Red Riding Trilogy [UK Miniseries]

[modage]

Synopsis: Sure to be one of the cinematic events of the year, RED RIDING is a mesmerizing neo-noir epic based on factual events and adapted for the screen by Tony Grisoni (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) from David Peace's electrifying series of novels.  Made up of Julian Jarrold's "1974," James Marsh's "1980" and Anand Tucker's "1983" , "Red Riding" is a James Ellroy-like crime epic set in the Yorkshire region of Northern England, examining police corruption and the very darkest aspects of human nature. Each entry focuses on an outsider, each one finding themselves drawn into the mire.

Buzz: "If James Ellroy wrote Zodiac, easily one of the cinematic highlights of the year." - ThePlaylist,  "Red Riding" "a tragic achievement that surpasses that of "The Godfather" - David Thomson.

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/redriding/

Opens today in NYC as a Special Roadshow Engagement for 1 Week Only playing all 3 films.   (I'm going on Sunday.)

[Sleepless]

Also on IFC on demand as of 2 days ago. I wanna see.

[Fernando]

great! just read an article about this and wondered if there was a thread here.


someone also said that it's like zodiac meets the wire. im fucking in.

[squints]

Just heard about this on NPR today. I'm in.

[MacGuffin]

Three 'Red Riding' films pursue one killer
The trilogy is based on a set of books on the Yorkshire Ripper by David Peace.
By Saul Austerlitz; Los Angeles Times

It all began with a lonely man in Japan. David Peace was an English teacher in Tokyo in the mid-1990s, searching for some decent crime fiction. Having made his way through the one English-language bookstore's supply of James Ellroy, Walter Mosley and George Higgins, Peace was so starved for quality reading material that he began writing his own book, born of the memories of his Yorkshire childhood. The result -- "Nineteen Seventy Four" -- is a sort of anti-love note to the north of England, clammy in its intimacy.

The "Red Riding" quartet of books -- each one devoted to a single year and the search for the elusive Yorkshire Ripper -- were Peace's attempt to re-create, in the landscape and argot of his youth, the ripped-from-the-headlines familiarity and claustrophobic intimacy of Ellroy's L.A. quartet. The story was not precisely faithful to the story of the real ripper, who murdered 13 women before being captured in 1981, but was exceedingly true to the feeling of the times. Now the Red Riding quartet has been adapted into the Red Riding trilogy of films, with a mammoth, three-part script by Tony Grisoni ("In This World," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas") and directing duties parceled out among Julian Jarrold ("Red Riding 1974"), James Marsh ("Red Riding 1980") and Anand Tucker ("Red Riding 1983"). Originally made for British television, where it was well received by critics, "Red Riding" is being exhibited on the big screen in the United States. The trilogy opens Friday at the Nuart in L.A.

Following a series of protagonists, played by actors including Mark Addy ("The Full Monty") and Paddy Considine ("In America") and an enormous cast of secondary characters, "Red Riding" follows the convoluted efforts of various crusading outsiders -- ambitious young journalists, honest cops, disaffected lawyers -- to uncover the identity of the serial killer stalking the north of England in the era of Thatcher and punk rock.

The result is a British stab at the particularly American genre of film noir, importing the free-floating menace without any of the other identifying marks. "It's not just one person who's responsible," observes Jarrold about "Red Riding," "but there's this creeping corruption and dark atmosphere that permeated through the institutions, the landscapes, the buildings, and it's created this world."

Like another recent serial-killer film, David Fincher's "Zodiac," "Red Riding" privileges the hunt over the solution. It is a crime story that reflects the disappointments and ambiguities of real life -- even the false leads and mistaken conclusions.

Nonetheless, "Red Riding" holds out the hope of closure, of understanding; a character observes early on in "1974" that "everything's linked, Eddie -- show me two things that aren't," and the remainder of the trilogy devotes itself to honoring that sentiment, even as it offers red herrings and incorrect solutions by the barrelful.

Taking a page out of the book of "Zodiac," "Red Riding" accentuates the discomfort of investigation. This is not a movie where one clue leads effortlessly to the next.

Instead, each investigation derails just as it begins. Marsh ( "Man on Wire") sees "Red Riding" as paying homage, in its locale and style, to past British crime films like Nicolas Roeg's "Performance" and "The Long Good Friday." "Each screenplay was strong, and it felt like they were real movies set in England as opposed to the Guy Ritchie kind of crime film that feels very cartoon-like," Marsh says.

Three-way filming

How do you tell one story with three directors? The process would seem to require an enormous amount of careful planning and coordination -- or, as the case turned out, a single dinner where everyone involved agrees to go their separate ways.

