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| Tony Scott: days of thunder | Tony Scott: days of thunder |
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| It seems oddly appropriate that Tony Scott, who made his living blowing things up and crashing cars, should have taken his life by jumping off a bridge that was a frequent location for movies of a Tony Scott bent, if not for any actual Tony Scott movies. | It seems oddly appropriate that Tony Scott, who made his living blowing things up and crashing cars, should have taken his life by jumping off a bridge that was a frequent location for movies of a Tony Scott bent, if not for any actual Tony Scott movies. |
| The Vincent Thomas bridge in Los Angeles can be seen in car-chase movies such as The Fast and The Furious and Gone in 60 Seconds, and is misnamed (as the "Saint Vincent Thomas Bridge") by Robert De Niro in one scene in Michael Mann's Heat. Whatever it was that led the director to park his car and leap from the bridge to his death in the harbour below, one can't help but recollect the stunning opening sequence of his 1991 film The Last Boy Scout, in which a blackmailed pro footballer pulls a gun on the field and shoots anyone attempting to tackle him as he runs for a touchdown, before putting the gun to his head, saying: "Ain't life a bitch?" and pulling the trigger. | The Vincent Thomas bridge in Los Angeles can be seen in car-chase movies such as The Fast and The Furious and Gone in 60 Seconds, and is misnamed (as the "Saint Vincent Thomas Bridge") by Robert De Niro in one scene in Michael Mann's Heat. Whatever it was that led the director to park his car and leap from the bridge to his death in the harbour below, one can't help but recollect the stunning opening sequence of his 1991 film The Last Boy Scout, in which a blackmailed pro footballer pulls a gun on the field and shoots anyone attempting to tackle him as he runs for a touchdown, before putting the gun to his head, saying: "Ain't life a bitch?" and pulling the trigger. |
| Scott's incredible journey from North Shields to Beverly Hills Cop II is a shadow-version of the career of his elder brother, Sir Ridley Scott, seven years his senior. And whatever the critics (myself included) may have said, his success at the box office and among his many and varied fans – first in advertising, then as one of the top directors in Hollywood – goes some way towards refuting that football player's grim assessment of our sojourn here on earth. That being said, rumours are floating around that Scott had recently been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, which suggests a reason for this dispiriting act of self-annihilation. | Scott's incredible journey from North Shields to Beverly Hills Cop II is a shadow-version of the career of his elder brother, Sir Ridley Scott, seven years his senior. And whatever the critics (myself included) may have said, his success at the box office and among his many and varied fans – first in advertising, then as one of the top directors in Hollywood – goes some way towards refuting that football player's grim assessment of our sojourn here on earth. That being said, rumours are floating around that Scott had recently been diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, which suggests a reason for this dispiriting act of self-annihilation. |
| Like his brother, Tony Scott made his name in the golden age-cum-gold rush of 1970s British advertising, when future directors included Adrian Lyne, Hugh Hudson, Alan Parker and Ridley were reinvigorating the form by adding sumptuous production design and camerawork to ads for bland and boring products such as Hovis bread (that one was Ridley's). Although, like his brother with The Duellists, he had an arthouse bent that can only be detected in his 1983 debut feature The Hunger and perhaps in a Henry James adaptation he shot for French television in 1975 (after winning – or losing? – a coin-toss with his brother), the failure of The Hunger at the box office left him free to embrace – reluctantly, at first – the kind of projects that he later came to be associated with. | Like his brother, Tony Scott made his name in the golden age-cum-gold rush of 1970s British advertising, when future directors included Adrian Lyne, Hugh Hudson, Alan Parker and Ridley were reinvigorating the form by adding sumptuous production design and camerawork to ads for bland and boring products such as Hovis bread (that one was Ridley's). Although, like his brother with The Duellists, he had an arthouse bent that can only be detected in his 1983 debut feature The Hunger and perhaps in a Henry James adaptation he shot for French television in 1975 (after winning – or losing? – a coin-toss with his brother), the failure of The Hunger at the box office left him free to embrace – reluctantly, at first – the kind of projects that he later came to be associated with. |
