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Brick is an American film written and directed by Rian Johnson. The film's narrative centers on a hardboiled detective story that takes place in suburbia, in which all of the main characters are high school students. It was Johnson's directorial debut, and won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Brick was distributed by Focus Features, opening in the United States on March 31, 2006 in New York and Los Angeles. The film draws heavily in plot, characterization and dialogue from hardboiled classics, especially from Dashiell Hammett.
Rian Johnson wrote the first draft of Brick in 1996 after graduating from USC School of Cinematic Arts a year earlier. It was originally inspired by the works of Dashiell Hammett, an author known for hardboiled detective novels. The protagonist Brendan's remark of "now you are dangerous" to Laura is a line lifted from the film The Maltese Falcon. Before Johnson became familiar with Hammett's work, he was an avid fan of the 1990 film Miller's Crossing by the Coen Brothers (who, in turn, used the Hammett novel "The Glass Key" as the main influence for Miller's Crossing). Johnson, already a fan of film noir in general, enjoyed Hammett's style, calling it a "pure dose" of the hardboiled detective genre. The decision to give the Brick narrative the twist of a suburban high school setting was to apply the film noir genre to a fresh set of visual cues.
After the screenplay was completed, Johnson, with the aid of good friend and cinematographer Steve Yedlin, tried hard to get it into the hands of anyone in the film business willing to read it. After attempting to get the project funded by a number of production companies over a period of six years, they decided that the easiest and safest route to take would be to fund and shoot the film themselves. By shooting the film independently, Johnson would have complete control over achieving the delicate tone required to successfully translate Brick from script to screen.
Over the years, Johnson had come in contact with various individuals who had expressed a willingness to work on the film, including casting director Shannon Makhanian, producers Mark G. Mathis and Ram Bergman, and various actors. After acquiring about $475,000 for the film's budget, Brick finally began production in 2003.
The film was shot in Johnson's hometown of San Clemente, California on 35 mm film stock. Much of the film takes place at San Clemente High School, the high school Johnson attended.
Johnson cited Spaghetti Westerns and Cowboy Bebop as influences on his visualization of the movie.Wikipedia |
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