Auto

Focus EN
Introduction

Auto Focus
Synopsis
Cast
Production notes Connected to: Greg Kinnear John Henry Carpenter Hogan's Heroes

Critical reception
Criticism by Scotty From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crane Auto Focus is a 2002 American biographical lm directed by Paul Auto Focus
Awards and Schrader, starring Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by
nominations Michael Gerbosi is based on Robert Graysmith's book The Murder of Bob
Crane (1993).[1][2]
References
Auto Focus tells a dramatized story of actor Bob Crane, an a able radio
External links
show host and amateur drummer who found success on Hogan's Heroes,
a popular television sitcom, and his dramatic descent into the underbelly
of Hollywood after the series was cancelled, and after forming a
friendship with John Henry Carpenter.

As of today, Crane's murder remains unsolved. Although Carpenter was

tried and acquitted of the crime, he remained the subject of suspicion
even after his death in 1998.[3]

Synopsis Theatrical release poster

Directed by Paul Schrader
Disc-jockey-turned-actor Bob Crane develops a secret personal life,
Produced by Scott Alexander
focusing on his relationship with John Henry Carpenter, an electronics
Larry Karasewski
expert involved with the nascent home video market. Encouraged by
Alicia Allain
Carpenter and enabled by his expertise, Crane—a church-going, clean-cut Patrick Dollard
family man—becomes a sex addict obsessed with women and with Brian Oliver
recording his encounters using video and photographic equipment, Todd Rosken
usually with Carpenter participating. Written by Michael Gerbosi
Based on The Murder of Bob Crane by
As years pass, the relationship between Crane and Carpenter unravels in
Robert Graysmith
a dangerous way. Crane is divorced by two wives, rst Anne and then
Starring Greg Kinnear
Patty, a former co-star from his hit television series Hogan's Heroes. After
Willem Dafoe
the show goes o the air, Crane struggles to nd work while dealing with Rita Wilson
money troubles. By the time Walt Disney Productions hires him for the Maria Bello
leading role in a family movie, Superdad, his reputation for being Ron Leibman
obsessed by sex and pornography starts to jeopardize his image. Music by Angelo Badalamenti
Cinematography Je rey Greeley
Con ned to doing dinner theater in mid-sized cities, Crane's attempts to
Fred Murphy
distance himself from Carpenter fail as their sexual escapades continue.
Edited by Kristina Boden
Carpenter soon becomes "my only friend," but after a nal falling-out
Production Propaganda Films
between them in Scottsdale, Arizona, someone bludgeons Crane to death company Good Machine
inside a motel room. Carpenter is tried for the murder, but not until many
Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics
years later, when he is acquitted. Crane's murder remains unsolved.
Release date October 18, 2002
Running time 105 minutes

Cast
Country United States
Language English

Greg Kinnear as Bob Crane Budget $7 million

Willem Dafoe as John Henry Carpenter Box o ce $2.7 million
Rita Wilson as Anne Crane
Maria Bello as Patricia Olson/Patricia Crane/Sigrid Valdis
Ron Leibman as Lenny
Michael E. Rodgers as Richard Dawson
Kurt Fuller as Werner Klemperer
Grand L. Bush as Ivan Dixon
Christopher Neiman as Robert Clary
Ed Begley Jr. as Mel Rosen
Michael McKean as Video Executive
Roderick L. McCarthy as Bartender
John Kapelos as Bruno Gerussi
Lyle Kanouse as John Banner

Production notes
The lm premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was shown at the San Sebastián Film Festival, the
Helsinki International Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, the New Orleans Film Festival, and the Bergen
International Film Festival before going into limited release on eleven screens in the US, earning $123,761 on its opening
weekend. It grossed $2,063,196 in the US and $641,755 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box o ce of $2,704,951.
[4]

The DVD release includes a 50-minute documentary, Murder in Scottsdale, which delves into the initial murder
investigation and the reopening of the case some 15 years later.[citation needed]

The DVD also features several audio commentary tracks. Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe can be heard joking about how
the stylist made up Kinnear’s hair to resemble Bob Crane's. A quick online search for photos of the real Bob Crane
reveals that, while taking pains to match Crane's hair color and thickness as Kinnear noted, the stylist parted his hair on
the wrong side.

Critical reception
The lm met with a largely positive reception from critics. A.O. Scott of The New York Times said the lm "gets to you like a
low-grade fever, a malaise with no known antidote. When it was over, I wasn't sure if I needed a drink, a shower or a
lifelong vow of chastity ... there is [a] severe, powerful moralism lurking beneath the lm's dispassionate matter-of-
factness. Mr. Schrader is indi erent to the sinner, but he cannot contain his loathing of the sin, which is not so much sex
as the fascination with images ... To argue that images can corrupt the esh and hollow out the soul is, for a lmmaker,
an obviously contradictory exercise, but not necessarily a hypocritical one. There is plenty of nudity in Auto Focus, but
you can always glimpse the abyss behind the undulating bodies, and the director leads you from easy titillation to
su ocating dread, pausing only brie y and cautiously to consider the possibility of pleasure."[5]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the lm four stars calling it "a hypnotic portrait ... pitch-perfect in its decor,
music, clothes, cars, language and values ... Greg Kinnear gives a creepy, brilliant performance as a man lacking in all
insight ... Crane was not a complex man, but that should not blind us to the subtlety and complexity of Kinnear's
performance."[6]

Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a compelling, sympathetic portrait ... Kinnear undercuts the
seaminess of the Crane story, and shows us a man with more dimension and complexity than his behavior might
suggest."[7]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded it 3½ out of 4 stars and added, "Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver and the director
of American Gigolo, is a poet of male sexual pathology. Shot through with profane laughs and stinging drama, Auto Focus
ranks with his best lms."[8]

Todd McCarthy of Variety called it "one of director Paul Schrader's best lms, and like Boogie Nights ranks as a shrewd
exposé of recent Hollywood's slimy underside ... Schrader directs with a very smooth hand, providing a good-natured
and frequently amusing spin to eventually grim material that aptly re ects the protagonist's almost unfailing good
humor ... Pic overall has an excellent L.A. period feel without getting elaborate about it, and musical contributions by
Angelo Badalamenti and a host of pop tunes are tops."[9]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the lm holds an approval rating of 72% based on 162 reviews, and an
average rating of 6.64/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Kinnear and Dafoe help make this downward spiral of
one man's life a compelling watch."[10] On Metacritic, the lm has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 36
critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[11]

Criticism by Scotty Crane

Bob Crane's son, Scotty, bitterly attacked the lm as being inaccurate. In an October 2002 piece he wrote on the lm,
Scotty said that his father was not a regular church-goer and had only been to church three times in the last dozen years
of his life, including his own funeral. There is no evidence that Crane engaged in S&M, and director Paul Schrader told
Scotty that the S&M scene was based on Schrader's own personal experience. Scotty claims that his father and John
Carpenter did not become close friends who socialized together until 1975, and that Crane was already a sex addict and
had recorded his sexual encounters since 1956, long before he became famous.[12]

Scotty and his mother had written their own script for a lm biography on Crane. The spec script, alternately titled "F-
Stop" and "Take O Your Clothes and Smile", was written up in Variety by venerable columnist Army Archerd, but after
Auto-Focus was announced, interest in Scotty's script ceased.[13]

Awards and nominations

Paul Schrader was nominated for the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.[citation needed] Willem
Dafoe was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the Chicago Film Critics Association but lost to Tim Robbins for Mystic
River.[citation needed]

References

External links

Paul Schrader lmography

Categories

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