In
1981, United Artists released True
Confessions, a Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler production directed by Ulu
Grosbard. Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall star in the movie. It is about faith,
hope, repentance and salvation. It is also about greed, corruption, pornography
and murder.
The
setting is Los Angeles of 1948. This is the City of Angels as conceived by John
Gregory Dunne in his superb 1977 novel of the same title. Dunne was an
accomplished novelist as well as a literary critic and a notable writer of
non-fiction; his 1998 book, Monster:
Living Off the Big Screen, is an invaluable account of the trials and
tribulations of writing a screenplay in Hollywood. True Confessions is certainly his best novel and, together with
Joan Didion (aka Mrs. Dunne), he adapted it to the screen. Didion was an
equally fine novelist and was also known for her acerbic essays on California
culture; in 1972, Didion and Dunne wrote the screenplay for Didion’s acclaimed
1970 novel Play It as It Lays. The
screenplay for True Confessions naturally
condenses the novel, which was 341 pages in its first edition, and eliminates
many incidents as well as characters. Nevertheless, the movie still fully captures
the essence of the novel. Actually, the screenplay improves upon the novel in
one respect, possibly due to Didion’s involvement. Dunne seems to have written the
novel in part as a form of therapy regarding his Irish-Catholic upbringing; by
the novel’s midpoint, many of the characters seem to blend together as
hopeless, cynical sinners. The movie is less critical of its main characters
without softening the impact of the narrative. Significantly, the movie still
captures Dunne’s insightful portrait of post-war Los Angeles. This is a city in
which moral and spiritual decay flourish. And it is a city in which the
excessively brutal murder of a young woman symbolizes the depravity that
permeates every facet of its superficially glittering façade.
The
film, like the novel, uses the factual Black Dahlia murder case of 1947 as a catalyst
for the plot but it is primarily the story of the two Spellacy brothers and how
their relationship becomes entwined with the murder of the woman whom the press
calls “the virgin tramp.” Monsignor Desmond Spellacy (Robert De Niro) is an
ambitious priest in the Catholic Church who hopes to rise someday to the position
of cardinal even if it means neglecting his sacred vows. Detective Sergeant Tom
Spellacy (Robert Duvall) is an embittered detective in the Los Angeles Police Department
who is disgusted by the pervasive corruption and by the fact that he was once a
part of it. Both Des and Tom are dealing with guilt which accounts in part for
their strained relationship. Des has perhaps been repressing his guilt but as
the story progresses it will come to the surface and he will have to confront it.
Tom has lived with his guilt since he was a young vice cop and now sees an
opportunity to expiate it. When the dissected body of Lois Fazenda is found in
a vacant lot, it sets into motion a series of events that will involve both Tom
and Des. Tom is in charge of investigating the murder while Des has a
peripheral connection to the victim. Neither Tom nor Des initially realize it
but the murder will propel them on a collision course.
This
is a complex film and, as the story unfolds, it expands to include the
compromises that individuals in the Los Angeles Police Department and in the Catholic
Church must make to exist in a morally corrupt environment. Representative of
this corruption is Jack Amsterdam (Charles Durning), a wealthy construction magnate
and a respected member of the Catholic populace. Amsterdam also has a
disreputable past of which both Tom and Des are aware. Nevertheless, Des has a
history of awarding contracts for building projects within the diocese to Amsterdam
in return for financial savings for the Church. It infuriates Tom that Des
disregards Amsterdam’s unsavory past because of his wealth. However, Tom
doesn’t know that Des is on the verge of terminating the Church’s association
with Amsterdam. Des hopes to soften the jolt by awarding Amsterdam with a
ceremony honoring him as Catholic Layman of the Year. Meanwhile, Tom’s investigation
takes a surprising turn when Amsterdam’s name appears among the victim’s
acquaintances. This increases his determination to solve the crime, regardless
of how it may involve his brother.
Ulu
Grosbard initially achieved fame as a Broadway theater director. He received
two Tony nominations for Best Direction, in 1965 for Frank Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses and in 1977 for
David Mamet’s American Buffalo. Regarding
his film career, some critics accused him of lacking an individual style as
well as an artistic approach to the medium of film that would distinguish his
movies. This may be due in part to the fact that, though his film career
spanned three decades, he only directed seven movies (compared to eight
Broadway plays), all of which are different in style and genre. He began his Hollywood
career as an assistant director in the early 1960s. His first directorial
credit was the film version of The
Subject Was Roses (1968), which proved that he was equally adept with film
as he was with the stage. He followed this with an interesting but pretentious
misfire, Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is
He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971). However, his third film, Straight Time (1978), is another
underrated gem. True Confessions followed
and is undoubtedly his best film. He followed this with a modest romantic drama,
Falling in Love (1984), also with De
Niro.
Grosbard
distinctly demonstrates cinematic expertise with True Confessions. He imbues the moviewith a neo-noir atmosphere, though this may not be initially
apparent from the film’s beginning. The movie opens in 1962 as the elderly
Spellacy brothers reunite in a dilapidated church in the desert in Palm
Springs. This will lead to the flashback to 1948 and the main narrative which
begins with a wedding in an opulent church in Los Angeles. The stark difference
between the rundown church in the desert and the multi-million dollar cathedral
is readily apparent. Equally apparent is the difference between the humble
appearance of the elderly desert priest and the luxuriously attired young city
ecclesiastic, especially since they are the same person. The reason for this
transformation, which the public and the press labeled his disgraceful
downfall, is the heart of the story that follows.
Grosbard
directs the film in a restrained manner, excluding any flamboyance which might
distract from his emphasis on the characterizations of Des and Tom Spellacy. His
direction includes several memorable sequences. The restaurant scene begins
with Tom’s amusing response to an uppity maitre’d and ends with his angry
confrontation with Amsterdam in front of an embarrassed Des. The Catholic
Layman Award ceremony simmers with suppressed tension and climaxes with an even
more violent altercation between Tom and Amsterdam. The confessional scene in
which both Amsterdam and Tom furiously and unjustly lash out at Des instead of
one another bristles with unbounded rage while eliciting sympathy for the
beleaguered monsignor. And there are some quieter scenes which are notable for
their sensitivity to the characters. The diner scene in which Desmond tries to express
to Tom his regret for the course of his life reveals the latent tenderness
between the brothers, an emotion which both are unable to express. The
abandoned military base in which Tom discovers the sight of the murder is
shocking in its underlying anguish for the savagely-murdered victim. Even more
sorrowful is the scene in which Tom tries to console Lois Fazenda’s parents as
they remember her innocent childhood full of hopes and dreams. Through scenes
such as these, Grosbard gradually builds the emotional content of the story as
well as the tension until the explosive penultimate scene outside the
courthouse. The director received some criticism for the brevity of this scene,
for not showing Amsterdam’s comeuppance and for not filming a more dynamic
solution to the murder. But this would have distracted from his main theme
which is why he returns to the desert church for the highly poignant finale.