Originally published June 10, 1994, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1073
The thug is on the ground, blinking in terror and fear at his chalk-faced attacker. Unable to hide his panic, he stammers words to the effect of, “You’re dead! You’re dead! You can’t come back! This is real life! This is real! The dead don’t come back in real life!”
As I’ve mentioned in a past column, it’s an old writing trick to try and give a movie (comic book, novel, whatever) an additional air of actuality by having characters cite a particularly hard-to-swallow plot element and pointing out that such things only happen in works of fiction. The inference to be drawn is that what you’re experiencing is not a work of fiction but, in fact, something with a much greater claim to reality than mere fabrication.
Yet never has such a line had more of a sense of melancholy than in the The Crow, the beleaguered and notorious film version of James O’Barr’s highly personal and highly charged magnum opus (as in, many magnums were fired.)
The Crow, in both comic book and movie, tells the fairly straightforward story of Eric Draven, a young man whose unfortunate encounter with a group of vicious goons results not only in his own murder, but in the rape and murder of his fiancée, Shelly. One year later, Draven returns from the grave as “The Crow,” taking his name and essence from the psychopomp bird that flaps around the borders of the land of the dead. He then goes on a bloody rampage against those who destroyed his life. Not until the very end do his targets realize the true, unstoppable nature of what they’re facing, and by that point it’s too late… not that earlier awareness would have done them much good. The Rocketeer it ain’t.
The line mentioned in the first paragraph is delivered to the star of The Crow, Brandon Lee, eerily summoning both the look and intensity of O’Barr’s creation. And, as everyone is painfully aware by now, Lee died in the latter days of the film’s production… ironically, in filming in the scene in which Draven is shot to death. Consequently, The Crow has become the closest we’ve ever seen to a Major Motion Snuff Picture (although, thankfully, the actual footage in which Lee was shot and killed was dropped from the film).
After production was shut down for a time, the film was then finished through a combination of rescripting and sequences shot with Lee’s stand-in. The integration of the film scenes is smooth, and the story is not overly complex to begin with. Indeed, in some ways, the added complexity almost becomes a weakness.
The comic has a stream of consciousness feeling about it, and although the writing is choppy, the characters surfacy, and the Crow himself never nearly as clever with a one liner as he thinks he is, what makes it work is O’Barr’s intensity. Every line seethes with O’Barr’s personal tragedies, and The Crow seems the truest comic book incarnation of the old Red Barber comment about writing being easy; all that’s required is that you open a vein. The Crow is not a triumph of style over substance. Instead, the style is the substance.
Director Alex Proyas tries his dámņëdëšŧ to capture that same kinetic feeling, and he succeeds more often than he fails. What we’ve got here is a Tim Burton movie without the self-indulgence. Even moreso than Gotham City, the cityscape of The Crow is the dreariest, bleakest and most ambiance-filled environs since Blade Runner. The sweeping shots, the in-and-out zooms across the rooftops, are oftentimes breathtaking. The fight scenes are ballets of brutality as Draven alternately leaps, dodges, hits, and sometimes even stands there and takes it with the confidence of one who has taken the absolute worst that life (and death) have to dish out, and has only come back for more.
As for Lee himself: the star quality is definitely there. Some reviewers are stating flatly that this is the film that would have made him a star. Hard to tell. Critics are a fickle lot, and it’s just as likely that–had Lee not died during the filming–critics might have brushed off both the film and Lee. “Pedestrian fare,” they might have said, “Bleak, brooding and depressing. Comics should be fun, shouldn’t they? Not dark and dreary.”
But because it’s Brandon Lee’s last performance, and because of the bizarre nature of his death, people are taking a long, hard look at his acting. And they like what they see. As well they should. On the surface you have the Crow’s relentless thirst for vengeance; but bubbling just below the surface is a mordant sense of humor that—one is inclined to think—is Draven’s coping mechanism for the horror of his fate. And just below that are flashes of Draven’s genuine humanity. We get only the barest hints of what Eric Draven the man was like, but it’s enough to drive home the tragedy of the youth whose life was cut tragically short by violence.
The original comic, however, reflected one person’s outcry against unfairness and a thirst to balance the scales. Shelly’s death was random and pointless, as was Draven’s. A few incidental characters popped up here and there, but largely it was Draven’s story.
