Tony Scott, one of Hollywood’s most consistently successful commercial filmmakers for the past three decades, died on Sunday, August 21, after jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles Harbor. A suicide note was later found at his office. ABC News reports that Scott had inoperable brain cancer.
Scott was 68.
The director of such Hollywood hits as Top Gun (1986), Days of Thunder (1990), Crimson Tide (1995), Spy Game (2001), Man on Fire (2004) and, his most recent film, 2010’s Unstoppable, Scott’s movies are easily recognized for their flashy, energetically-edited, fast-moving style. It’s an artistic trademark that memorably injected Scott’s work into the eyeballs of its viewers, though it never made a favorable impression in critical circles or awards committees. (He was never nominated for an Academy Award.).
The British-born Scott took his first filmmaking steps as a director of commercials for elder bother Ridley Scott’s television commercial production house, Ridley Scott Associates (RSA). The younger Scott directed hundreds of films in the 1970s and then, following the feature film successes of fellow British commercial directors Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire), Alan Parker (Midnight Express) and Adrian Lyne (9 ½ Weeks), made his Hollywood debut with the erotic and evocative vampire tale The Hunger (1982), which featured the unique star line-up of Catherine Deneuve (Potiche), David Bowie (The Last Temptation of Christ) and Susan Sarandon (The Greatest).
The Hunger struck out at the box office, but it proved to be one of Soott’s only commercial disappointments. He followed it up with international smash Top Gun a few years later, then Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Revenge (1990) with Kevin Costner and Days of Thunder (1990), which reunited him with Top Gun star Tom Cruise (Collateral). From that point on, Scott never stopped working and rarely took a wrong step.
Directing aside, he and brother Tony formed the production entity Scott-Free Productions in 1995 in Los Angeles. The outfit has produced the majority of the Scott brothers’ films, along with a bunch of well-received television series, including Numb3rs, The Good Wife and the mini-series The Pillars of the Earth.
For me, Scott’s films are consistently enjoyable–lively, kinetically entertaining and so Hollywood–and filled with memorable sequences that I could watch numerous times (even if the films I their entirety don’t necessarily require repeat viewing): Denzel Washington (Safe House) cutting of the fingers of a murder suspect to the tune of Santana’s “Oye Como Va” in Man on Fire, Christopher Walken ($5 a Day) interrogating a bloodied Dennis Hopper (Blue Velvet) in True Romance (1993), pumped-up football player Billy Blanks blowing his brains out after scoring a touchdown in The Last Boy Scout (1991). These are such things that Youtube is made of!
My favorite Tony Scott film remains The Hunger, his first feature and one that was way ahead of the curve when it came to exploiting the potential–visual, violent and erotic–of vampirism. If you don’t believe me, then check out its opening scene and others by the late Mr. Scott. I’m sure they’ll be getting a helluva lot of play in the coming days.
Very sad to hear about Tony Scott. I agree that “The Hunger” is my fave of all his films. I saw it when it was originally released and have watched it many times since. RIP Tony.
Indeed, sad… Hope other people discover The Hunger. It actually had a kind of loftiness and “poetry” that you didn’t see in a lot of his later films.
I agree. It always seems like an “art” film to me. Beautifully shot and such a great cast. When I originally saw it I was not familiar with Tony Scott and years later, when I realized the same guy directed “Top Gun” and other action films I would always mention “The Hunger” to friends who were really into Tony Scott films.
It’s funny…if you read Scott’s interviews, he considers The Hunger to be a disaster, probably because it tanked at the box office. I always enjoyed it, sunk into it. His flashy, overly-atmospheric style WORKED for this film, just as it served all his later action-oriented flicks. And it was his first film! He never made a more “arty” film after this one, where the visual style tells the story. A handful of his others have their moments that smack of the style he applied to The Hunger: the interrogation scene between Walken and Hopper in True Romance and the second half of Man on Fire immediately come to mind…