Oh my god you mean that's the same guy!

The Black Dahlia


Well this was a frustrating bit of movie-making, let's see if we can't make some sense of it. We were both a little dissatisfied with the film, and confused and betrayed by the shitty ending of it all. Well, after consulting wikipedia (for the actual history of the murder) and imdb (for the scoop on what the hell that ending was all about) as well as Pajiba (for a critical take on the movie from someone else) I can report some interesting findings:

Fist off, it is based on a real murder that was a huge sensation in the papers and never solved. The victim was nicknamed the Black Dahlia in the papers (which was maddeningly never sufficiently explained by the movie). The rest of the story is fiction based around the murder.

Now, for the reveal of what was really going on in that pathetic half-assed excuse for an ending they served up, from a friend in the imdb forums (Emmit is the rich Scottish developer and George is the skinny disfigured dude, Madeline is Swank, Elizabeth is the Black Dahlia):

Emmit's wife was jealous of Elizabeth Short cuz her husband was obsessed with her. The story goes way back, when her husband finds out that his daughter Madeleine wasn't actually his biological daughter, n that her real dad was actually George. He was devastated, since he really adored her (a love his wife was actually jealous of). As she grew older, he started to notice a very strong resemblance between her and George, n finally found out that she was actually not his, but George's daughter. So he messed up George's face, n his feelings from Madeleine started to turn into something more lustful. However, he couldn't really admit it or act on it, cuz there was still this other part of him that saw her as his daughter. So when he met Elizabeth Short, n saw how much she resembled Madeleine, he became obsessed with her, and his wife got insanely jealous. So she killed her, and cut up her face, they same way he husband had done to George.

Very informative, and I am willing to trust it's accuracy because the author claims to have read the book. Also, Pajiba recommends not placing all the blame on DePalma because he was stuck adapting someone else's book and script, and also because rumor has it that the studio made if cut the hell out of it to get it down to 2 hours (he was thinking more like 3) and as a result significant back story and exposition was likely dropped. This could explain why the movie was so choppy and there seemed to be no motivation for absolutely anything that any of the characters did. The movie as is, sucks (Pajiba was disappointed too, but they found things to love in the cinematography, acting, and other DePalma noire flourishes.

For the record I would cast my lot with Pajiba, only more dissapointed and less in love with DePalma. Good scenes, piss poor film. I would almost be interested in a directors cut, but the huge leaps and crazy over-wrought plot makes me think that it would not be satisfying anyway.

Hope this at least cleared up some elements of the story. Also, Eckhart was apparently using some form of drugs and his use escelated with his Dahlia obsession so his leap of the deep end was not so inexplicable. Also, he was "fire" because he was a bit of a hot head (as opposed to cooler 'ice') so there is a basis for his erratic behavior. He and Scarlett were mostly a platonic relationship of convenience due to the money stolen from the pimp, which also explains a lot.

But the biggest problem is that the movie failed to explain any of that while we watched it and we had to find out from IMDB what the hell the point was. I movie that makes you think is good, but a movie that doesn't explain what the hell is going on is bad.
If it had done that much it would be a poor man's LA Confidential with younger actors.