Auto Focus Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
A day without sex is a day wasted.
Capitalizing on his fame as the star of "Hogan's Heroes," Bob Crane (Greg Kinnear) dove into the freewheeling spirit of the 60s and 70s with relish, having affairs with numerous women. Eventually, Crane teamed up with video technician John Carpenter to document his exploits, an association that may very well have led to his murder in a Scottsdale, Arizona motel room in 1978, which remains officially unsolved to this day.
| Willem Dafoe | John Carpenter |
| Rita Wilson | Anne Crane |
| Maria Bello | Patricia Olson/Patrica Crane/Sigrid Valdis |
| Greg Kinnear | Bob Crane |
| Ron Leibman | Lenny |
| Bruce Solomon | Edward H. Feldman |
| Michael E. Rodgers | Richard Dawson |
| Kurt Fuller | Werner Klemperer |
| Christopher Neiman | Robert Clary |
| Lyle Kanouse | John Banner |
| Donnamarie Recco | Melissa/Mistress Victoria |
| Ed Begley Jr. | Mel Rosen |
| Michael McKean | Video Executive |
| Cheryl Lynn Bowers | Cynthia Lynn |
| Don McManus | Priest |
| Paul Schrader |
6.60 out of 10 (4860 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Setting the record straight
posted on 03 Jul 2009This is NOT a good movie. I don't know what you people are being fooled by. Is it all the breasts? Is it because it's dark subject matter that Paul Schrader is directing? I really don't get it, 'cause this is a bad movie. It's a boring story, that is not worth telling. It is not well acted, written, or directed. So, please, everyone remove your head from your posterior and realize that this is not a great, or even good film. It's mock-intellectual. That is all.
Is it a cautionary tale or just Paul Schrader working out more of his demons?
posted on 07 Jun 2009Greg Kinnear does a fine job as real-life actor Bob Crane(he of the popular "Hogan's Heroes" TV show), rather quickly becoming immersed in the world of pornography. Seems it all starts with the strip club, just one of the many clichés and precautions handed down in what amounts to Paul Schrader's demon-exorcisms. Schrader is a director who can't let anything be simple; he's so ham-handed in his approach that we can't tell if he wants us to sympathize with Crane or with his poor family. He even throws in a fantasy sequence(wherein Bob's wife gives him a terse blessing on taking advantage of a nude broad). Tricks like this don't work in autobiographical movies(we can easily see it's just the director feeling his oats), but the '60's period is captured well and Kinnear is honest and direct. Willem Dafoe is probably miscast as sleazy friend John Carpenter(Dafoe doesn't have the right voice or manner for a timid villain, and he's obviously reigning himself in). *1/2 from ****
He:"Please, not in front of the children, they look up to me." She: They're small, they look up to everyone."
posted on 12 May 2009Some SPOILERS herein, tread cautiously.My summary line, from Bob Crane's first wife, shows some of the subtle comedy injected into an otherwise joyless film about Bob Crane, drummer, DJ, photo nut, "Hogan's Heroes" star, who got wrongly wrapped up into the emerging video revolution. Bob Crane was 50 when he was murdered in 1978. I wanted to see this film, "Auto Focus", mainly because I knew Crane solely from the TV series, which I recall vividly from the late 60s and early 70s, plus reruns. The movie purports to be factual, although there certainly are fictionalized parts. On the discussion board for this movie are some comments by Crane's son, and they are worth reading. Greg Kinnear as Crane, Willem Defoe as his companion John Carpenter, and Maria Bello as his second wife are all good in their roles.The whole movie has a sleazy feel to it. His and Carpenter's motto became, "A day without sex ... is a day wasted." We are left to wonder, if Carpenter and 'video' had not come into Crane's life when they did, would he have avoided all the temptations and his subsequent spiral down into the pornographic lifestyle? Before those incidents Crane is portrayed as a very decent guy, a church-going family man, a devoted father, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got sucked into this lifestyle. However, his son comments that Crane was no angel, that his pornographic interests and behavior went back to the 1950s.Some SPOILERS follow, please read no further.Crane's behavior became increasingly erratic, is shown making very inappropriate comments to a female audience member on a cooking show, but he didn't realize they were inappropriate. His agent saw this clearly and at one point tells Crane, who says he wants to change, "A drunk can't get sober and still hang around his old drinking budies, it doesn't work that way." When he decides to do that, to "get out of the whole thing" to restart his career, Carpenter is depicted as not being able to deal with being "dumped", and although the film does not show the face of the murderer who sneaked into Crane's hotel room (Scottsdale, 1978) and bludgeoned him to death with a tripod, it suggests that Carpenter did it, not being able to deal with the rejection, because his life had become so intertwined with Crane's. One scene, where they are speaking by phone, Carpenter is shown becoming aroused, suggesting a homosexual attraction.The DVD includes a crime documentary, with interviews by many people associated with the investigation, as well as those close to Crane. There are disturbing images of the crime scene and the body of Crane, caked in chocolate-colored blood. Carpenter was tried, found not guilty, and since has died. In the minds of many he has remained the prime suspect and most logical murderer. Evidence included blood of Crane's type in the rental car that Carpenter had at the time of Crane's murder, but without modern DNA tests, there apparently was not enough evidence to convict him
Out of Focus
posted on 04 May 2009What obligation to truth and accuracy does a director have when creating a biopic? What latitude do we give for creative interpretation and expression? In the case of Auto Focus, I contend that Paul Schrader did not feel a sufficient obligation to the facts, and took too much creative liberty. His film is subtitled "The Life of Bob Crane." That mandates a responsibility -- to Crane's survivors, to people who care about the man, and to the public as a whole -- to be as factual as possible in portraying his life, while still entertaining us.I urge anyone interested in the real life of Bob Crane to read about him. Robert Graysmith's book, upon which the film is based, does a professional job of documenting Crane's life and murder; however, there is a decisive lack of data coming from son Scott Crane and his mother, Patricia Crane (Bob's second/last wife). Scott's site, bobcrane.com, is a real eye-opener. If we are to believe Scott (and he convincingly demonstrates that he is an expert on the life of his deceased father), then the film is significantly misleading and narrow in its depictions of Crane's real persona and the relationships he established and maintained in his life. Here are just a few areas of dispute:1) Schrader portrays Carpenter "seducing" Crane into the swinging lifestyle. As Scott states and proves at his site, Crane was into the swing scene in the 1950s, way before meeting Carpenter.2) Schrader gives us a scene in which Crane is counseled by a priest. There is no information at Scott's site or in Graysmith's book that religion or pious people played an important part in Crane's life, influenced his morality, or shaped his sex life.3) There is no information to conclude that Crane had a significant (if any) interest in S&M or B&D.4) There is no indication that Crane had a homosexual relationship with Carpenter or any other man -- unless you consider Crane and Carpenter having sex with themselves, or with female partners, while in the same room to be homosexual.5) In one scene, Schrader implies that Crane had a penile implant. Crane didn't need one, nor did he have one (according to the autopsy report and witnesses to it). This may seem a minor point, but it imputes to Crane a vanity and preoccupation with size/performance for which there is no evidence.Kinnear ALMOST carries off the role, but can't quite capture the duality in Crane's personality. He fluidly portrays the charming, likable entertainer Crane was. But he's not convincing as the obsessed sexual animal who was able to entice hundreds of women not only to "party" with him but to bare it all on film and video as well.This is also Schrader's fault. Crane was unique, in his time, for being so publicly open and honest about his sex drive. To the contrary, Schrader has not shown himself to be comfortable with depictions of sex and sexuality. For a film about one man's now infamous sex drive, Auto Focus has surprisingly little explicit sex in it. What we do see is presented as naughty, perverse, and destined to end in violence. (Schrader has walked this path in other films -- Hardcore, American Gigolo, Taxi Driver).Most negligently, we are never offered an explanation of, or insight to, Crane's sex life. Was it an addiction, or just a great hobby? How did he balance his working life with his sex life? Was he really that different from other celebrities of his era, or today, who bed-hop with abandon? Or did he just keep better records?Auto Focus is more successful than not in telling us -- colorfully and stylishly -- who Bob Crane was. But couldn't we, shouldn't we, come away with Why?
