Once upon a time I had a whole library of scripts, mostly from the ff publisher, but many and just directories, in folders. The latter usually come with the source material when you buy the rights to the film. I had Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Monty Python in these folders. But there is only one book left. The Usual Suspects by Christopher McQuarrie - my hand didn’t go up at the next move, because every time I try to understand where exactly Brian Singer and his screenwriter are deceiving me like a little child with their “Suspicious Faces”. I still don't understand. So I carry this little book with me. I guess I'm dumb.
Of course, with the release of Suspicious Persons in 1995, the young director Singer gave American cinema another chance.
Not to mention the fact that he set such a style that only sparks flew.
But I'm afraid it was the pinnacle of Singer himself, who was ground down by the Hollywood studio system - and it's just the perfect example of how it works.
And having chewed, the system destroyed him morally too.
Let me explain now.
The entire creative and life path of Brian Jay Singer is also a seemingly classic path of an American independent film director. A boy from a decent, though not native Jewish family, New York (or rather, New Jersey, EVPOCHYA), all the cases. Passion for photography and motion pictures, the first 8mm camera. The stepfather had the money, so it was enough for two years at the Manhattan School of Fine Arts. Where all decent people studied - it was graduated, for example, by Jared Leto and about forty other quite super successful filmmakers in the 1990s alone, they are still known mostly by Americans.
Singer studied film-making for two years, as the advanced regulars of the Moscow British woman would say. And then he moved to the USC School of Cinematic Arts (LA), moreover, to criticism. But you and I already know that as soon as a person begins to become a film critic - expect trouble, he most likely wants to be the new Godard - a proud, independent, omniscient fan of the new wave and neorealism, who is about to tear the dull reality. It is also necessary to hang a poster À bout de souffle in the critical bedroom and learn how to smoke beautifully, sticking out a finger.
His first short, The Lion's Den, 1988 was an exercise with friends, including Ethan Hawke, whom he had known since childhood in New Jersey, and he was wildly lucky - he met a guy named John Ottman, who then loved to edit a movie.
Then he became a composer for all of Singer's films.
Well, it also happens.
Somehow the Japanese watched Lair and immediately wanted him to make a series of low-budget films for them.
Singer prescribed everything they needed, but something didn't work out.
But all that was written formed the basis for the painting "Public Access" in 1993.
This is Brian's first full-length film.
A bit of Hitchcock, American false well-being, and, one might say, the Antichrist, who came and destroyed all this well-being.
For its $ 250 thousand, the film was shot just fine, even though the script is lame on both legs.
They gave him a prize at Sundance anyway.
And this is a direct path to the independent geniuses of American cinema.
And he did not disappoint.
He founded a company he called Bad Hat Harry Productions in the auteur tradition with a nod to Spielberg and a line from Jaws.
After all, every independent director must constantly refer to something and hint.
Postmodernity will not work without this.
And he made "Ordinary Suspects" based on the script by Christopher McQuarrie, with whom he did "Public Access".
The music was written by former editing editor John Ottman, and N.T.
Siegel, who worked as an assistant cameraman on two of Oliver Stone's films.
And everything turned out just perfect.
And the two leading actors - Chazz Palminteri and Kevin Spacey, not to mention Benicio Del Toro with Gabriel Byrne.
Just a dream team.
Well, in general - a rebus for all 106 minutes of screen time.
The film took part out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival, which made it possible to increase the number of distribution areas.
And then - bingo - Kevin Spacey was given an Oscar for his supporting role, and McQuarrie - an Oscar for the best screenplay.
This is really a well-deserved success, and a person who is not associated with large studios, which have been actively painting awards for years.
I rolled the picture almost Polygram with Universal.
Well, Universal is one of the few media giants in the world that is trying to control all of the world's content.
And when it comes to the independent / studio watershed, they first of all talk about these giants like Sony, BMG, Warner, ViacomCBS, Disney.
