+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Year
+ Most Deserved Flop of the Year
 |
| The too-early demise of star James Dean is hinted at with the torn line and B/W of Dane DeHaan's face as the star on this poster for Anton Corbijn's Life |
James Dean is an up and coming star in Hollywood with his breakthrough in Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955) soon about to open, when a freelance photographer searches him out for a photo reportage.
Life is written by Luke Davies (Lion (2016)), based on the real life friendship between James Dean and Life magazine photographer Dennis Stock, and directed by Anton Corbijn (Control (2007)).
Contrary to the case with Simon Curtis' great My Week with Marilyn (2011), - an apt comparison piece to Life, - Corbijn's film doesn't have a lead actor to fill out the towering, iconic role of its star James Dean. Life is also, ironically, brought down by a very earth-bound plot and photography (by otherwise great cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen (Fences (2016))), which often seems unsure of where the camera really ought to be.
Dane DeHaan (Life after Beth (2014)) nevertheless clearly poses the biggest problem for the film, and Corbijn should have searched farther to find a true James Dean. DeHaan isn't attractive enough, and his eyes and voice have none of the spark and intensity that defined Dean for the public. Starting out DeHaan also gives Dean some gay affectations that makes one hope that the relation to Robert Pattinson (Damsel (2018)) as the photographer might develop in such a direction, - but alas, Life merely teases us a bit. - It would be natural to expect that DeHaan's career hit the wall with this disaster but no: For some reason he continues to be booked for prestigious roles in sometimes colossal movies (which most often flop terribly.)
Life takes us and the two leads to Indiana for no obvious reason and becomes a deadly bore. Corbijn stands on the thinnest supportable ice here.
Related posts:
Anton Corbijn: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
A Most Wanted Man (2014) - Hamburg anti-terror spies in lean, serious picture
The American (2010) - Corbijn and Clooney's paper-thin, boring, pretentious hitman outing
2007 in films - according to Film Excess
Control (2007) - Ian Curtis' youth, love and music as the front man of Joy Division
Cost: Reportedly 10-15 mil. $
Box office: 1.2 mil. $
= Box office disaster (returned between 0.12-0.08 times the cost, depending on the film's final cost)
[Life premiered 9 February (Berlin International Film Festival, Germany) and runs 111 minutes. Corbijn, himself originally a photographer, has stated that he wasn't interested in the James Dean part of the story. Shooting took place in Ontario, including Toronto, and in Los Angeles, California from February - March 2014. The film only had a very limited release in North America, and its gross from it is unreported: It was issued as VoD at the same time, and the earnings from this are not made public. The film's biggest markets were France with 298k $ (24.8 % of the total gross), Germany with 167k $ (13.9 %) and Norway with 137k $ (11.4 %). Corbijn has not announced any new film since the disaster. DeHaan returned in Two Lovers and a Bear (2016); Pattinson in The Childhood of a Leader (2015). Life is fresh at 64 % with a 6.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Life?
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