That simple story, however, was apparently judged to be too simple (and not formula enough, one presumes) for Hollywood. Scripters David Schow and John Shirley expanded the parts of two minor characters: a cop, Albrect (Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame) and a little girl named Sherri (renamed “Sarah,” and played by Rochelle Davis). They’re there mostly to be point-of-view characters, entry points into the story for the audience (the reasoning being, one supposes, that a cop or a little girl are easier for viewers to relate to than a walking white-faced corpse. If the late-night audience I saw the film with was any indicator, then this was a bad call. This crew seemed more in sync with the flapping crow (as in bird) than with the so-called normal people.
Their functions and back stories are purely rote: Albrect is elevated from frightened cop to the standard-issue police detective who put noses out of joint and got busted for it. He serves primarily as a story hook, and someone for Eric to talk to between increasingly elaborate slayings.
As for Sarah, although it is her scenes with Eric that are the most effecting (Draven’s humanity is at its most visible with both Sarah and her prostitute mother), ultimately her major function is to be the requisite second act turning point damsel in distress. (The second act turning point in any movie usually occurs about ten to fifteen minutes before the end, and features some story development that ups the stakes for the hero and introduces a time element–a ticking bomb, or a helpless victim who will be slain unless the hero shows up pronto.)
If the writers had expanded the characters from O’Barr’s work and come up with something novel for them, that would make it far more palatable. As it is, they add nothing that we can’t see coming a mile off.
Also, Hollywood seems to have an aversion to random, pointless violence. Whereas O’Barr’s Eric and Shelly were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, in The Crow Shelly is specifically targeted because her pro-tenant activities upset some ruthless building owners. It’s a labored device, reminiscent of last year’s The Fugitive in which Richard Kimble’s wife was the victim of a byzantine plot, rather than the one-armed man just being a random burglar as in the TV series. As a result of an obsessive need to have every single plot thread tie neatly into a package, the writers in these cases undercut the true message. That message, of course, is that life is patently and grotesquely unfair, and bad things happen to nice people for no dámņëd good reason.
Not to mention that portraying Draven as an unstoppable force, an elemental creature of inexorable vengeance, was apparently not good enough for cinematic demands. So an element was added whereby the crooks can overcome Draven’s invincibility. This puts our hero in jeopardy as well (a critically wounded cop and a child dangling by her fingertips over a thirty story drop was insufficient peril, apparently), and sets up a climax that’s fifty percent Blade Runner (again) and fifty percent Highlander.
Still, Hollywood will be Hollywood, clinging to its usual shtick. But the film has its heart in basically the right place, and endeavors to do right by James O’Barr and Brandon Lee. In that respect, it is largely successful. There may be some condescension to the audience on the assumption that theater-goers cannot handle material unless it has enough comforting easy elements to hang on to. They might be right; casual audiences might have been scared off by the vivid intensity of O’Barr’s vision.
But as it is, The Crow is an exciting, visually arresting work which has no reason to be ashamed of its comic book origins. It is utterly devoid of the annoying “camp” elements which pervaded any number of earlier comic book movie projects… so devoid, in fact, that one almost feels cretinous complaining about any aspect of the film. Perhaps we should be grateful that comic book stories are getting serious treatment and leave it at that.
Nor can one argue with the success of Hollywood’s script formula: The film has opened Number One in the box office. Now how much of this is due to the quality of the film itself, and how much is as a result of a morbid fascination with the film’s tragic history… it’s hard to say for sure.
Still… there’s one final irony that should be mentioned.
The last thing in the film as the credits finish rolling is a statement that no animals had been harmed in the production of the film, and that the “utmost” caution and care had been taken in their handling.
It’s lamentable that, ultimately, the same could not be said of the care taken of the humans in the film.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, wants to know if he’s the only one who feels annoyed seeing dolls labeled “Fred Flintstone,” When it is, in fact, not Fred Flintstone, but something dressed like Fred Flintstone that has John Goodman’s head stuck on it. We wonder if the film will present a similar state-of-mind problem.)
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I’m bothered by John Goodman topped Fred Flintstone action figures (because, y’know, we guys don’t play with dolls! 🙂
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But I’m FAR more disturbed by this cinematic thing that calls itself Yogi Bear. In 3-D yet… I mean, honestly, I’ve seen ads for the dámņëd thing for a month now, and I have not heard ONE PHRASE from the real theme song. Lots of rap music though… because, y’know, who doesn’t associate Yogi Bear with rap? GAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!