I started the applause when the credits came on.
posted on 30 Apr 2009I disagree with the viewer who speculated that Bob Crane would not have become corrupt had he not met John Carpenter. Crane, in this film, is never innocent. For instance, the first time we see him with his wife, she's upset at having found his collection of graphic, for the era, porn magazines. He started out smarmy, hiding behind the golf sweaters and picture-perfect family, and when things opened up in the '70s, came "out" as a swinger. The way it's shown here, Carpenter was merely an enabler, a pimp, and it was Crane who used him.I saw the first half of "Superdad" (couldn't stomach the whole thing), and even then wondered what the heck had happened to handsome Col. Hogan. Now I know, of course. Also, I love the bit about Disney "busting" Crane with a photo of him at a strip club, apparently not realizing that that was the least damning revelation that could be made about him!The photography, and Angelo Badalementi's awesome-as-always score, illustrate Crane's downfall beautifully. The set dressers and costumers also did an excellent job; you can almost pinpoint the year according to what people are wearing and what locations they're in. I did think that Kinnear sustained the chipper act a few scenes beyond the point where his character should have started to fray, but his performance in the final half-hour was spot-on. Crane's last meeting with his agent, and Carpenter alone in his hotel room, are both chilling and depressing.Well done.
Portrait of a sleazebag
posted on 03 Mar 2009(Spoilers)`Auto Focus' is Paul Schrader's version of the rise and fall of Bob Crane, the star of the WW II prisoner of war comedy `Hogan's Heroes.' `Hogan' ran successfully from 1964 to 1971, with endless reruns since, and as it ran and went into reruns Crane slid progressively downhill in the relentless pursuit of a sex addiction that wrecked his career and prematurely ended his life. Greg Kinnear gamely attacks the lead role in Paul Schrader's Hollywood biopic of this horrendously unfortunate man.Crane as we see him here is constantly urged on by his sidekick, John Carpenter, a role performed with his usual satanic relish by Willem Dafoe. Unfortunately Dafoe looks a little old to be playing a sex maniac.Carpenter is a pioneering agent for video equipment who's fired when color video arrives and his boss discovers he's color blind. From then on the rather humiliating role of Dafoe's character becomes nothing but to set up orgies in which he and Crane star -- and to shoot pornographic videos of the proceedings to be viewed later.It's something new to see Kinnear playing such a distasteful role, if all too familiar to see Dafoe in one. The relationship is a mutually exploitive marriage of addict and enabler. Crane's fame and his charm (considerable in Kinnear's performance) make it all possible, allowing him to smooth the path to his own downfall. As represented by Mr. Schrader and his writers, Robert Graysmith and Michael Gerbosi, Crane has little behind his ingratiating manner but a mindless lust for sex. His self-doubt consists of nothing more than an occasional fear of being caught.Bob is a Catholic and a family man but he easily slides into the relentless and daily pursuit of his slimy "hobby," first playing drums in strip bars while still working in `Hogan's Heroes' and partying with the staff afterward, later engaging in the endless orgies on tour which Dafoe's character arranges. Crane's sex obsession spills over into Polaroids and videos of every orgy and to watching them and masturbating with his sidekick while trying to recall the scene. `Was that Cleveland?' `No, it was Scottsdale.' Such dialogue might have been funny, but it's only pathetic here.Crane's first marriage ends - and we see this grimly depicted. The second marriage, with the female lead on `Hogan,' takes longer to self-destruct because this time the wife begins knowing about all the girls and claiming to accept them. Eventually as depicted here she becomes disaffected and alcoholic.Never has Paul Schrader been in a more relentless mood. The only queasy element of interest in this slow descent is the growing irony of Crane's persistent charm. `I'm normal,' he repeatedly says, whenever it's pointed out, also repeatedly, how creepy he's become. It's obvious (Schrader doesn't overstress this, but neither does he develop it in any depth) that Dafoe's character is sexually attracted to Crane and emotionally dependent on him and that this is one sick, devouring relationship.Word gets around about Bob's grungy lifestyle and his reputation sinks to zero in Hollywood. He and his agent agree he has to start over, so he tells Carpenter their relationship has to end, along with the dinner theater tours that have facilitated the orgies.Carpenter responds by bashing Bob's head in. (In real life he was acquitted of murder charges, but the movie doesn't buy that.) This finale happens in Scottsdale, Arizona. End of story. It's curiously like the death of Joe Orton, and makes the two men's relationship seem emotionally, if not physically, homosexual.Mostly Kinnear's able performance - which might well have been troubling and moving in a subtler, more rounded movie - consists of showing Crane pretending to be cheerful and amiable when we know his life is going down the tubes. Kinnear's Crane tirelessly puts on the standard good guy celebrity front. He's the kind of star who never refuses an autograph, never loses his chipper urge to charm. It's only in the last quarter of the movie that Kinnear is