The Black Dahlia shows ugly side of Hollywood

The Black Dahlia, a new film from Universal Pictures, was released last Friday, Sept. 15. Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johannson and Aaron Echart star in this beautifully filmed, yet easily confusing movie directed by Brian De Palma.

With a premise that intrigues almost every moviegoer, The Black Dahlia will be a shocking surprise to most. Loosely inspired by a grisly, unsolved murder in 1940s Hollywood, this film is almost incomprehensible.

With so many back stories and weighty characters packed into one barely discernable narrative, it becomes imperative to see the defining essence of The Black Dahlia, the critical piece that creates this film completely. That piece is the director, Brian De Palma.

The plot centers around two Los Angeles detectives, Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), paired together by the department because of their famously handsome faces and their formerly prestigious boxing careers. When starlet Elizabeth Short is found cut in half and sliced ear to ear, the detectives are roped into the case and soon become bogged down in its complexity. Various characters are thrown in and out of the story, with the convoluted narrative connecting vague side-plots to the murderer hunt.

The characters in The Black Dahlia are drawn strangely, like ones from completely different films that have been thrown violently into one.

Hartnett narrates with a quick tongue and snappy monologues which seem out of place with Eckhart's strange and fanatical obsession with the dead girl. Scarlett Johansson, as Eckhart's wife, serves merely to enlighten Eckhart's past troubles and create a bizarre love triangle between her and the two detectives. That, however, contrasts strongly with Hilary Swank's sex pot, who bares a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Short and seduces Hartnett to manipulate the ongoing murder investigation.

But the characters and plot are not what create this film. They serve only as a mantle upon which De Palma places his art. This director, more than probably anyone else alive, knows how to move and position the camera for his film, which makes watching the action on screen an absolute delight.

The Black Dahlia follows De Palma's Scarface and The Untouchables, expounding upon the style that signifies his films. He loves the first person camera shot, and he doesn't disappoint here, with the audience seeing the action from Josh Hartnett's viewpoint as he enters Hilary Swank's luxurious home for the first time.

His camera swirls around 360 degrees many times, wrapping the detective film in a surreal light. He swoops down upon the characters with perfect timing, spinning to catch the action as if it were merely a small part of the world around what is seen on screen.

This entire film is an exercise in De Palma's creativity with the camera positioning, angles and movement, and it succeeds thoroughly on this account (shown especially in an outstanding chase sequence up a staircase). Attention must be paid to these stylistic elements because this unique style is truly the heart of the film.

Viewers seeking an engrossing narrative-based film will be sorely disappointed, in addition to missing the purpose of the film. De Palma seems to scoff and jest at the entire concept of plot-based films (especially the emphasis detective films place on plot), using his story as a backdrop to do thrilling things with his camera.

If the audience is willing to see this film for what it is meant to be, a glorious stylistic achievement, they, surely, will not be disappointed.