When I went to see Dawn Treader yesterday, I had to sit through 10 minutes of previews and trailers.
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By the end, I wanted to cry: there’s a lot of drek coming out in the next year.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the Yogi Bear theme song. I do remember the song about going to St Louis, from Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear, the REAL Yogi Bear movie.
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Will Yogi Berra have a cameo in this new one?
I’ve been twitching about this for months now. In the pre-movie trailers (dunno about TV… what’re commercials again? I forget…) he does say “Smarter than the average bear!” And Justin Timberlake does a surprisingly good Boo-Boo, from what I’ve heard. And Dan Aykroyd is pretty decent at Yogi.
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But still. Another case of Hollywood taking my childhood, shoving it in a fridge, dropping it under a nuke, and then taking the whimpering, bruised mess out of the fridge and beating it with a sledgehammer.
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Of course, that being said, I’m still eagerly awaiting Voltron, Thundercats, and Silverhawks movies… I need help.
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This reminds me, I need to figure out if Prince Caspian and Tron were actually filmed in 3D or just computer-shoved into it.
… and by “Prince Caspian,” I of course meant “Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Obviously. Can I blame that on my cat stepping on the keyboard? No? Darn.
Afaik, Kevin, they were ‘computer-shoved’. Only a couple of these so-called 3D movies were actually filmed in 3D: Avatar and Piranha 3D, maybe one or two more. I think they’re going to film The Hobbit movies in actual 3D (*sigh*).
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Most are just getting the post-filming hack job so Hollywood can have another excuse to charge higher prices. “Real 3D” my ášš.
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What sickens me is what I saw at the end of the trailer for Thor: “In 3D… and select 2D theaters”. The theater where I went to see Dawn Treader was showing it in 3D on 3 screens, and regular on one screen.
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I guess Hollywood doesn’t want me to go see movies in theaters any more.
I really liked this film. It captured something that the sequels never came close to. Lee portrayed a real sense of duality, going between a demon killing machine and a sweet guy who cared about the people around him.
I really liked The Crow when I first saw it, but man did it not reward second viewings. Watching it again later on video, all the flaws and idiocies were exposed. Really a movie you need to watch the once and stick with your fond memories….
And now I’m wondering if Heath Ledger would have been so lauded had he not OD’d six months before Dark Knight opened.
I don’t wonder about that.
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I’m sure of it.
I’m not sure if he’d have been an Oscar contender, because the Oscars are slow to acknowledge performances in genre films. Consider, for instance, what a huge deal it was when Sigourney Weaver was nominated for “Aliens.”
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But I think he definitely would have had all the plaudits and praise that fans and critics heaped upon him either way. It was a brilliant performance.
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PAD
But I think he definitely would have had all the plaudits and praise that fans and critics heaped upon him either way. It was a brilliant performance.
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Plus Ledger had been building up a resume leading up to it. This was his first “major” release after Brokeback Mountain, and if you’ll recall, the press played the failure of that film to win Best Picture as little less than a hate crime. Ledger would absolutely have gotten attention, and that attention would have been focused on what PAD aptly terms a “brilliant performance.”
I remember that The Crow was quite popular in the town I lived in back then. Everyone I worked with, at both jobs, had seen it.
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No one, however, believed me when I told them the movie was based on a comic book. Even when shown the graphic novel and the publication date, they still insisted that the comic was based on the movie.
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Theno
I wasn’t impressed with THE CROW, and I believe if Brandon Lee hadn’t died this would have been forgotten as just an overly dark and gloomy goth action flick.
I did love Evan Dorkin’s THE ELTINGVILLE SCI-FI, FANTASY, COMICS, HORROR, AND MOVIE CLUB (sic) where an uber-geek described THE CROW (I’m paraphrasing here): “Sure it had weak acting, horrible directing, a boring story, and you couldn’t see anything. But Brandon Lee DIED! That ROCKS!!!”
While that may sound callous (may?), I think his death was the big selling point for this movie. And I wonder how many fans were disappointed that the film showing his death was destroyed.
His death brought it some attention, but I genuinely liked the movie.
So did I, although I barely remember it. I remember the sequel more clearly, unfortunately.
I’m sure there were some sick bášŧárdš how there who were disappointed, but I tend to think simple common decency prompted most people to be relieved. Can you imagine that existing in perpetuity on youtube?
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PAD
According to things i’ve read, when a stunt player is killed on a film, if the footage can be used without being morbid or horrifying, it’s generally used.