And then Singer was offered two serious films - "The Truman Show" ($ 60 million budget) and "The Devil's Property" ($ 80 million budget) - well, in general, it's good that they were directed by Peter Weir and Alan Pakula, serious filmmakers.
Singer had a fix idea.
He was hunting for the rights to The Able Apprentice.
This is a Stephen King novel, and the film rights have already been bought.
And they even started filming him, but literally everything went wrong there.
And Stephen King already through the court began to take away the rights, when Singer approached him with his version of the script, and King liked it so much that he gave Brian the rights for one dollar.
Singer has his own personal relationship with this text - he read the story at the age of 19, and she plowed it.
Well, as far as great literature like Stephen King can plow.
When he became a director, he always dreamed of making a cinnabar version.
And now everything came true.
Almost a play for two - an old man and a boy.
Ian McKellen plays a Nazi criminal who obtained citizenship, and against him - the student of the school who collected a dossier on him - Brad Renfro.
As a condition of non-disclosure, the boy puts forward the obligation to tell how it really was in the concentration camps (something that we are not told at school).
The old man tells him about Babi Yar too.
One of the most powerful scenes is when a schoolboy brings an old man the SS Obersturmbannfuehrer uniform and forces him to march.
And how the old man comes to life and then says: "You are playing with fire, boy."
The film grossed only $ 8.9 million while spending $ 14 million. But these expenses were not worth spending - this was invested by the producer Scott Rudin, the man who produced almost all of Wes Anderson's films.
And, of course, he saw in Singer the hope of American independent cinema.
And then naturally #MeToo began, when it was completely out of fashion.
These freaks - American critics - got to the bottom, they say, in the film "moral priorities are not too clearly set."
And at the same time they tried to raise the storm from behind the scene of the naked hero in the school shower (where the souls of the murdered prisoners of the gas chambers are chasing him).
This is also a cool scene, and these people saw in it only "shooting a naked minor."
You hardly ever thought about it, you just didn’t come across, but how many foreign film critics have seen - this is a real freak show, a cabinet of curiosities of physical freaks, continuous flawed characters.
Russian filmmakers will somehow be prettier.
And so this whole circus for some reason got mad at Brian Singer.
It would seem - a Jew, bisexual, liberal utterly - that is, on the board.
Socially and sexually intimate.
But everything that happens to Singer cannot be called anything other than harassment.
He was accused of asking several teenage actors to film naked in a shower scene for The Apprentice.
Like one was 14, the other two were 16 and 17, and this was the cause of "psychological trauma."
They even muddied the lawsuit "on the basis of willful infliction of emotional damage, negligence and interference with privacy."
Yes, the actors went to go nuts there.
Yes, and by the way, the performer of the role of the boy Renfo died at 25 from a heroin overdose, it would seem, what does Singer have to do with it?
And they began to blame him for blurring the boundaries between homoeroticism and homosexuality and generally adheres to the rigid dichotomy “the executioner is masculine, the victim is feminine”.
Like - how can you drum in binary as a way to explain the conflict between good and evil, if now you have to say that the norm is non-binary.
The funny thing is that none of the speakers saw any contradiction in this statement.
Oh well.
And then Singer decided to sell his soul to the devil named Fox.
He went into the service of the studio by its rules, although, of course, Fox signed a production contract with Singer's own production studio.
Nevertheless, everything the studio does, it has done with him.
With a budget of $ 75 million, you can dictate your own terms.
Therefore, they immediately removed his "personal" composer Ottman from the budget and put Michael Kamen, by the way, an excellent pro.
Etc.
When we talk about mainstream Hollywood, we are talking about the fact that the film is no longer a director.
He's absolutely a producer.
The director's figure here is the same replaceable cog as all the others.
That is, the complete opposite of the "auteur cinema" that Singer began to do.
