5 Things You Should Know About Tony Scott
Yesterday, we lost one of the modern action film's pioneers in Tony Scott, a director whose muscular, adrenaline-fueled blockbusters set the tone for a generation.
From his monster hits like "Top Gun," "Days of Thunder," and "Unstoppable" to more esoteric hybrids of violent eccentricity like "True Romance" and "Domino," Scott continually raised the bar for audiences as well as himself. In remembrance of this British master, who committed suicide at age 68 after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, let's take a look at what made him such a distinguished ace behind the camera.
His Style
Scott brought his smoky, gauzy music video tempo to that flag-waving Tom Cruise vehicle and ushered in a new era of action movies with a 30-second ad sensibility (and attention span). All the high-end sports cars, sunglasses, slow-motion, rapid-fire editing, 24-hour sunsets, and women straight out of Penthouse that are Michael Bay's trademarks were all taken from the Tony Scott playbook.
But Scott didn't coast on cruise control stylistically. In fact, in the last decade of his career, when most filmmakers start getting lazy, he was experimenting and ramping up his bag of tricks. Starting with "Man on Fire," and continuing into "Domino" and "Déjà Vu" he began playing with double exposures, fast forwards/rewinds, and unconventional subtitles to create an almost cubist collage look to his movies. The choice to go in this new direction left some audiences dazed, but others thrilled that such an established filmmaker could change things up to evolve the genre.
Tony and Ridley
Tony was often compared to his famous brother Ridley ("Alien," "Gladiator," "Prometheus"), and though the two had somewhat different inclinations towards storytelling they were always very close.
In fact, Tony got his start in front of the camera while his big brother made a directorial debut with the 1965 short 16mm black and white film "Boy and Bicycle." After graduating from the prestigious Royal College of Art (like Ridley), Tony later cut his teeth making commercials for his brother's massive production house RSA, and the two of them led a consortium to purchase and renovate England's legendary Shepperton Studios in 1995.
They also shared an older brother, Frank Scott, who tragically died of cancer in 1980, the same disease which ultimately led to Tony taking his own life.
In the 2007 documentary "Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner," Tony talked about that sci-fi classic and how it reflected his own childhood growing up in the industrial town of Teesside, England:
"I know what my five favorite movies are, and at the top of that list is 'Blade Runner,' and not just because my brother did it. Because 'Blade Runner' is such a brilliant film, and it touches so much of my past. I saw so much of Ridley and where we grew up. So much of his imagination and so much of his dreams come to the screen with that movie. Most of all, the big stamp in terms of our background where we grew up is the rain. We grew up in the North of England, it was always raining."
Supporting Other Filmmakers
Through he and brother's Scott Free production shingle, some of the films Tony produced include early entries by David Dobkin ("Clay Pigeons"), his niece Jordan Scott ("Cracks"), two from Joe Carnahan ("The Grey," "The A-Team"), and the upcoming American debut of Korean master Chan-wook Park called "Stoker."
He also had a penchant for turning screenwriting/directing up-and-comers into heavy-hitters by making movies written by the likes of Shane Black ("The Last Boy Scout"), Richard Kelly ("Domino") and, perhaps most crucially, Quentin Tarantino.
Quentin Tarantino
Scott was instrumental in Tarantino's career, not just through directing 1993's cult classic "True Romance." He also wanted to direct "Reservoir Dogs" as well, and is given a special thanks credit at the end of that 1992 bank robbery gone-awry classic. He brought Tarantino onboard to do an uncredited polish on his blockbuster submarine thriller "Crimson Tide," where the Gen X hero brought his pop culture laden sensibilities to the scene where two sailors debate which comic book artist drew a better Silver Surfer, Jack Kirby or Moebius? Of course, Jack Kirby won.
Drawing From the Classics
For a director so often criticized for style over substance, Scott drew directly from some inspired sources. The 1998 Will Smith starrer "Enemy of the State" is nearly an unofficial sequel to Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 masterpiece "The Conversation," with the same themes of invasion of privacy, and even Gene Hackman playing a character who could easily be surveillance expert Harry Caul twenty years later.
Scott also brought his unbridled affection for '70s thrillers to 2001's decade-hopping "Spy Game," in which star Robert Redford drew from the same well from which 1975's paranoid "Three Days of the Condor" came. Though "Top Gun" or "True Romance" frequently get the big praise, "Spy Game," with its non-linear structure, deft characters, and relentless pace may in fact be Tony Scott's most overlooked masterpiece.
With his standard red cap and cigar, Tony Scott was one of the last of a breed of directors who knew how to tell testosterone-fueled stories on a grand scale with artistic flair bursting from the seams, and the cinematic world is all the lesser for his passing.
When you look back at his filmography, it seems like the final line of Patricia Arquette's character Alabama in "True Romance" could easily describe Scott and his legacy:
"Amid the chaos of that day, when all I could hear was the thunder of gunshots, and all I could smell was the violence in the air, I look back and am amazed that my thoughts were so clear and true, that three words went through my mind endlessly, repeating themselves like a broken record: you're so cool, you're so cool, you're so cool."