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For instance, i believe that i xXx, the parakiting footage used in the film is the take on which the stunt man was killed, cutting away just before the actual accident.
Errrh.
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You’d think that after all these years i’d get simple HTML right…
Can you imagine that existing in perpetuity on youtube?
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The first thing that springs to mind is the video of the crash where Dale Earnhardt died. It’s on YouTube.
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The video of that Iranian girl murdered by police forces and her last moments? Copies of that video still exist on YouTube and have been viewed hundreds of thousands if not millions of times.
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So, yes, I can imagine it, as there are plenty of examples already available.
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Apparently there are enough ‘sick bášŧárdš’ out there: ‘death’ related searches comprise the first 3 entries on YouTube if you start searching for Brandon Lee.
So, yes, I can imagine it, as there are plenty of examples already available.
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Yeah, but Craig, the examples you named were instances of news that was being recorded out in public while it was happening. Watching something like that on youtube…you’re seeing a news event being replayed (although I admit that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch any of the examples you mentioned.) There’s lots of recorded news events where you’re watching people die: the Challenger explosion. The WTC, for heaven’s sake.
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To me it’s just…it’s different from footage of a simple movie stunt going horribly awry. It’s just different. It’s similar to the producing decision to bury the footage of Steve Irwin being killed. I mean, yeah, the guys are just as dead, but what I was referring to specifically was the decision of the producers to destroy the film so the horrible events wouldn’t have to “live on,” so to speak, for the benefit of people who want to watch the equivalent of a snuff movie.
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PAD
You’ve made me want to see this film again. I remember being disappointed in it when it first came out. I thought it was overly dark without a lot of cohesion or emotion. I didn’t feel invested in it. of course, it’s certainly possible that my heightened expectations have something to do with my recollection – and initial opinion.
Of course, I have read and seen “masterpieces” for the first time years after their production/publication. I actually found both “The Godfather” (the movie) and “Watchmen” (the comic) to be “disappointing” and “overrated” when I first experienced them.
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I think when something’s been built up to be the “best ever” over time, it will be almost impossible to meet expectations. I now look at those works and see them in a much more appreciative light.
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While I didn’t think “the Crow” was being hyped as “the best ever” it was still hyped quite a bit. I think that ultimately diminished – or at least altered – my appreciation of it. I would like to see it again.
I had mixed feelings about The Crow, which happened to be the first movie I reviewed during my 18-month tenure writing newspaper movie reviews. As I said in my review:
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“Lee gives a strong performance as the brooding, tortured Draven… Strong performances are also given by Ernie Hudson and Rochelle Davis… The three characters are, in fact, the only ones I could identify with. The bad guys were all cardboard cut outs with little or no distinction between them.”
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I also wasn’t impressed with the character of the “crime boss” who didn’t seem to have any purpose beyond proving some 30 lieutenants “with the opportunity to engage in a long and boring shoot-out with Eric.”
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I concluded by saying that Lee’s performance earned a B, with the movie as a whole earning a C-. But if not for the performances of Lee, Hudson and Davis, the film would probably have gotten an F.
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The only other thing I ever saw Brandon Lee in was a Kung Fu TV movie with David Carradine, and two movies isn’t much to go by; but I’m fairly certain that had he lived, he would have compiled a strong body of work.
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Rick
I remember loving THE CROW. I watched it multiple times. It was the perfect movie for the angry, moody teenager that I was. As a bonus, I was very disappointed in Burton’s Batman movies, and THE CROW seemed to me to be as close as we’d ever get to a Batman movie done right.
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Heck, it was the first superhero movie I really liked. I mean, I had liked Superman I and II all right, but those movies already seemed old when I was a teen, and perhaps the utter disaster of Superman III and IV was too fresh on my mind.
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I am curious to rewatch THE CROW today to see if I’d like it as much. Particularly when we DO have Batman movies (and plenty of superhero movies) now that I love.
I still have never seen The Crow or The Dark Knight Returns because of what happened with their actors. For some reason, I can watch (or listen to) Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Buster Keaton, Chaplin, and the like without being wigged out that they are “addressing me from beyond the grave” but some actors and the events of being around when they were, and then aren’t, it just bugs me. I haven’t watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” since Jimmy Stewart died, for similar reasons. I don’t claim that it makes any logical sense.
Well, I obviously can’t speak on behalf of Jimmy Stewart or Heath Ledger since I don’t know them. I did know Brandon Lee, if you could call a two minute casual phone conversation “knowing” someone.
