DVD Review: Auto Focus



I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Paul Schrader's Auto Focus, a film about the double life and gruesome death of Bob Crane. I certainly didn't expect what I got; a linear and bluntly straight-forward film that was alternatingly creepy, compelling and sometimes actually funny. It's not the best film I've ever seen by any stretch, but Auto Focus is not without considerable qualities.

Auto Focus isn't as good as Schrader's finest directorial effort, Affliction, but it's infinitely better than Dominion, the Exorcist prequel that he directed next. And, surprisingly, it shares something in common with those films. All three of them are stories about men caught in self-destructive downward spirals who are equally powerless and unwilling to stop their descent.

The real life Bob Crane is, of course, best known as Colonel Hogan, the hero of the unlikely WWII POW sitcom, Hogan's Heroes. I used to love Hogans Heroes when I was a kid. I looked forward to catching syndicated reruns in the afternoons when I'd finished my homework. I knew, in the early 80's when I watched the show, that Crane was dead, but I didn't know why. As a teenager I remember learning that he'd been violently murdered in an unsolved case, and that one element of his life that came to public light during the investigation was that he'd been an amateur pornographer for years. Crane, it seems, was anything but the squeaky clean Colonel Hogan I'd grown up with.

And yet, Auto Focus argues … somewhat convincingly … that Crane really was squeaky clean in his own way. The movie presents a man with a duel nature, one half of him a devoted Catholic and family man, the other half a sex addict who photographed and videotaped his conquests in sort of a bizarre trophy quest. Crane's sexual addiction isn't glossed over or presented as a palpable thing that simply got out of control. Auto Focus presents Crane's sexual dysfunctions as entirely negative and destructive from the get-go. Early scenes feature Crane sheepishly discussing his habits with his priest, and trying to justify a collection of pornographic magazines that his wife has found. There's no room for doubt that, from the point of view of this film, Bob Crane's sexual appetites were a harmful element in his life.

The primary enabler in Crane's self destruction seems to have been his friend John "Carpie" Carpenter, played here with disturbing effectiveness by the always convincing Willem Dafoe. Nobody gives good creep like Dafoe, and in Auto Focus Dafoe creates a character that might be his must repugnant on-screen construction yet. "Carpie" isn't simply a bad friend to Crane in the "drinkin' buddy" sense. Dafoe's John Carpenter is an obsessive and truly perverse presence who justifies and facilitates Crane's darkest, ugliest cravings. The movie seems to argue that, had Carpenter never bubbled to the surface of Bob Crane's life, the comic actor would likely have managed to keep it together.

Schrader's directorial decisions are shrewd and calculated in this film, and the visuals nicely mirror the changing state of Bob Crane's life. Early shots, before sex became a destructive force in Crane's life, are bright, clean and steady. Later in the film, as Crane drops further down the spiral, the movie's hues darken and become dingier. The camera forces the viewer into Crane's world with him by way of strange perspectives and shorter shots. It's difficult not to panic with Crane as he feels his world slipping out from under him.

The movie was rated R, partly due to "strong sexuality and nudity." It's a credit to Schrader as a director that the nudity and sexuality in the film is never quite "close" to the viewer. It's pervasive, but always in the background, on a TV screen or in a darkened room. Up close, nudity becomes a matter of intimacy. Auto Focus never lets us forget that the sexual addiction that lead to the self destruction of Bob Crane was never a matter of intimacy. Sex, for Bob Crane, may have been about conquest or habit or simply about compulsion… but it was never about the intimacy of real interaction between two people.

Greg Kinnear, as it turns out, was an inspired choice to play Bob Crane. Like Crane, Kinnear's TV persona is somewhat squeaky clean. He looks comfortable in Colonel Hogan's leather jacket and half-cocked cap. He looks just as comfortable, in fact, as Crane himself did. What's effective about Kinnear's performance is that he's just as convincing in the darker scenes. Two scenes in particular stand out. When he first sees himself having sex on video, Kinnear's Crane says two things, both of which he emphatically means and each of which contradict the other: "We've got to destroy this tape. How much does one of these recorders cost?" Crane simultaniously wants to both stop and to indulge his addiction, and Kinnear sells the scene with an understated reality. If you've ever been addicted to anything... even if it's just cigarettes... you might feel a little pang of recognition here.

In another scene Crane hallucinates during a taping of Hogan's Heroes. Images of sexual dalliances, his crumbling family life, and his career teetering on a precipice overwhelm him. This is the make or break point for Crane in this film. It's a darkly unsettling and comical scene, and Kinnear pulls it off with just the right balance of smirk and fear. It's a perfect Bob Crane moment.

The death of Bob Crane remains unsolved to this day, although the film makes it clear who the murderer probably was … and what the motive was. But it isn't the unsolved murder of Bob Crane that makes this movie relevant to today's age. What makes the movie relevant to the modern age is what it has to say about the combination of technology and sex. In the mid sixties, home video technology was brand new and exciting. Like any tool, it could be used for creation or destruction. Crane used it for both, and seemed to enjoy taping his family birthday parties and holidays every bit as much as he enjoyed taping his sexual liaisons. These days home video is yesterday's news. Today, the technology that has the most potential to nurture sexual self destruction is the very media that you're using to read this film review. Like home video in the 60's, the internet can be a powerfully creative tool, or an instrument with which we arrange and nurture our own sexual dysfunctions. It's impossible not to make the connections while watching Auto Focus, although Schrader never forces that connection with overtly analogous dialogue or imagery. It's simply there. It always will be. Technology changes, but sex remains the same. Both have the potential to enhance and strengthen our relationships … or to destroy them. Even if Bob Crane's story is nothing more than a cautionary tale, it's more relevant now than ever.



The DVD features a documentary in two parts about the investigation of the Bob Crane murder. The documentary is nearly an hour long and builds a solid case for the movie's apparent supposition about who killed Bob Crane, and why. I feel that I should warn the viewer, however, that the documentary contains several close photographs of the murder scene, including photographs of Crane's bludgeoned and bloody body. It's upsetting to watch, and while it might be sobering for some, it'll simply seem gratuitous to others.

Auto Focus Trailer:

  ¶ 4:09 AM