called upon to show Crane's physical and mental decline visibly happening on screen. During this period Carpenter (Dafoe) becomes increasingly frantic, knowing he's about to be deprived of his reason for being. Instead of a subtle and haunting alteration of relationship, like that of James Fox and Dick Bogarde in Losey and Pinter's `The Servant,' the dialogue in `Auto Focus' just repeats the same formulas.Schrader doesn't trust Kinnear or Dafoe to convey the progression through acting. Instead, he makes the movie become crudely expressionistic, switching to jerky hand-held cameras and changing the movie's whole style in a grotesquely intrusive way. Angelo Badalamenti's music, which had seemed merely odd and out of sync at times, now becomes heavy-handedly ominous. Badalamenti's compositions seem campy and stylized when they accompany David Lynch's bizarre sequences, but here they're just gratingly portentous. We realize this grim morality play has nowhere to go. Bob was doomed from the start.Early on, when Bob has just begun playing drums in strip bars, he schedules a meeting with his priest in a coffee shop and tells the good father what he's been doing. `Would you be more comfortable talking about this in the confessional?' the priest asks. `No,' Bob answers. Presumably Schrader would like to take us to the confessional, but he can't. He sees no evidence of contrition in Crane's behavior -- and his tale is empty in consequence. Its depiction of a lost soul is without the appeal of a truly Faustian bargain. Bob's just an addict who never recovers, and his `bottom,' in 12-step terms, is getting his head bashed in, which doesn't allow for Recovery. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has declared this movie `shallow' and `morally offensive.' Reports indicate that the film contains some important distortions of the truth about Bob Crane and of his relationship with John Carpenter.If Schrader is a moralist, he's a failure, and as an artist and a historian he has failed as well.
The film is as disquieting as Bob Crane-lurid and likable.
posted on 11 Feb 2009The life of Bob Crane, star of TV's late 1960's`Hogan's Heroes,' was a sad one indeed. His fame allowed him to indulge sexual fantasies, like videotaping his many partners, and may have lead to his untimely murder.
His life story in `Auto Focus' (adapted from Robert Graysmith's book `The Murder of Bob Crane'), starring Greg Kinnear, captures the melancholic nightmare of a boy-man, who claimed that his obsession with sex was normal but found even Hollywood couldn't accept him in that role.His discovery through his close friend, John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe), of videotaping, symbolizes his own discovery of his sexual nature, and represents as well the ‘70's coming to terms with openness about matters society had kept under wraps since colonial times.Director Paul Schrader (`Affliction') has found the sleazy lounges and the girls who go with it, enfolded them in a depressing Technicolor mood, and done the impossible: making sexual freedom uncomfortable. Crane drifts from his loving family into a life where `A day without sex is a day not worth living' could be a motto. Along the way lessons are learned about the corruption of fame and religion's inability to deal with the anarchy of contemporary mores.Even as important may be the exploration of modern masculinity, for instance when Crane shows Carpenter his surgically enhanced penis and both masturbate to the tape of a recent sexual encounter-a cycle of auto eroticism played daily to the tune of a naïve, lost soul who will never achieve peace with himself or women.Greg Kinnear brilliantly plays this soul. Film critic Stephanie Zacharek says it best: `His performance has to be one of the most sympathetic acts of decency one actor has ever extended to another. Crane always wanted to be a real, respectable movie actor. Channeled through Kinnear, he finally gets his wish.' The film is as disquieting as Bob Crane-lurid and likable.
Waiting For The Next Bob Crane Film...
posted on 25 Dec 2008Auto Focus' purpose in life will be fulfilled should some young, budding filmmaker realize the potential hidden behind this mundane work.Whatever made Crane an interesting and captivating person didn't make it into this weak and timid portrayal of his life. Bad casting and a worse script removed any chance of developing an interesting story.I have enjoyed some of Greg Kinnear's work in the past, but his take on Crane left me wanting someone more substantial. When Kinnear tries to act easy-going, he just ends up being goofy. Kinnear just wasn't a good fit for the part.The script, afraid to delve too deeply into controversial subjects, leaves the viewer with a mere surface view of Crane's psyche. We never see the inner drive that allowed Crane to pursue his interests in the face of family and Hollywood's conservatism. All that is left is little more than an embellished documentary.There are several major inaccuracies in the movie. For one, the movie shows Crane living the ideal family life and then turning to porn. However, porn was an interest of his long before he got married. Those interested in more can visit Crane's web site (run by his son).Some of you will watch the movie based on an interest in Crane's private life (like I did). However, I suggest you wait for the next big movie about Crane, and pass on this lame duck.As for the title "Auto Focus": despite Crane's interest in cameras and photography, auto-focus cameras weren't available until several years after his death.
