RARA-AVIS: Ellroy Documentary

William Hagen (william_Hagen@mail.okbu.edu)
Tue, 09 Jun 1998 16:07:38 -0500 [Message reformatted for increased readability by list-owner, to whom
it was bounced for approval.]

Someone mentioned an interview with Ellroy in the KC Star, but was
unable to find it. It's not in the archive library yet, though I
herefound an article about a documentary recently released. Anyone
seen it?

When the interview is archived it will be in the "Library" section of
the KC Star webpage (www.kcstar.com).

James Ellroy's doing fine KC-based writer is subject of documentary,
and 'L.A. Confidential'picked up Oscar.

By: STEVE PAUL Arts & Entertainment Editor
Date: 03/28/98

NEW YORK - Some week for James Ellroy.

The Kansas City-based writer of noir novels that dissect the
underbellies of Los Angeles in particular and American culture at
large was honored indirectly Monday night when the screen adaptation
of his book L.A. Confidential won an Oscar. On Wednesday in New York
a documentary movie about Ellroy and his work opened for a two-week
run at the Film Forum, an indie-heaven movie house in Greenwich
Village.

``James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction'' is the product
of Austrian filmmakers Reinhard Jud and Wolfgang Lehner. In it Ellroy,
driving the streets of Los Angeles in a powder-blue Cadillac
convertible, takes viewers on a tour of the dark side of his life and
obsessions. It's filled with all the nervous energy and grungy light
that readers of Ellroy's books might expect.

Tour stops include the sites of the notorious Black Dahlia murder of
1947 (original crime scene photos of the bisected woman's body are not
for the squeamish) and of the murder of Ellroy's mother 11 years
later. Neither crime was ever solved, and both have propelled Ellroy's
psyche ever since. The film, made in 1993 and already shown on
television in Europe, predates the publication of Ellroy's
autobiographical My Dark Places and the making of ``L.A.
Confidential. ''

But the writer's driven, often wacky and abundant ego is the central
and fascinating point here. He was 10 years old when his mother was
murdered. He dropped out of high school and the Army and descended
into a hell of booze and drugs and petty crime before working his way
out in the late '70s and beginning his journey as a writer: ``I just
wanted to be Tolstoy. I wanted to be Dostoyevsky. I wanted to be
Balzac. I wanted to be all these guys who, frankly, I've never really
read. I wanted to give people crime fiction on an epic transcendental
scale. ''

Ellroy was scheduled to attend a screening Friday night in New
York. No word yet on whether the film will be shown in Kansas City.

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