To Live and Die in L.A. - 1985
Directed by William Friedkin
Written by William Friedkin & Gerald Petievich
Based on a novel by Gerald Petievich
Starring William Petersen, Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, Debra Feuer
John Turturro, Darlanne Fluegel & Dean Stockwell
A counterfeit world. Counterfeit people. Lawless, with a desperate need to court death and feel adrenaline coursing through their veins. William Friedkin's crime thriller
To Live and Die in L.A. feels a little dirty, and the people in it corrosive and unpleasant. This isn't a film with "good guys" in it, but it does have it's fair share of "bad guys", and you'd probably put anti-hero Secret Service Agent Richard Chance (William Petersen) in with the criminal element when you get towards the end of the story and find out that nothing matters to him other than the rush and bringing down Eric "Rick" Masters (Willem Dafoe) - artist and counterfeiter supreme. For writer/director Friedkin, the 1980s had proved to be a difficult decade to date, so for this film he sought out no-name actors new to cinema, and set out to make something more satisfying to his sensibilities and less commercial. Something more stylish - and as always cutting edge. It continues to build an audience and reputation as decades pass.
Chance's partner Jimmy Hart (Michael Greene) has been killed - three days out from retirement (a terribly perilous few days for a fictional Agent.) Masters is to blame, so with the help of informant Ruth (Darlanne Fluegel), snitch Carl Cody (John Turturro) and new partner John Vukovich (John Pankow) he aims to take Masters down. This would all be fine, but it's the manner in which Chance does this that's cause for concern. He might be getting good information from Ruth, but he's also forcing her to have sex with him by way of extortion. He might learn a thing or two from Cody, but he thoughtlessly lets the convict get the upper hand and lets him get away. He might have a new partner in Vukovich, but he's leading the Agent down a dark path involving dangerous car chases involving unknown forces, robbery, stealing evidence and unsanctioned law-breaking practices. Chance is a thrill-seeker, and seems to have the need to frequently risk his own life - finding that an addictive rush that fulfills him in a way that nothing else can. His future is mapped, and Chance is less an agent than a death-defying adrenaline junkie.
To Live and Die in L.A. is a remarkable motion picture in a variety of different ways. First of all, one of it's crowning glories is a car chase that rivals the one Friedkin created for
The French Connection - a famous landmark by itself. Secondly it provides the great Willem Dafoe with his first really solid and substantial role in a big film - a challenge he rose to in a big way, playing the very "Zen" and calm artist Masters, who obviously has a fire raging inside of him. Thirdly, it builds to a conclusion that no other mainstream film would dare to end with - even if Friedkin was forced to shoot an alternate ending to pacify nervous producers. Lastly, there's the well edited and shot counterfeiting scene which was actually guided by a real once-incarcerated counterfeiter that stuck to the real process, and gave the film an authenticity that's compelling, and makes the film feel genuine. That's before we get to the various talented people who contributed to making the film we see before us today.
Wang Chung were a huge part of it - providing music which feels emblematic of the 1980s crime thriller genre. I can't listen to Dance Hall Days without thinking of
Grand Theft Auto, and various parts fill
To Live and Die in L.A. - but also very iconic is the opening credits song which shares the film's title. There's a certain dramatic excitement to the music, which gives a harder edge to the film. Cinematographer Robby Müller came to Friedkin's attention by being director of photography on many of Wim Wenders' films, and he'd become a regular of Jim Jarmusch as well - he had the ability to capture what was exciting about a scene, and do it quickly and efficiently. Müller is generally known as one of the greats. Important as well, to bringing this off, was stunt coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker, who planned the famous car chase scene in meticulous fashion and helped with what was a weeks-long process of successfully staging each shot needed, at times in command of 900 different vehicles as the lanes usually driven in were inverted.
I want to like
To Live and Die in L.A. more than I do, and it's a real struggle for me to understand why it is I feel fairly ambivalent about it. I don't dislike it, and if I judge it objectively I think it's brilliant, but something about it just doesn't fit my personal criteria for loving a film. Car chases have never been my thing, cinematically speaking. I enjoy listening to Wang Chung in context with the film, but they're not a band I'd ever listen to outside of that. The only actor I really hold close to my heart amongst the cast is Willem Dafoe (I like John Turturro as well, but he only has a small part in this) - and he's purposely at odds with the audience in this. The neo-noir and crime/action genres are not my favourites either. It's like a perfect storm of alienating factors which have turned a film I'd normally enjoy into one that I don't quite connect with. When that happens, it combines with the downer "there are no heroes" atmosphere of the film which makes that feeling all the more pronounced.
I have a friend who describes this film as having the same "no rules" cop/agent that we normally see in movies, but for the world he comes up against to be unusually less forgiving and more real. It's refreshing that there are consequences to so much of what the characters do in this film, but we can by no means find much to soothe our souls with. You can't spend too much time with these people without having to wade through the same cesspool as them, but it illustrates very clearly why ethics is such an important component of being a professional and doing your job well. It might pay off to cut a corner, or bend a rule (for example, the way a certain library list is obtained in
Se7en), but to be a no-holds-barred all-out bastard and take advantage of your position to sexually exploit people, and actually commit robberies to help corner the target of your investigation, will eventually get you killed and will always help criminals in the courtroom. Nothing is ever done really well by going to absolute extremes - and there's no justice in all-out murder.
To Live and Die in L.A. was a real return for William Friedkin to the kind of filmmaking that produces memorable and lasting cinematic treasures. It's not quite suited for my tastes, but it's obviously a well-made and exciting movie that has refreshing sensibilities that challenge the viewer and often surprises with it's narrative choices. Watching it feels like seeing a cinematic version of a Grand Theft Auto game, with the same moral ambiguity, and rough action. You're constantly reminded of why siding with one particular character might be troubling at certain times - even the absolute best of them. It's the world these agents live in, with counterfeit money on the streets, and counterfeit personalities and niceties fronting criminals with deadly ambitions, and counterfeit agents breaking the laws they hope to uphold - killing each other if necessary. Enhanced by Robby Müller's exciting work behind the camera and Wang Chung's music, it helps to give yourself up to the danger and spectacle - there aren't many places like L.A. and there aren't many crime thrillers like this either - it's the real deal.
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