James Ellroy: Demon Dog Of American Crime Fiction

Ordinarily, there are few things as insufferable as listening to an artist talk about his work; such exercises generally descend into "look at me, I'm a tortured artist" self-aggrandizement. Author James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential), however, seems to understand that completely, and revels in his role here as narrator/autobiographical tour guide in this Australian documentary. Prowling through his native Los Angeles like one of the grim cops who populate his novels, Ellroy leads viewers on a journey through L.A.'s grim true-crime history and his own obsession with that history (an understandable obsession, since his own mother was the victim of a still-unsolved murder when Ellroy was a boy). Watching Ellroy spin the tale of his mother's death with the same lurid flair he lends to the tale of the infamous Black Dahlia slaying, we see he's not pretending to give us an ordinary day-in-the-life look at himself, but a look at how he turns the ghastly underside of L.A.--and the ghastly underside of himself--into compelling, stylized narratives. The bad news is that director Reinhard Jud often seems more fascinated with the city than with his subject, lingering for minutes at a time on hookers, strip joints or cops on the beat, suggesting that his primary purpose is showing his Australian audience the filth beneath the myth of Hollywood. The incidental footage in this film may have you reaching for the fast forward, but when Jud lets Ellroy tell creepy L.A. stories in his own slightly demented voice, this Demon Dog really shows its pedigree. Recommended. (S. Renshaw)