A Slightly Unusual Tale of Addiction
posted on 21 Dec 2008To be honest, I started watching this film as a time filler, then found myself drawn into it. It's good to watch something that you think will be video wallpaper, only to be surprised by a well-acted drama.I've never watched "Hogan's Heroes" so I had no idea who Bob Crane was. "Auto Focus" is a sort-of biopic of Crane, although it focuses primarily on his addiction to pornography and sex. Wow, if you tried to sell "Auto Focus" as a wholly fictional work, I doubt that anyone would believe it. Greg Kinnear as Crane and Willem Dafoe as Carpenter do exceptionally well in their roles. Kinnear displays Crane's increasing confusion and loss of touch with reality without turning into a "Crazy" caricature. Dafoe manages to make the pathetic Carpenter someone that I almost felt sorry for. The film contains some darkly comic moments (Carpenter's colour TV demonstration is a stand-out) but it is primarily a grim account of Bob Crane's descent into his own private hell."Auto Focus" makes a believable case for sex addiction as a psychological condition. Despite all the (mostly female) nudity and sex scenes in this movie, if you're looking for titillation then look elsewhere. "Auto Focus" left me feeling uncomfortably like a voyeur.
E! True Hollywood Story Put on 70mm
posted on 09 Dec 2008The life and unsolved death of actor Bob Crane of Hogans Heroes fame, focusing, and I mean Focusing on his off-screen sexcapades.You got sex, you got an audience, period. This film is so loaded with visual goodies that at first its difficult to say for certain if the sex alone isn't what makes this such an easy romp, and such a watchable film. I'd have to say no to that however. These retrospectives biographies, particularly those dealing with celebrities of the 50s and 60s are inexplicably captivating. Director Schrader offers us glimpses of the troubled Crane private life, while giving us a real time tunnel into the past. Lot of attention is paid to set detail. Film relies more on a visual remembrance of things past, and refreshingly less on the eardrum blasting with the popular songs of the era technique, aka Scorsesee's Bane, a real blight on film today if you ask me. Watching, you cant help thinking that Kinnear easily empathized with Crane and probably more than once saw staring back at him, a fun-house reflection of himself. While hardly Olivier, Kinnear with a little dark hair coloring, and only slightly over-twangy LA accent, makes you believe he is Crane. Defoe is ever sinister as his swinger com-padre, Bello enchanting in her enigmatic support, and the whole behind the scenes thing with Hogans Heroes I must admit interested me greatly. The E! True Hollywood segments are there for a last ditch refuge when nothing else appeals on TV. If you have premium channels, Auto-Focus is without question E!TH's definitive movie counterpart.
Like it or not, Bob Crane types do exist.
posted on 03 Dec 2008Some people writing reviews here deny that Bob Crane was this sleazy. I didn't know Crane, but I know someone who idolized Crane. He was a lot like Crane in many ways. For instance, he bought the entire collection of "Hogan's Heroes" tapes - with my money. He spent his life pretending to be a great person, but did very little with his life, wasted his opportunities and alienated all his friends. I saw "Auto Focus" at a late show, midweek, and I was absolutely alone in the theatre. It was the creepiest theatre experience of my life, compounded by the similarities between Crane and my friend. There was no respite from watching Greg Kinear's Crane march towards destruction - no way to miss his inability to see anything in life beyond the next sexual encounter or the next videotape. For those poor fools who think that hacking up teenagers or seeing women mutilated is the essence of horror, they're missing the boat. "Auto Focus" is a genuine horror film, and most people don't have the courage to face it.
