Auto Focus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the camera focusing system, see autofocus.
| Auto Focus | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Paul Schrader |
| Produced by | Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, Brian Oliver |
| Written by | Michael Gerbosi |
| Starring | Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Maria Bello, Rita Wilson |
| Music by | Angelo Badalamenti |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics |
| Release date(s) | October 18, 2002 (limited) |
| Running time | 105 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $7 million USD |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
Auto Focus is a feature film adaptation of the book The Murder of Bob Crane by Robert Graysmith. It tells the story of actor Bob Crane, an affable radio show host and amateur drummer who found success on Hogan's Heroes, a popular television comedy series about a prisoner of war camp during World War II, for which he is best known.
The 2002 movie deeply delves into Crane's secret personal life, focusing on his relationship with John Henry Carpenter, an electronics expert involved with the development of the VCR. Encouraged by Carpenter and enabled by his expertise, Crane - a church-going, non-drinking family man - became a sex addict obsessed with sleeping with as many women as possible and filming those encounters with video and photographic equipment, usually with Carpenter participating. Auto Focus depicts Crane's life from his sitcom success through his post-Hogan's Heroes efforts to sustain a viable career - mostly in dinner theatre - until his murder which, to this day, remains unsolved, although Carpenter was tried and acquitted of the crime.
Because at the time of its filming both Crane and Carpenter were deceased and there were no reliable sources to confirm what transpired between them, the movie - which is filled with nudity and numerous explicit scenes of sexual activity - consists mostly of speculation and unproved assumptions.
[edit] Trivia
- Many critics praised the film and called it one of the most overlooked releases of 2002. Many had cited that the movie's dark treatment of morality reflected its overall tone.
- Crane's second son, Scotty, publicly disapproved of the film; his oldest son, Bob Crane Jr., had a cameo role in the movie.
- The DVD release features a 50-minute documentary, Murder in Scottsdale, delving into the initial murder investigation and subsequent revival some 15 years later.
- Writer Robert Graysmith also wrote another true crime book about the Zodiac serial killer in San Francisco, California.
- This film was banned in Malaysia.
- Two scenes were altered to gain an R-rating, an oral sex scene viewed on a video, and several shots of explicit sex viewed later on a video. These scenes are blurred in the U.S. release. European DVDs have the unblurred versions of these scenes. Additionally, U.S. posters had to have the word 'sex' obscured from the sentence "A day without sex is a day wasted."
