The Crow (film)
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The Crow is a 1994 film adaptation of James O'Barr's comic book of the same name (see The Crow). It was directed by Alex Proyas and starred Brandon Lee, gaining instant notoriety even before its release, when Lee was accidentally killed during filming.
Plot
-->A man named Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) was murdered along with his fiancée, Shelly Webster(Sofia Shinas), who was also raped, by a gang of street thugs who broke into their apartment on "Devil's Night" (October 30). One year later, he is resurrected by a crow and seeks out vengeance on his murderers, killing them one at a time. He is able to defeat his enemies because the crow that brought him back to life has given him the power of invulnerability - nothing can kill him, and all injuries he takes are healed almost instantly, no matter how serious they are.
Changes from the comic book
Eric is given the last name Draven (possibly drawn from a scene in the comic revealing Eric's last initial as either 'C' or 'D', though it is also possible that it is a pun on the words, "The Raven," or Eric de Raven) and is portrayed by Lee as a guitarist, while Shelly is portrayed as an artist. The two are murdered during the violence and chaos of Devil's Night, the day before their wedding on Halloween, in their home by a gang of criminals working for a larger crime syndicate, who ordered Shelly's death in retaliation for fighting tenant eviction in a neighborhood it controlled.Some characters were changed: Sarah (Sherri in the comic), a street urchin Eric doesn't meet until after his rebirth, was recast as his and Shelley's surrogate daughter, played by Rochelle Davis; Top Dollar went from a low-level drug dealer to a powerful crime lord, played by Michael Wincott; and Officer Albrecht, from a beat cop unimportant to the story to Eric's main (non-supernatural) ally, played by Ernie Hudson.
Also, Eric and Shelly's murderers went from being just a gang of vicious thugs who committed the murders for fun to members of a Gothic-Mafia-like crime syndicate that unofficially runs the city and orders them to kill the two lovers.
Gabriel the cat originally belongs to an old lady whom Tin Tin (one of the murderers, portrayed by Laurence Mason) murders at the beginning of the story. Eric later gives the cat to Officer Albrecht. However, in the movie, Gabriel already belonged to Eric and Shelly.
Brandon Lee's death
On March 31, 1993, the 50th day of a 60 day shooting schedule for The Crow, the scene being filmed was when Lee's character Eric Draven was to walk into his apartment and see his girlfriend being raped by thugs. This would subsequently lead to Eric being shot and killed, along with his fiance. Actor Michael Massee, who played Funboy, one of the villains in the movie, was supposed to shoot at Lee as he walked into his apartment.Because the second unit team on The Crow were running behind schedule, it was decided that dummy cartridges — bullets that outwardly appear to be functional, but contain no gunpowder and hence pose no threat to those on the set of a movie — would be made from real cartridges that had been brought to the set, earlier in production. Bruce Merlin, an effects technician, dismantled the live cartridges by removing the bullets, emptying out the gunpowder, detonating the primer and reinserting the bullets. This rendered the cartridges inoperative, but real-looking in appearance. Merlin and his propmaster Daniel Kuttner took initiative to create some blanks. To create these, Merlin and Kuttner removed the bullets from live cartridges and replaced the gunpowder with firework powder. The bullets were not reinserted.
Later, a cartridge with only a primer and a bullet (but no gunpowder) was fired in a pistol. This caused the bullet to lodge in the forcing cone of the revolver.
When the first unit used this gun to shoot the death scene, the chamber was loaded with blanks which had no bullets. However, there was still the bullet in the barrel, which was propelled out by the blank cartridge's explosion. Consequently, Lee was shot and severely wounded, as cameras rolled at the EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Seconds later the director Alex Proyas shouted 'CUT', but Brandon remained on the floor. Stuntman (and Lee's friend) Jeff Imada ran over to Brandon with a paramedic, to see if he had hit his head on the door when he fell, and knocked himself out. They discovered a thin slit, an inch below to the right of his navel, but this didn't hold any clues as to what happened. They removed Brandon's jacket and spotted a hole in his T-shirt. By this time, Brandon had slipped into unconsciousness. An ambulance was called, and Brandon was rushed to a hospital. He underwent five hours of surgery upon which they discovered a bullet that had been the cause of the damage. At 1:04pm, he died.
After Lee's death, a stunt double, Chad Stahelski replaced Lee in some scenes. Special effects were used for digitally compositing Lee's face onto the double.
These scenes were filmed after Lee's death:-
- Eric Draven's death in flashbacks (this was the scene Brandon was filming at the time he had died
- a scene with Eric walking into his apartment after returning from the dead was digitally composited from a scene of Lee walking into an alleyway with raindrops added (the rest of the scenes in the apartment were all done with the double);
- Lee's face was digitally composited onto the stunt double when Eric puts on make-up in front of a mirror to show his reflection;
- when Sarah (Rochelle Davis) visits Eric in his apartment, his face is not seen as it is actually the stunt double.
Soundtracks
The original soundtrack album for The Crow featured songs from the movie, and was a chart-topping album. It included work by The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine and Pantera. The Crow Score consisted of original, mostly orchestral music, with some electronic/guitar elements written for the motion picture by Graeme Revell.The bands Medicine and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult also make small appearances in the film, on the stage in Top Dollar's 'headquarters'.
Later films' soundtracks were less successful, despite also having famous artists (including Iggy Pop, PJ Harvey, the Deftones and Hole) on them.
Awards
The film won the 1995 BMI Film Music Award, from the BMI Film & TV Awards. It also won the 1995 MTV Movie Award for Best Movie Song ("Big Empty" by Stone Temple Pilots). It was nominated for the 1995 MTV Movie Awards for Best Movie and posthumously for Best Male Performance (Brandon Lee).Cast
- Brandon Lee - Eric Draven
- Rochelle Davis - Sarah
- Ernie Hudson - Sergeant Albrecht
- Michael Wincott - Top Dollar
- Ling Bai - Myca (as Bai Ling)
- Sofia Shinas - Shelly Webster
- Anna Levine - Darla (as Anna Thomson)
- David Patrick Kelly - T-Bird
- Angel David - Skank
- Laurence Mason - Tin Tin
- Michael Massee - Funboy
- Tony Todd - Grange
- Jon Polito - Gideon, Pawn Shop Owner
- James O'Barr - Robber (uncredited)
Miscellany
- In the original comic, James O'Barr based the physical appearance of the character Gideon on Jon Polito, who subsequently played the character in the film adaptation.
- James O'Barr himself can be seen in a brief cameo. He's the guy with a ponytail haircut stealing a television right after Gideons pawnshop gets blown up.
See also
| The Crow |
|
James O'Barr The Crow comic book |
| Film and television |
|
The Crow (1994) (1996) (1998 series) (2000) Wings of the Crow (2000) (2005) |
| Music |
| The Crow original soundtrack (1994) |
External links
- [Urban legend on the Brandon Lee death scene]
- [StarThrillerBrandonLee: rumors of curse, murder and motive, hoax, vs. official police report]
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