The Weird Story Of Bob Crane
posted on 09 Nov 2008As anyone who is reading this knows, this was the story of TV's Bob Crane, star of "Hogan's Heroes," a popular show in the 1960s. The story of Crane, the one that makes him a subject of a major motion picture of his life, are two things: 1 - the good-guy TV hero was, behind the scenes, a huge sex addict; 2 - he was murdered, with no one ever convicted of the crime. To this day, it is still unsolved.The movie hints very strongly that the killer was Bob Carpenter, played here by Willem Dafoe. Carpenter was a close friend of Crane's. Greg Kinnear does a credible job of portraying the television star. However, the part about Crane's murder is only dealt with in the final minutes of the film! That was very disappointing and I was hoping to find out something or at least be given more information. They just kind tacked this on the end of the film.Most of the film was about Crane's and Carpenter's escapades with women.....lots of women, beautiful and big-chested women, which you see in abundance in this film. Dafoe is the sleazy friend who introduces Crane to the beginning of the VCR age. That led to a whole bunch of sex-on-film and really whetted Crane's big sexual appetite. Anyway, for people who watched "Hogan's Heroes," and there were plenty, this is a bio of him and perhaps, for those who know nothing about his death, who killed him.
A little on the SLOW SIDE but interesting!
posted on 26 Oct 2008I saw this movie not really knowing what to expect. What I got was about two hours of black and white porn shot on shoddy vhs tape. Col. Hogan of Hogan's Heroes is played by BOB CRANE who is played by GREG KINNEAR (who did a good job of acting). This entire movie was more of less set in the late 60's and the 70's. The sets were amazing. What surprised me was the way Bob Crane became addicted to women and having sex. He was a family man with two kids and then, as soon as he was exposed the the sex parties by his FRIEND John Carpenter (not the director of Halloween), he was a porn addict.
I heard Bob Crane Jr. mention that the movie is seen through the eyes of the director, who never really knew Bob Crane. A lot of the movie is fiction apparently but the crux of it is accurate. Good acting all the way around. Willem DeFoe delivers the goods and so does Greg K! I liked it even if it was slow in parts.
Powerful but distant and cold (***)
posted on 24 Oct 2008"Auto Focus" tells the sad, sad true story of Bob Crane, the sitcom star of "Hogan's Heroes" whose life became a rapid downward spiral due to his obsession with sex and homemade pornography. It cost him two marriages, his relationship with his three children, and eventually his life, when he was beaten to death with a tripod in an Arizona motel room in 1978, a murder which is unsolved to this day.Greg Kinnear, in a very good and convincing performance, plays Crane as a man who is sympathetic and just wants to be liked but is weak in the face of temptation and self-involved. We feel really sorry for him as he lets himself get deeper and deeper into the muck, but it's even sadder because he had no one to blame but himself.His best friend, John Carpenter (not the horror director), is a tech whiz who always has the very latest video equipment and it is him who led Crane into making homemade pornography. He's played by Willem Dafoe in a great, twitchy performance. Dafoe is so good at playing creepy, greasy characters that it's hard to believe the guy has actually played nice, honorable characters before in movies like "Platoon" and "Mississippi Burning".There are some problems with "Auto Focus". Even though it has a fascinating story to tell, it never really, REALLY grabbed me the way it should have. The character of Bob Crane is viewed from a distance; even with Kinnear's excellent performance I never felt like I really knew or understood him. As a result, the movie lacks the emotional punch that I felt it should have had.
Great film!
posted on 22 Oct 2008Auto Focus is a great film. The only shortcoming is does not give you enough background on Bob Crane's life before his starring role on "Hogan's Heroes". But Greg Kinnear plays him well, and Willem Dafoe as the sleazy opportunist John Carpenter is fantastic as he goes from creepy to desperate and scary. I wouldn't say that this film's for everyone, but it's well done, and there isn't another one like it that I've seen.
One should Focus on Auto-Focus
posted on 16 Oct 2008Having not known a whole lot about Bob Crane before I saw this film, I must say that I have a pretty clear picture of this tragic man. Crane, the legendary hero of "Hogan's Heros" also had an obsession with sex, one that he shared with his close friend John Carpenter. Auto-Focus does a fabulous job of not highlighting the naked bodies in this film, but instead showing the emptiness of Crane's life. Bob Crane was a guy who wanted to be liked, and in the end could not be accepted by society for his obsession of sex. Greg Kinnear gives a wonderful performance of the tragic Crane, giving the character a true sense of feeling and emotion that enables the audience to not hate him but instead feel for him. Sure, Crane's lifestyle was not the most admirable, but he was a lonely man who could not figure out how to be a person that those who initially loved him could accept. Willem Dafoe does a fabulous job as Crane's best friend John Carpenter as well. All in all, one of the best films of the year thus far, eventhough it does not leave the audience in the most uplifting of moods.
