Black Hawk Down ( 2001 ) tries hard to beat Saving Private Ryan
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In 1998 Steven Spielberg shocked the cinematic frontier with his film Saving Private Ryan which had one of the most brutal depictions of warfare, with its opening battle-scene. This caused a small shift in the ways Hollywood was trying to cinematically portray war. And who's better than Ridley Scott, to attempt at beating Spielberg at war footage. Which he tried to do with his 2001 film Black Hawk Down.
Black Hawk Down stands in an interesting place in film history. It was directed by Ridley Scott, who you may know from Alien and Blade Runner, and not Tony Scott ( his brother ) who was a frequent collaborator with Jerry Bruckheimer a producer on this movie. Also this film seems to change the style of another frequent collaborator of Bruckheimer Michael Bay.
We all know the super-saturated, high-contrast imagery from Michael Bay movies. Yet, most of his Jerry Bruckheimer movies were shot relatively normally, with normal levels of contrast and saturation. And then suddenly with 2003 film Bad Boys II Bay decided to crank up the colors, which he didn't ever really stop doing since.
I think the following happened. In 1993 when Spielberg finally got enough courage to film Schindler's List, he decided that he can't make the film in color. This film was the first collaboration of Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński who later, with Spielberg decided to run with the idea of weird color in films. Janusz was the guy that decided to bleach the film ( for a weird look ) in 2002 Minority Report and who also was probably experimenting with a strange, sort of, de-saturated, brutal look, earlier for Saving Private Ryan.
Between the two films, other film-makers started experimenting with color as well. We get The Wachowskis do that with The Matrix turning the film green and The Coen Brothers with O Brother, Where Art Thou? turning the film orange.
Being clearly inspired by Saving Private Ryan Ridley Scott and cinematographer Sławomir Idziak decided to also have an intense brutal sort of look for Black Hawk Down. So they decided to crank up the colors to pretty much the same level Michael Bay is famous for.
The film came out just after Pearl Harbor so Bay did Pearl Harbor before he saw Black Hawk Down, therefor Pearl Harbor still looks relatively normal. Yet on his next film, Bad Boys II he pretty much ran with this style of color-correction. And the rest is history. Or at very least, this is my theory of what happened.
Strangely enough, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down have a lot in common. They were both released in 2001, and both produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Both films share actors Josh Hartnett, William Fichtner, Glenn Morshower, Tom Sizemore, Kim Coates, Ewen Bremner and in both film the music is done by Hans Zimmer. Michael Bay definitely saw this film.
Speaking of which, Bay didn't only take the look of the film into his own arsenal. Kim Coats and William Fichtner appear throughout Bay's filmography. Glenn Morshower worked with Michael Bay on The Island and 3 Transformers films. Ewen Bremner worked with Ewan McGregor on a Danny Boyle's film called Trainspotting which was probably the reason McGregor is in Black Hawk Down. And McGregor worked with Michael Bay later on The Island as well. Probably as a result of being in Black Hawk Down. ( His character in The Island resembles more of his character in this film, than the role he was famous for at the time Obi-Wan Kenobi ).
The film also introduces the world to Tom Hardy, which marks this film, as his first ever film. And also contains Orlando Bloom who you may argue didn't actually need Black Hawk Down to kick himself into superstardom. I mean he also played Legolas in Lord of the Rings that same year. But Jerry Bruckheimer ended up making the Pirates of the Caribbean films, so it was a good thing.
Directing-wise the Scott brothers are very good. The beginning of the film, with the whole buildup to the main battle event, is very perfectly executed. Ridley Scott stages amazing shots of military aircraft and has a good sense of flow and rhythm.
The problems start to happen when Scott gets into the battle itself and tries to recreate the Saving Private Ryan feeling, but stretched to a whole movie, and the movie starts to become shaky and explosive. It feels like 13 hours by Michael Bay. Something that you will enjoy if you have a fast enough brain to follow Michael Bay movies, but something that might look and feel a little messy to a person who likes clarity in their action. The film does stop occasionally to hit you in the face with some visceral imagery. Which is the kind of thing you could see from Michael Bay too. Though in this particular film, because it is Ridley Scott, the pauses are really pausing. It feels really jarring at times. In one point the movie literally stops with a freeze frame and everything, to make you notice one very gruesome detail.
I believe the tension in Saving Private Ryan works way better. Maybe because Spielberg is just better than Ridley Scott in general. But the tension is there. It is roughly the same amount of tension as in 13 Hours. You can even say that 13 Hours is the same cinematic universe.
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