癲狂院 Vixen Owl Cigar..。o○

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN CRANE


Paul Schrader (American Gigilo, Raging Bull) directs this movie.. Rated R for strong sexuality, nudity, language, some drug use (cocaine), 107 minutes run-time.......

A Kodak Moment To Be Forgotten
Which is really a shame, because AUTO FOCUS is an altogether absorbing and very disturbing account of "Hogan's Heroes " star Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear ), who on the surface appeared as Boy Scoutish as can be (All American nice guy, doting family man ) but secretly indulged a sex-addict double life of Caligula style proportions which may or may not have resulted in his death by bludgeoning in 1978 (A case, like that of Tupac, which has sadly gone unsolved ).
Adapted by Michael Gerbosi from the book THE MURDER OF BOB CRANE by Robert Graysmith , pic opens in 1964 when Crane, a sometime actor and disc jockey, lands "Hogan's " and coasts to celebrity on the success of the cheesy, unorthodox POW comedy.

Although there is some mention that Crane is into smutty pictures at this point, his participation in full blown sex-capades really takes off upon meeting John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe ), an electronics whiz who turns Crane on to the video industry and recruits women for their numerous rendezvous.
Rest of pic concentrates on their relationship as Crane degenerates further into a quagmire of sin after the cancellation of "Hogan's ," when the actor struggles to maintain a career amidst circulating rumours of his deviant behavior.
Pic concludes with dissolution of the Crane-Carpenter union, and Crane getting whacked.

Pic's main strength lies in its principal casting.
Kinnear is a revelation as the seedy Crane, who maintains a remarkable air of wholesomeness even as he descends further into Motley Crue decadence.
Besides the actor's preternatural charm, he brings a winning aloofness to the role, which strikes an alarming and cogent contrast as Crane morphs into a lecherous buffoon (The sequence where Crane makes an appearance on a cooking show is particularly painful to watch ).
As superb as Kinnear is, Dafoe practically steals the film from him as Carpenter, Crane's Mephistopheles-esque partner in crime who was tried and acquitted for Crane's murder.
Watch Dafoe in his final scene, after Crane has essentially "dumped " him: the psychological unravelling the actor projects is intensely mesmerizing (It helps that pic's superb photographer Fred Murphy shoots this with erratic movement ).
Together, the pair make up a unique, pre-Mick and Keith Glimmer Twins set whose relationship (The sequence where the two masturbate while watching one of Crane's several "home films" feels absurdly touching in its warped domesticity ) is the singular heart of the film: an ostensible same-sex marriage made in debauched heaven.

【Willem Dafoe】 Auto Focus 【Greg Kinnear】
Don't Drink, Don't Smoke, Don't Swear, but I LOVE MY SEX..

The story begins at Crane's "gig" as a disc jockey at an LA radio station, where he is most successful, due to his charm and likeability.. He gets his biggest break while taking a role on a seemingly controversial television show, "Hogan's Heroes".. The film showed us that with fame comes corruption.. Crane was originally a man who could pass for a member of the Brady Bunch, but was consumed by sexual deviancy.. However, through both his need to be liked and to please everyone, he fell deeper and deeper into trouble....

Who killed Bob Crane?

That's perhaps the one question "Auto Focus " asks that is never answered and left to speculate.
Some say his best friend John Carpenter was responsible, while other suspect it could've been his ex-wife.
Or a jilted lover, an angry husband or boyfriend, or just a total stranger.
But this is one thing that is never answered in "Auto Focus ", but is portrayed as the one puzzling question that will perhaps never be resolved.

What is most interesting about the film was throughout the deviancy, the audience maintains a sense of hope, and after each failure, we feel sympathetic to this man who is seemingly oblivious to his problems.....

Eventually, Crane's views changes from consuming himself with likeability, to sex.
His later 'life lesson ' was, "A day without sex, is a day wasted ."
He shared this view with a newfound friend, John Carpenter.
Carpenter, subtly strange, was played magnificently by one of the best actors in work, Willem Dafoe ("Boondocks Saints," "Shadow of The Vampire," "Spiderman" ).
The relationship and adventures of Crane and Carpenter is the focus of the majority of the film.
They would go to orgies, troll strip joints and go to bars.

Auto Focus doesn't look a whole lot like any other Paul Schrader picture.
The film itself compels much interest in full exploration of these questions -- not to mention how its a brilliant, exotic and celebratory entertainment all its own.
From the opening credits - admittedly the most expensive part of the entire film, by Kinnear's recollection - to the final brutal scenes, the film looks unlike anything Schrader has before attempted.
Which is not to say that he doesn't succeed, he most surely does - his telling of Bob Crane's story is at once fascinating and disgusting.
Schrader is attracted to making pictures about complicated men, men in conflict with themselves.

Well, he'll be hard pressed to come up with a character, fictional or not, that is in such conflict with themselves as Bob Crane was.
Schrader depicts his downfall, showing it step by painful step, and in the process winds up making a gr8 film.
Though you'll probably feel the need to take three to four showers after watching it.

Wrapping things up, "Auto Focus" is a lurid film and it's depressing and twisted !!!!!
It's upsetting to see someone with his head straight such as Crane , lose sight of what mattered in the face of temptation.
But through "Auto Focus ", Crane's bruised humanity is shown on screen as a genuinely nice guy swallowed up by excess.
It was said that Crane wanted to be a movie star, and through Kinnear's performance, he got a taste of movie stardom from being portrayed by someone else.