"One of the great appeals of this is that we were given complete freedom," notes Marsh. "Choose your collaborators, your actors, your designers, your [director of photography], and make the film that you want, and let's see what happens. It's an unusual experiment, and we all embraced that freedom."

In fact, in all three films, only one shot -- a menacing establishing shot of the approach to the town of Fitzwilliam -- recurs by design. "We made a decision up front -- at that dinner, in fact -- to go away and do our own thing," remembers Tucker ("Shopgirl"), "even to the point that if there were locations that were shared, Julian [Jarrold] and I actually chose different locations to be the same location."

The stylistic differences are immediately evident. "1974" is hallucinogenic and disorienting, an acid-rock freak-out in fluorescent colors. "1980" is the relatively calm middle ground, and "1983" is the weak light at the end of the tunnel, its jagged rays of sunlight and carefully framed landscapes offering a belated beacon of comfort.

After agreeing on casting, each director was given the authority to shoot his film as he pleased, to the extent that each "Red Riding" is shot on different film stock: "1974" was filmed on Super 16-millimeter, "1980" on 35-millimeter, and "1983" is shot digitally.

Still, the coordination was complex and required nimbleness and patience: "David Morrissey [who plays a police officer] sometimes was doing a scene for '1974' in the morning, he would do a scene for me in the afternoon, he would do a scene for Anand in '1983,' " says Marsh, "all in the same day."

The relative lack of pre-planning can be credited to the confidence of Andrew Eaton, whose Revolution Films co-produced the trilogy, and to the effort of Grisoni, who devoted 2 1/2 years to bringing Peace's vision to the screen even though Peace describes "Red Riding" as "almost anti-film."

Like the legendary conversation between Raymond Chandler and William Faulkner during the production of "The Big Sleep," Peace could not always untangle the threads of plot for his screenwriter, occasionally throwing up his hands in genuine confusion. As a result, the plot of "Red Riding" is hardly linear, but the mood -- a shadowy atmosphere of thwarted ambition and horrific violence -- is sustained.

Having overcome the enormous hurdle of production, "Red Riding" (being released in the United States by IFC Films) faces another daunting task: distributing three interlinked but separate films to an increasingly fractious audience.

"I'm not quite sure how they're going to be consumed," says Marsh with a laugh. "It's an interesting challenge for the distributor to figure out if we show them all at the same time. . . . Not my problem."

[Stefen]

God, I can't wait for this.

[pete]

I saw the first one, it was actually very standard, but I'm assuming that'll lead to bigger things in the subsequent films.
couldn't understand the accent very well in the theaters, so I'm now watching them at home with subtitles.

I feel like a good noir just has to be dark without remorse, without being over the top or silly.  So in that respect this is good noir.  However, it's quite predictable and reminds me more of Last King of Scotland moreso than anything else.  The main character's not that likable and makes the rest of the film relatively easy to figure out - when you have a young naive hothead journalist, it becomes obvious when he'll be wrong.  I think this falls in the category with all the other recently overhyped films that were mostly praised for the genres that they were in rather than the quality of the actual pieces.
SinCity did a very nice job updating the genre, though it's more pulp than noir, this first film is not even as dark as sincity.  hopefully the rest redeem it.

[modage]

from my blog:

As I mentioned before I was pretty excited to see the Red Riding trilogy last weekend at the IFC Center.  Comprised of 3 films by 3 different directors, if not "better than The Godfather" it seemed to be at the very least a unique cinematic experience and fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.  In that respect the films did not disappoint and I would argue there was a cummulative effect where the sum was truly greater than it's parts.  Conceived as a mini-series for British television this is really unlike anything on American TV.

Red Riding has a distinctly dark mood that permeates each film and a sprawling cast of characters that weave in and out of the story.  It can be hard to keep up with but instead of frustrating, it actually makes you feel like an active participant in the mystery rather than just simply watching characters uncover things and constantly explain them.  I had expected the film to center more on the serial killer but that's really just a backdrop for the characters surrounded by the crimes.  The films are mainly concerned with obsession and corruption: moral, political and otherwise.  And it runs deep.

The first hour of a great show like The Sopranos or Mad Men on it's own is not a staggering acheivement.  But that hour shows the promise that is paid off over the course of the series.  I found myself leaving the films, still thinking about the characters and wanting to know more about the books in which they were based and the real life events that inspired them.  Taken individually it's hard to say how successful each one is as a standalone film but together it was a highly absorbing experience.  Recommended if you liked Zodiac and The Wire but wished they were British.

[Pas]

How many plot holes can one take?

Nothing in this damn trilogy makes sense. Or at least, seems to make sense.

FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW


- Since the cops knew Dawson and the Reverend were the killers, once Dawson was dead WHY not kill the Reverend? They kill a whole bunch of cops, frame people and whatnot but all they had to do was kill the fucking reverend. Especially since they were really tearing the Rev apart until he mentioned Dawson. So it's not like they had a connection to the rev.

