Sprint to the Oscars - The Black Dahlia

The Sneaky Cheetah continues his quest to see every nominated film before the Academy Awards!

The Black Dahlia
Nominated for Best Cinematography

Director Brian De Palma has created a nice little modern work of Film Noir. Not a great work, but it's got some good performances and some nifty camera work. The plots a bit too confusing and doesn't make a whole lot of sense by the end. Josh Hartnett is as stiff as ever, but Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank turn in solid efforts. Kudos to De Palma for making Swank actually look almost hot. That deserves an award.

The Cinematography is good in that it follows all the Film Noir traditions. Shooting through windows, rooms lit only by sunlight streaming through blinds, faces mysteriously covered in shadow while the rest of the person is plainly visible. There's also a few De Palma traditions. A POV shot from Hartnett's eyes that lasts a good 2 minutes without an edit. It's good cinematography, a bit "by the book," and probably not deserving an Academy Award. C

The Cinematographer was old pro Vilmos Zsigmond, who won an Oscar back in 1977 for shooting Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and was nominated in '79 for The Deer Hunter and '85 for The River.