L. A. Confidential Film Analysis

One of the movies that we viewed in this course was L. A. Confidential directed by Curtis Hanson and based on the novel L. A. Confidential written by James Ellroy. This was a newer film compared to the previous films that we had watched, it also happens to be my favorite film we have watched so far. With that, it presented some similar characteristics and traits like the other films, but it also created new emerging characteristics that would continue with this film genre. Some of the traits that are shared with other films include: the film takes place in a city, there is always at least one detective who is trying to crack the mystery, and the heavy influence of drinking, smoking cigarettes and other drugs as well. There have also been some new introductions to this movie genre which include: situations where a femme fatale is present, different camera angles, and low lighting became very common as well.
Similarities presented in the film L. A. Confidential are that it does indeed …show more content…
The reasoning behind this is that when you are dealing with a smaller residential town there is less excitement essentially. When the films take place in a larger metropolis, there are more things that are likely to happen, more crime could be present, and also more diverse problems or situations are to occur.
Another characteristic that is present in a lot of noir films is that there is always a detective who is trying to solve the clues to crack the mystery. In L. A. Confidential we had a couple of different detectives present during the entirety of the film. These detectives include: Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Ed Exley (Guy Pearce). At first these detectives worked on their own and attempted to try and solve the big mystery. After time they found that they all had valuable insight on the crime mystery which led them to work together in order to solve