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But I can speak for myself, Jonathan, and I can tell you this: If I passed away and you decided you couldn’t bring yourself to read my work or watch TV shows that I had written, that would sadden me. The words that I produce…that’s my shot at the immortality that the human condition denies me, and I assume that it’s the same for actors.
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I’m not trying to argue with you about it because you said it yourself: it’s not logical. You can’t argue with how someone feels or say they’re wrong to feel about it. All I’m saying is that writers, actors…we live on in the work. If people don’t enjoy the work, well…kinda defeats the purpose.
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PAD
I think it’s just that part of my brain is trying to deny that death happens to members of “my group” i.e. people who were around when I was. Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Aristophanes, Sophocles? No problem; they’re part of “the other” so I’m safe.
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(One of my favorite bits on Cheers was when Frasier didn’t want to make out a will. When he finally did, Lillith said something like “Did you really think that if you never addressed death, you would never have to face it?” His response, “Well, I guess now we’ll never know.” It was like they had written that line just to put me in the show for a second.)
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With authors it was almost exactly the opposite. When Asimov was still with us (and I’ve appreciated your interviews with the man) I was, for some reason, so intimidated with prolific authors that I couldn’t even start reading them. It was as though if I picked the “wrong” first book of theirs to read then that would be something terrible, or that something terrible would happen. After he passed away I stopped being so dumb about it and friends loaned me the Foundation Trilogy and I, Robot, which got me started on his work, and eventually led me to start reading David Brin. I’m glad that somehow I stopped being intimidation by an author’s sheer volume and have read a bunch of Harlan Ellison’s work. Again, no consistency, I’m pretty sure that I was introduced to Zelazny’s Amber series after he had left us, and loved that and his sleeper character, and Lord of Light. RA lafferty,? heard about him the most and read Fourth Mansion some time after Neil Gaiman reported his passing.
Again, no rhyme or reason. The thought of seeing Andreas Katsulas or Richard Biggs again on B5 scares me a little for some reason, but after George Carlin dies, my first thought was “I can wait to go look at some of his clips on youtube, especially his ones about death and dying, that will be very comforting.”
Eh, more typos:
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That should have been “but after George Carlin died, my first thought was “I can’t wait to go look at some of his clips on youtube, especially his ones about death and dying, that will be very comforting.”
I honestly don’t know how I would/will feel when and if I outlive an author I’ve met at a signing: You at San Diego comic-con autographing my copy of the first Sir Aporpos book, William Gibson, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Paul Dini, etc. I don’t go to a lot of signings. Probably when and if it happened I’ll get a flash of memory of being a fun signing time, maybe look at the book to remember, maybe reread it, I don’t know.
And it appears the browser ate my correction.
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That should have read “but after George Carlin died, my first thought was “I can’t wait to go look at some of his clips on youtube, especially his ones about death and dying, that will be very comforting.”
I honestly don’t know how I’ll react when and if I outlive an author I’ve met at a signing: You at Comic-con signing my copy of the First Sir Apropos book, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Paul Dini, Willian Gibson, etc. I’ll probably get a quick flash of memory at the event and smile remembering how fun the event was, maybe look at the book. Reread it? I honsetly don’t know. Neail gaiman has posted that he finds Lord of Light Ccomforting still.
I’ve been getting comics signed for almost 20 years and it’s always weird when I go through my collection and see stuff signed by Will Eisner, Gil Kane, Mike Wieringo, and others who have left us.
When Will Eisner left up, I really wanted to get my hands on “The Plot” and was glad to find his work in a Dark Horse “The Escapist” anthology that Diana Schutz said was his last work. I’d read “Contract With God” before, but when I saw a new version a few years ago with a previously unpublished introduction, I needed to read taht intro right away.
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Mark Evanier has written in his columns and on his blog that he hates having to right obits and “last remininces” stories, but that he does it because it’s “one last chance to spend some time with these people.” That was how I felt about Will Eisner’s posthumosly published work. Why I don’t like it with actors though, I dunno. I’m cool listening to Orson Welles as Unicron the Tranformers movie and I was around when it came out, but still…
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(Last night I was flipping channels and something with John Ritter came on, I didn’t have “the reaction” nor did I when watching a Saturday Night Live tribute to Phil Hartman. Maybe it’s just deliberately seeking the stuff out, I dunno.)