He directed X-Men in 2000 based on Marvel comics. It was a long-suffering project that was started by Orion (and, in fact, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and 1984. In those years, Marvel and all its heroes were a clearing for dull freaks, and for Hollywood it was of no value at all. Then, in 1994, Fox bought the rights and hired a rewriting team. When Singer came, he took McQuarrie, Ed Solomon and himself to rework this whole chaotic "world" that did not tell an outsider. It didn't work out very well anyway. Behind the jumble of action and special effects, the normal viewer understands that, in fact, nothing happens there, except for the action. And yes - at the exit from the cinema there should be some sad geek kid with thick glasses, who would explain to everyone all the interconnections, allusions and meta-clues in the film.Because only a long-term subscriber of the comic series can understand this.
But thanks to Singer's X-Men, the word Marvel is no longer “vegetable oil bullshit” to mean “gold”.
All this usual capitalist pursuit of squeezing every cent out of everything began.
Apparently, his own non-binary in life further led him to some kind of fuss under the client.
He tried to direct Confessions of a Dangerous Man for Harvey Weinstein, but was pushed aside by independent screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and George Clooney as director.
Then he rushed to make "Battle Star" Galaxy "- again a bummer.
Further more.
He did X-2 - the sequel to X Man - in 2003, and they brought in even more money - with a budget of $ 110 million, they raised $ 407 million. This is really a cash cow for the studio.
And the director is usually not at a loss - since, in addition to a certain fee, he usually has a percentage of the film's rental.
And then he tried to sit on two chairs non-binary, although for non-binary you probably need three chairs, not two - in 2004 he negotiated with Fox about directing X-Men: The Last Stand and immediately agreed to direct Superman Returns "From Warner. As a result, all contracts between his production studio and Fox were lost. Superman Returns with a wild budget of $ 200 million shows us a bleak picture of a dull plastic gay who calls himself Superman. Sometimes it directly seems that the main character is drawn completely in 3D.
In 2009, he tried the same trick again - and tried to simultaneously pick up the project "Jack the Giant Conqueror" on Warner and "X Man: First Class" on Fox, as a result he was left only with "Jack", which was so unattractive, that he collected exactly as much as he spent - $ 197 million. Have you seen him? Me not. And I don't even want to.
And in the meantime, he does not seem to know how to draw conclusions about his sexual practices, and he is pursued by endless accusations.
Then he was accused of getting drunk, dumbfounded and raped young actor Michael Egan.
Then someone anonymously accused him and producer Goddard of having sexually gender-used in London at the Superman premiere.
Then the anonymous man magically dropped the lawsuit.
And then in general - the writer Bret Easton Ellis ("American Psycho") said that two of his sexual partners told him that they participated in Singer's pederastic orgies on a youngster.
Well, beauty in general.
Either Singer is a crazy sex maniac, or he has made too much money and everyone wants to chop off something from him.
But he would not meddle in Big Hollywood, he would remain a legend of independent cinema.
You see, no one would have noticed the modest bisexual orgies at their dacha in Alaska.
But things are getting worse and worse.
In 2017, a certain Guzman accused him of rape in his, Guzman, 17 innocent years.
The USC School of Cinematic Arts (LA) has dropped it from its curriculum.
And then The Atlantic dug up four more young victims of Singer's rape.
At this point, Singer began to call journalists homophobes.
I shouldn’t have stopped, I should have called them anti-Semites right away, maybe it would have been better to go.
At this time, he filmed "Bohemian Rhapsody" - a rather meaningless and pretentious history of the group Queen, full of historical errors and contradictions, which nevertheless was nominated for a BAFTA award.
In short, Singer's name was deleted from there as a director (but left as a co-producer).
And then they deleted his name from the credits of the movie "Dark Phoenix" (2019) with a budget of $ 200 million. And the movie "Red Sonja", again based on Marvel Comics, which he was going to direct, was simply deleted from the plans of the Millennium Films studio.
It seems that his career is over.
Wouldn't you go to the Bolshoi Kino, guy.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.