Tony Scott makes speed feel dangerous, and his actors matter more than his reputation for restless images suggests. We value his action, but his insistence can become exhausting when a film needs a quieter exchange.
Fi1m perspective
In Days of Thunder (1990), the stock cars have weight, and their speed looks dangerous. Cinematographer Ward Russell gives Scott the physical force the film needs, even when the writing provides little reason to care about the drivers. We were excited by the racing because the machinery seemed to be working so hard. Scott knows how to sustain that pleasure without much help from the story. He is worth watching for it, though his habit of pushing the conversations just as hard makes him harder to recommend without reservations.
He began in advertising, and his taste for smoke, strong light and rapid cutting makes the connection easy to see. After his feature debut, The Hunger (1983), Top Gun (1986) established him as an action director. True Romance (1993), scripted by Quentin Tarantino, gave him a strong ensemble to work with. Crimson Tide (1995) put his energy into a submarine thriller. It also began his five-film partnership with Denzel Washington.
The difficulty is how readily that energy becomes a substitute for a better scene. In Days of Thunder, Hans Zimmer's score adds to the sense that every exchange must announce its importance. The insistence serves the races, but leaves the underwritten romantic scenes with Cruise and Kidman feeling more strained. Robert Duvall supplies an ease the rest of the film badly needs, simply by being someone worth listening to. A director who can make a race exciting should also be able to let a conversation settle.
The work with Washington is a useful reminder that Scott could get strong performances as well as keep the camera busy. Man on Fire (2004) marked a move towards the more intensely stylised later work, with his appetite for cuts, colour and camera movement becoming harder to ignore. That approach could overwhelm a performance. His final film, Unstoppable (2010), brought him back to Washington for a taut train thriller. Try Days of Thunder for the racing and Duvall; do not choose it for the romance.
Biography
Tony Scott was an English film director. Born Anthony David Leighton Scott on 21 June 1944 in North Shields, Northumberland, he died on 19 August 2012 in Los Angeles. He was the younger brother of director Ridley Scott. Both brothers studied at the Royal College of Art in London and began their careers directing television commercials before moving into feature films.
Scott's early feature work included the 1983 vampire film The Hunger. He achieved commercial success with action and thriller films such as Top Gun (1986), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Days of Thunder (1990), True Romance (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and Unstoppable (2010). In 1995, he and his brother received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema; they received the BAFTA Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment in 2010.