- Why did the Rev bring BJ to see Hunter in 1980????????? That doesn't make any sense at all.

- In 1974, the cops make Eddie kill Dawson basically, right? Right or no? Then, they storm the place and kill everyone who witnessed the murder. Then, why the fuck not just kill Dawson themselves in the first place???

- If that 1983 dude knew all along that the Reverend was the killer, why did he go through all the trouble of investigating?!? He seems to be truly investigating and wondering what's going on and then you learn that he ALWAYS knew. WTF

[Pwaybloe]

I know what you're talking about.

SPOILERS
As soon as Dawson was dead, I thought the land deal would fall through.  But in 1983 they were still celebrating on cashing in.  Where was the capital coming from, hmm?

It seems like "1983" was meant to wrap up everything (and it explained some relationships), but it just made it more confusing.  It was a great series, but it does have some explaining to do.

[Pas]

I know what you're talking about.

SPOILERS
As soon as Dawson was dead, I thought the land deal would fall through.  But in 1983 they were still celebrating on cashing in.  Where was the capital coming from, hmm?

It seems like "1983" was meant to wrap up everything (and it explained some relationships), but it just made it more confusing.  It was a great series, but it does have some explaining to do.

Exactly. I just wrote a blog post on all the plot holes in french, I tried to auto-translate it but it sucked, sadly. But what you are mentioning I am able to PARTIALLY explain:

I think the land deal did fall through, and I reckon the celebration you mention is in fact the flashback at the very beginning of the 3rd movie (at Badger's daughter wedding). Are you referring to another scene? If there is a cashing in celebration that really happens in 1983, I would be surprised, but that plot hole would fit a bus. Let's pretend that celebration you are talking about is the first scene for my interpretation.

Then, much later, you see another flashback when Jobson (David Morrissey) and Badger go to see Dawson about Reverend Laws. That's when they learn that Laws AND Dawson are together killing these children. So obviously the more crooked cops want to protect Dawson at all costs. Now when and why do they decide that enough is enough and Dawson has to die? This I don't understand. But it happens and they have Dawson killed by Eddie. I think the crooked cops HAVE a sense of justice (though very extreme) and this we know is when they kill Craven (the ginger scary dude) because he's ''out of control''. I believe maybe they thought Dawson was ''out of control'' too. Plot hole is them cleaning it up afterwards by killing every witness rendering Eddie useless. But the biggest plot hole of all is WHY NOT KILL LAWS ?! They know he's with Dawson, possibly even more implicated. It doesn't make sense at all. Why pretend they are really confused at who the killer is all this time. Myskish (that handicaped kid they framed for the murders) said it best: ''YOU KNOW! EVERYBODY KNOWS!''

[pete]

I think they crammed four books (four eras) into three movies in a way that doesn't really make sense.  I tried giving the entire series a chance, thinking that at the end of everything there would be a lebowski-esque replay that makes everything work.  but it's moody though right?  it's pretty fucking moody!

[Sleepless]

Obviously the movies are based on true life events, although I'm ignorant enough that I don't know which aspects are more reality-based than others. My assumption is that the greatest liberties were taken with the central protagonists of each film.

Yes, it was four books but they only made 3 movies. They were unable to make 1977 due to the fact that Ridley Scott currently owns the rights. He's going to take all 4 books and turn them into a singular movie. Apparently the plan is eventually to go back and film the 1977 chapter following the release of Scott's movie.

It's also worth bearing in mind that in their original form this "trilogy" was a originally a miniseries on Channel 4. At best they'd be considered TV movies. It's been several months now since I've seen them, but I really enjoyed them. I felt the 1980 chapter was the weakest, 1983 the strongest. I'm not going to argue why they are or aren't great pieces of filmmaking, there are others on this board who can do that far more eloquently and better informed than I can. Watching the 3 films on sequential days did definitely make an impact on me, however, and even today I still can't shake that image of the "re-enactment" of the girl walking home from school to her waiting mother, while the real mother watches from the window. Which is kinda why I'm glad this thread got bumped.

[diggler]

i've only seen the first two installments, still have to watch 1983.  It took a while to get into the first one but it got it's hooks in me. I'm sure that one will get more recognition once Andrew Garfield's Spider Man movie comes out. I love any movie that stars Paddy Considine so the 1980 film appealed to me more. I also enjoyed the cinemetography more in the second film. The first one, while more inventive visually was just a bit much sometimes. I only get so much alone time with the TV in the house and my roommates can't sit through anything that isn't Tosh.O so it might be a while until I get to see the third film.  I'm really happy I stuck with it, it's been a while since a UK drama has wowed me.