arena for the personalities".[25]

In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Mr. Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Mr. Pearce and fiery, brawny Mr. Crowe, qualify as revelations."[26] Desson Howe, in his review for The Washington Post, praised the cast: "Pearce makes a wonderful prude who gets progressively tougher and more jaded. New Zealand-born Crowe has a unique and sexy toughness; imagine Mickey Rourke without the attitude. Although she's playing a stock character, Basinger exudes a sort of chaste sultriness. Spacey is always enjoyable."[27]

In his review for The Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, "The big star is Los Angeles itself. Like Roman Polanski's depiction of Los Angeles in the '30s in Chinatown, the atmosphere and detailed production design are a rich gel where the strands of narrative form."[28] USA Today gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying of the screenplay, "It appears as if screenwriters Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson have pulled off a miracle in keeping multiple stories straight. Have they ever. Ellroy's novel has four extra layers of plot and three times as many characters ... the writers have trimmed unwieldy muscle, not just fat, and gotten away with it."[29]

In his review for Newsweek, David Ansen wrote, "L.A. Confidential asks the audience to raise its level a bit, too—you actually have to pay attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot. The reward for your work is dark and dirty fun."[30] Richard Schickel, in his review for Time, wrote, "It's a movie of shadows and half lights, the best approximation of the old black-and-white noir look anyone has yet managed on color stock. But it's no idle exercise in style. The film's look suggests how deep the tradition of police corruption runs."[31] Writing in Time Out New York, Andrew Johnston (critic) observed: "Large chunks of Ellroy's brilliant (and often hilarious) dialogue are preserved, and the actors clearly relish the meaty lines. Dante Spinotti's lush cinematography and Jeanne Oppewall's crisp, meticulous production design produce an eye-popping tableau of '50s glamour and sleaze."[32]

In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "Mr. Crowe strikes the deepest registers with the tortured character of Bud White, a part that has had less cut out of it from the book than either Mr. Spacey's or Mr. Pearce's ... but Mr. Crowe at moments reminded me of James Cagney's poignant performance in Charles Vidor's Love Me or Leave Me (1955), and I can think of no higher praise."[33] Kenneth Turan, in his review for Los Angeles Times, wrote, "The only potential audience drawback L.A. Confidential has is its reliance on unsettling bursts of violence, both bloody shootings and intense physical beatings that give the picture a palpable air of menace. Overriding that, finally, is the film's complete command of its material."[34] In his review for The Independent, Ryan Gilbey wrote, "In fact, it's a very well made and intelligent picture, assembled with an attention to detail, both in plot and characterisation, that you might have feared was all but extinct in mainstream American cinema."[35][36] Richard Williams, in his review for The Guardian, wrote, "L.A. Confidential gets just about everything right. The light, the architecture, the slang, the music ... a wonderful Lana Turner joke. A sense, above all, of damaged people arriving to make new lives and getting seduced by the scent of night-blooming jasmine, the perfume of corruption."[37]

L.A. Confidential has been described by some authors as a neo-noir film.[38][39]

Accolades

L.A. Confidential was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, Kim Basinger for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay). It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Sound Mixing (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Kirk Francis), but lost all the categories to Titanic.[40][41] Basinger tied for the Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role – Motion Picture with Gloria Stuart from Titanic at the 4th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.[42]

TIME magazine ranked L.A. Confidential as the best film of 1997.[43] The National Society of Film Critics also ranked it as the year's best film and Curtis Hanson was voted Best Director.[44] The New York Film Critics Circle also voted L.A. Confidential as the year's best film in addition to ranking Hanson as best director, and he and Brian Helgeland with the best screenplay.[45] The Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review also voted L.A. Confidential as the year's best film. As a result, it is one of three films in history to sweep the "Big Four" critics awards, alongside Schindler's List (1993) and The Social Network (2010).[44]

It was also voted as the best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list."[46] In 2009, the London Film Critics' Circle voted L.A. Confidential one of the best films of the last 30 years.[47]

Home media

A DVD was released on April 21, 1998. In addition to the film, it included two featurettes, an interactive map of Los Angeles, a music-only track, a theatrical trailer, and three TV spots.[48]

The movie was released again as a two-disc Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray on September 23, 2008.[49] Both sets contain the same bonus content. In addition to the features from the original DVD, included are four new featurettes, the 1999 pilot of the proposed TV series starring Kiefer Sutherland, and film commentary by critic-historian Andrew Sarris, James Ellroy, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Ruth Myers, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Brian Helgeland, Jeannine Oppewall, Dante Spinotti and Danny DeVito. Some sets included a six-song sampler from the film's soundtrack.[48]

On September 26, 2017, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the current distributor and part owner of New Regency, re-released the film on Blu-ray as part of its 20th anniversary with new cover artwork. The disc has identical technical specifications and Bonus Features as the previous Warner Blu-ray.[50]