| He was fortunate enough to fall in with the archetypal production team of the coke-dusted, money-swamped, excess-craving 1980s, Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson – gluttons for style over substance and masters of the hi-concept pitch meeting – after they saw a Saab car commercial Tony had shot. Top Gun, the movie they gave him, went on to become one of the biggest hits of the decade, inaugurating the box-office primacy of the young Tom Cruise. It seemed like a brain-dead flagwaver at the time, but Quentin Tarantino gave a famous exegesis (allegedly nicked from his Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary) of the movie's throbbing homoerotic overtones in his cameo in the 1994 independent movie Sleep With Me, an early sign that whatever the critics felt, Tony Scott enjoyed the respect of his fellow directors. | He was fortunate enough to fall in with the archetypal production team of the coke-dusted, money-swamped, excess-craving 1980s, Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson – gluttons for style over substance and masters of the hi-concept pitch meeting – after they saw a Saab car commercial Tony had shot. Top Gun, the movie they gave him, went on to become one of the biggest hits of the decade, inaugurating the box-office primacy of the young Tom Cruise. It seemed like a brain-dead flagwaver at the time, but Quentin Tarantino gave a famous exegesis (allegedly nicked from his Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary) of the movie's throbbing homoerotic overtones in his cameo in the 1994 independent movie Sleep With Me, an early sign that whatever the critics felt, Tony Scott enjoyed the respect of his fellow directors. |
| Indeed, one of the notable aspects of Scott's work is his enthusiasm for good writers. Tarantino himself wrote True Romance, the movie that Tony held closest to his heart, while The Last Boy Scout – chock-full of juicily cynical one-liners – was about the best script Shane Black ever wrote (at the time, he was the highest-paid screenwriter in town). Days of Thunder may not linger long in the memory, but that doesn't alter the fact that it was written by Chinatown's Robert Towne. | Indeed, one of the notable aspects of Scott's work is his enthusiasm for good writers. Tarantino himself wrote True Romance, the movie that Tony held closest to his heart, while The Last Boy Scout – chock-full of juicily cynical one-liners – was about the best script Shane Black ever wrote (at the time, he was the highest-paid screenwriter in town). Days of Thunder may not linger long in the memory, but that doesn't alter the fact that it was written by Chinatown's Robert Towne. |
| Scott essentially invented the modern action movie and his amped-up, noisy, rapidly edited film-making method became the house style of the Simpson-Bruckheimer ascendency. Scott stuck with it even after Simpson's OD death in 1996 broke up the partnership. Thereafter, Scott churned out a movie each year, usually loaded with top-tier stars – he made four movies with Denzel Washington alone – and another super-kinetic one-line pitch of a story ("We can't stop this train!" – Unstoppable; "they've hijacked a subway train!" – The Taking of Pelham 123, and so on). | Scott essentially invented the modern action movie and his amped-up, noisy, rapidly edited film-making method became the house style of the Simpson-Bruckheimer ascendency. Scott stuck with it even after Simpson's OD death in 1996 broke up the partnership. Thereafter, Scott churned out a movie each year, usually loaded with top-tier stars – he made four movies with Denzel Washington alone – and another super-kinetic one-line pitch of a story ("We can't stop this train!" – Unstoppable; "they've hijacked a subway train!" – The Taking of Pelham 123, and so on). |
| For me, the oddities of Scott's career offer the most fun. I am hard-pressed to think of another movie about Hollywood that is as daffy and off-the-wall as Domino, and even after seven or eight viewings, I haven't reached the bottom of it, if there is one. I have a sneaking suspicion that in dens and rec rooms across the US, other people are thinking the same thing. True Romance gave the lie to anyone who thought Scott didn't appreciate invigoratingly colourful dialogue, and those arthouse tendencies given full rein in The Hunger do in fact linger like ghosts in the fabric of his mainstream hits. | For me, the oddities of Scott's career offer the most fun. I am hard-pressed to think of another movie about Hollywood that is as daffy and off-the-wall as Domino, and even after seven or eight viewings, I haven't reached the bottom of it, if there is one. I have a sneaking suspicion that in dens and rec rooms across the US, other people are thinking the same thing. True Romance gave the lie to anyone who thought Scott didn't appreciate invigoratingly colourful dialogue, and those arthouse tendencies given full rein in The Hunger do in fact linger like ghosts in the fabric of his mainstream hits. |
| He lived his life like he made his pictures, with all the knobs turned up to 11 and all the needles flicking deep into the red zone: loud, unbelievably over-the-top film-making, enormous wealth and success, an incredible arc to his life from North Shields to the top of the Hollywood heap, and fond remembrances from his peers. The man was beloved. The man will be missed. | He lived his life like he made his pictures, with all the knobs turned up to 11 and all the needles flicking deep into the red zone: loud, unbelievably over-the-top film-making, enormous wealth and success, an incredible arc to his life from North Shields to the top of the Hollywood heap, and fond remembrances from his peers. The man was beloved. The man will be missed. |
| • This article was amended on 24 August 2012. The original referred to Scott's journey from South Shields, rather than North Shields, to Beverly Hills Cop II and to the top of the Hollywood heap. This has been corrected. |