RIP Curtis Hanson, Director of ‘L.A. Confidential’ and ‘8 Mile’

Some very sad news rippled across movie Twitter last night when the news broke that prolific film director Curtis Hanson died at the age 71. Hanson is probably best known as the director of L.A. Confidential, the influential 1997 noir drama that essentially launched Russell Crowe’s American career (as well as the career of Guy Pearce) and was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, including Hanson for Best Director (almost all those nominations were lost to Titanic).

For most careers, L.A. Confidential would be enough. It’s considered by many critics to be among the very best films of the 1990s, and it more than holds up today, nearly 20 years later. But the beauty of Curtis Hanson’s career is that it stretched so far beyond L.A. Confidential. Hanson was never a director with a signature style. He never did another noir after L.A. Confidential. Instead, that film was part of an eclectic string of films that crossed genres, styles, and stars, with really only one throughline: they were all incredibly good movies, often movies that defied the expectations of their genre.

Starting in 1992, when Hanson made a breakthrough of sorts with the kind of trashy potboiler that doesn’t usually portend future Oscar success:

• The Hand That Rocks The Cradle (1992). Personal story: The Hand That Rocks The Cradle was one of the first R-rated movies I ever saw, and just in the first 20 minutes, between the scenes of the doctor molesting Annabella Sciorra and Rebecca DeMornay’s bloody miscarriage, I was already profoundly disturbed, and that was all before all the attempted murderings happened and Julianne Moore was killed with a greenhouse. The movie is trash, yes, but it’s well-made, memorable trash. [Where to stream The Hand That Rocks the Cradle]
• The River Wild (1994). An outdoors adventure thriller starring Meryl Streep as a champion whitewater-rafter? Sure! This is lowkey one of the most solid and entertaining thrillers of the ’90s, one of those movies that shows up on cable that you have to watch through to the end. That Streep got a Golden Globe nomination for a thriller where she plays a rafting instructor gets chalked up to the Meryl Streep Awards Effect, but don’t overlook the fact that Curtis Hanson knows his way around genres. [Where to stream The River Wild]
• L.A. Confidential (1997). A stunner, and the movie that made Curtis Hanson a recognized Hollywood director. Its depiction of a noir wonderland practically invents the city of Los Angeles from whole cloth and populates it with every kind of creature from cop to call girl to parasite reporter. [Where to stream L.A. Confidential]

• Wonder Boys (2000). Hanson’s adaptation of Michael Chabon’s novel is weary, wiley, and wise, but never stops being an absurd little comedy that lets Michael Douglas stumble around in a pink bathrobe for a while. This is a movie that improves with every subsequent viewing, as you find little corners you might have missed or (in my personal case) find more insight in the movie the older you get. [Where to stream Wonder Boys]
• 8 Mile (2002). Improbably, this Eminem vehicle manages to work far beyond the usual limitations of the music star vanity project. And considering the fact that Eminem didn’t exactly follow it up with any other acting triumphs makes me think that Hanson had a great deal to do with the controlled fury of his performance. The film never feels gratuitous or opportunistic, and Hanson does a great job of evoking Detroit as a setting. [Where to stream 8 Mile]
• In Her Shoes (2005). Maybe my personal favorite of all of Hanson’s movies, and yet another example of Hanson’s fantastic ability to hop genres with ease. Adapting the kind of novel so often derided as “chick lit” and bringing it to life with all the humanity and vitality it deserved, Hanson delivers the best (and bravest) performance of Cameron Diaz’s career, one that capitalizes on every weapon she has in her arsenal. I could watch this movie once a week and never get tired of it, and in the wake of Hanson’s death, that “I carry your heart” scene is going to pack a punch. [Where to stream In Her Shoes]

• Lucky You (2007). Ironically, it was the film about gambling that broke Hanson’s hot streak. The Eric Bana/Drew Barrymore movie never quite caught fire, and Hanson’s career slowed soon after. [Where to stream Lucky You]
• Too Big to Fail (2011). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Too Big to Fail is the best of the recent HBO current-events movies, which include Jay Roach-directed films like Recount and Game Change. Only Hanson’s Too Big to Fail manages to deliver the film’s little recent-history lesson while evoking a strong sense of time and place and allowing his characters to come forward as more than just characters. It’s a riveting, rewatchable movie (I’d take it over The Big Short pretty much every time). [Where to stream Too Big to Fail]

There’s also Chasing Mavericks, which Hanson wasn’t able to finish due to health problems and which isn’t much worth discussing anyway. Hanson’s 1992-2005 streak tells the tale of a director who wasn’t so much out to tell his own story but to tell the stories of others, and to tell those stories remarkably well. I’ll always remember Hanson as an uncommonly generous filmmaker because of that. I’m not sure when we’ll get another filmmaker talented and versatile enough to serve the needs of Meryl Streep and Eminem in the same career; who could look at 1950s Los Angeles and the social politics of a Florida retirement community and find them equally fascinating. Curtis Hanson was an artist whose canvass was wide and whose brushstrokes were thrillingly specific. Lucky us.