"A Beautiful Mind" for the real world
posted on 26 Sep 2008This painfully realistic biopic from Paul Schrader ("Taxi Driver", "Affliction", and many other challenging works) is brilliantly acted portrayal of a remarkably shallow man who descends fully into a world of sex and sleaze because there is really nothing else that interests him. Greg Kinnear's performance as Bob Crane is amazing. Crane basically had two sides to his character: the affable, rubber faced comic actor who loved his family and a little smut on the side, and a man who was so consumed by sex that it became his only reason for living. Kinnear balances these perfectly and creates an incredibly compelling character that gets his life taken away from him so that he can focus on his one passion: sex (and specifically, sex on film). Willem Dafoe is also excellent as Crane's partner in sexual addiction, a man who is fascinated by the new idea of putting sex onto video to enjoy later. Viewers who drooled all over Ron Howard's Hollywood portrayal of a man who saw hallucinations of cute little girls in "A Beautiful Mind" should take note that an interesting psychological examination of a person is far more interesting when the film isn't terrified to show what the person was really like. The sexual content is pervasive, but none of it is titillating (even the sequence detailing Crane's love for breasts),just relevatory to the nature of Crane's addiction. Overall, "Auto Focus" is a focused examination of a man who didn't really descend into a world of bizarre sexuality and video recorders, but just discovered that it was the only thing that he wanted to do. This is vintage Schrader material, and he again strikes gold with a film that is less reliant on cutesy characters and positive messages than it is on showing a man being tortured by his natural desires.
An Hour Too Long
posted on 12 Sep 2008I think the key to enjoying this film is a person's age. I only viewed Hogan's Heroes on reruns, and didn't witness the rise and fall of Bob Crane, and I think that may be why I didn't connect with the film at all.The acting was great, however the direction was very heavy handed, and there were a number of scenes that seemed completely unnecessary or that ran too long. This film would have made a nice hour long biopic, but at two hours, it was very boring.
a Schrader film is not a film wasted
posted on 08 Sep 2008A film that starts as a Dick van Dyke comedy and turns dense and nightmarish, Autofocus is the story of two men obsessed with sex and the sick, vampiric bond established between them. Both possess a pathetic innocence and a desperate need of likability. They are in fact the double of each other, and Schrader suggests through his framing (reflections, inverted axes) that they're actually exchangeable. Here's something of the tone of `Hardcore' and `Light Sleeper', some of the oppression of `Affliction'. Though weak, the film is very Schrader. The best is the coexistence of two narratives, which the fall of Bob Crane widens away. The look of the film becomes eventually the same as those blurry, grainy home movies registered by Crane and Carpie. The worst, some scenes leading nowhere (like John Carpenter's color blindness), a wasted antagonist (the English from Hogan's Heroes), and the inexplicable voice off of a dead man.
"All I think about all day long is sex. Watching sex, having sex, and filming sex..."
posted on 13 Jul 2009I'll admit, I only knew a few vague details about Bob Crane before watching Paul Schrader's Auto Focus. But whether you know about him or not, this is a great movie about a man seduced by fame and overcome by his weaknesses and addictions, who finally spirals downward into a living hell. The transition from a happily married man on his way up to stardom to a desperate man with his life in ruins is almost seamless. Even the camera work changes: at first it runs completely smoothly but by the end it seems to just drift drunkenly to targets; out of frame and focus. Bob Crane is portrayed as a real nice guy. Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke. His only major flaw (and it is major) is that he is a sex addict. "One out of three's not bad," as he so innocently puts it. It all isn't really about sex, though. Watch it and you'll see very little sex actually takes place on screen. It is all mostly about the lifestyle, which is a key importance in any film about addiction, whether the addiction is alcohol, cocaine, or in this case, sex. Bob Crane and his buddy John Carpenter regularly go cruising for women to have sex with and as Crane's celebrity decreases, so does the quality and quantity of women. This leaves him more and more desperate. He becomes obsessed with editing his sex videos and starts to lose his grip with reality. He appears on a cooking show and makes obscene comments to a woman in the audience. He doesn't really care, because he knows they'll just edit it all out. This is without a doubt Greg Kinnear's best performance to date, and Willem Dafoe gives his creepiest performance...well, of that particular year. Auto Focus is more than just your typical Hollywood scandal film, it rises to degrees so much higher and darker than that. This is a film that sticks with you and really makes you think. My rating: 10/10