See also

References

  1. ^ "L.A. Confidential – Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  2. ^ a b "L.A. Confidential (1997)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  3. ^ a b "L.A. Confidential (1997)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 1, 2019.
  4. ^ a b L.A. Confidential at Metacritic
  5. ^ Mike Barnes (December 16, 2015). "'Ghostbusters,' 'Top Gun,' 'Shawshank' Enter National Film Registry". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Sragow, Michael (September 11, 1997). "City of Angles". Dallas Observer. Retrieved July 21, 2015. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ Dawson, Jeff (December 1997). "Mean Streets". Empire. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  8. ^ "Press Conference at Toronto International Film Festival". TIFF. 1997. Archived from the original on 2008-12-30. Retrieved 2015-11-15.
  9. ^ Smith, Adam (December 1997). "The Nearly Man...". Empire. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Taubin, Amy (November 1997). "L.A. Lurid". Sight & Sound. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Kempley, Rita (September 21, 1997). "Guy Pearce Cuts Through the Chase". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  12. ^ a b c d e Veniere, James (September 14, 1997). "Director of L.A. Confidential Hits Stride". Boston Herald. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ Williams, David E. (May 3, 2018). "Wrap Shot: L.A. Confidential". American Society of Cinematographers. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
  14. ^ Hemblade, Christopher (December 1997). "Breaking the Mould...". Empire. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  15. ^ Arnold, Gary (September 21, 1997). "Casting for L.A. Confidential went in unexpected direction". The Washington Times. pp. D3. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  16. ^ a b Taubin, Amy (September 23, 1997). "Confidentially Speaking: Curtis Hanson Makes a Studio-Indie Hybrid". The Village Voice. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  17. ^ "For Location Scouts, It's All About Making The Scene". NPR. February 25, 2011.
  18. ^ "Film locations for L.A. Confidential". Movie Locations. 2015-10-30. Retrieved 2015-11-15.
  19. ^ a b c d Chris Eggertson (2017-09-29). "'L.A. Confidential': The ultimate filming locations map". la.curbed.com. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  20. ^ Template:Cite article
  21. ^ "Nominees & Winners for the 70th Academy Awards". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on February 18, 2010. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  22. ^ "Festival de Cannes: L.A. Confidential". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-09-22.
  23. ^ "Cinemascore". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20.
  24. ^ Ebert, Roger (September 19, 1997). "L.A. Confidential". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  25. ^ Ebert, Roger (September 4, 2008). "Great Movies: L.A. Confidential". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2019-10-22.
  26. ^ Maslin, Janet (September 19, 1997). "The Dark Underbelly of a Sunny Town". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  27. ^ Howe, Desson (September 19, 1997). "Noir 'Confidential': A Clever Case". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 21, 2015. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  28. ^ Lacey, Liam (September 19, 1997). "L.A. Confidential". The Globe and Mail. pp. C1. Archived from the original on April 6, 2004. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  29. ^ Clark, Mike (September 19, 1997). "Cool L.A. Confidential: Classic film noir to the core". USA Today. pp. 1D. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  30. ^ Ansen, David (September 22, 1997). "Noir Kind of Town". Newsweek. p. 83. Retrieved July 21, 2015. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  31. ^ Schickel, Richard (September 15, 1997). "Three L.A. Cops, One Philip Marlowe". Time. Retrieved 2009-01-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  32. ^ Johnston, Andrew (September 18–25, 1997). "L. A. Confidential". Time Out New York: 73.
  33. ^ Sarris, Andrew (September 28, 1997). "Confidentially Speaking, Noir's Gone Hollywood". The New York Observer. Retrieved 2009-01-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  34. ^ Turan, Kenneth (September 19, 1997). "Noir for the '90s". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  35. ^ Gilbey, Ryan (October 31, 1997). "Thugs, pigs and paparazzi in Fifties LA". The Independent. p. 8. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  36. ^ Benedict, David (November 3, 1997). "Choice: Film: LA Confidential". The Independent. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
  37. ^ Williams, Richard (October 31, 1997). "LAPD blue". The Guardian. p. 6. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  38. ^ Sanders, Steven; Skoble, Aeon G. (2008). The Philosophy of TV Noir. University of Kentucky Press. p. 3.
  39. ^ Conard, Mark T.; ed. (2009). The Philosophy of Neo-Noir. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 081319217X.
  40. ^ "The 70th Academy Awards (1998) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
  41. ^ Weinraub, Bernard (March 24, 1998). "Titanic Ties Record With 11 Oscars, Including Best Picture". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  42. ^ Van Gelder, Lawrence (March 10, 1998). "Footlights". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  43. ^ "The Best Cinema of 1997". Time. December 29, 1997. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  44. ^ a b Lyman, Rick (January 5, 1998). "L.A. Confidential Wins National Critics' Awards". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  45. ^ Maslin, Janet (December 12, 1998). "L.A. Confidential Wins Critics Circle Award". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  46. ^ Boucher, Geoff (August 31, 2008). "The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
  47. ^ Child, Ben (December 1, 2009). "Apocalypse Now tops London critics' 30th anniversary poll". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-12-02.
  48. ^ a b Spurlin, Thomas (23 September 2008). "L.A. Confidential: Two-Disc Special Edition". DVD Talk. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  49. ^ "L.A. Confidential Two-Disc Special Edition". Business Wire. June 16, 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  50. ^ Master, Web (August 28, 2017). "L.A. Confidential 20th Anniversary Blu-ray Edition". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved September 2, 2017.

Further reading

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