Tony Scott's films, with their bravado and surface sheen, chimed perfectly with the mood of the Reagan years, writes DONALD CLARKE
HOLLYWOOD GULPED in disbelief when the news broke yesterday that Tony Scott, director of the glossiest action flicks of the age, had killed himself by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles. Generally seen in a baseball cap, a big cigar jammed between his teeth, he still seemed, at 68, to bristle with aggressive energy.
Scott was a man of distinction. He could be credited (or blamed) for helping to invent the 1980s. True, Top Gun, the director’s second film, did not emerge until 1986. But its combination of surface sheen and Darwinian bravado chimed perfectly with the high era of Reaganism.
Scott didn’t always get on well with the critics. He did, however, perfect an unmistakable signature style. Does light filter through venetian blinds? Is much of the frame shaded in cobalt blue? Do shiny cars or planes hum sexually? You must be watching a Tony Scott picture – or a project by one of his many, many imitators.
Younger brother of Sir Ridley Scott, director of Alien, Tony Scott was – like Adrian Lyne and Alan Parker – a member of the generation that emerged from the British advertising scene in the 1970s. He was never allowed to forget the fact.
“Adrian and I were particularly slaughtered for favouring style over content. And we deserved it,” he told this writer in 2009.
“We were all jeans commercials and rock ’n’ roll. We had picked up a few habits that didn’t suit the long form. It was all about the visuals. Where’s the light falling on David Bowie? That sort of thing.”
A great talker, who never lost his Tyneside accent, Scott could afford to shrug off the critics. Following the flop that was The Hunger (1983), starring Bowie as a vampire, he turned Top Gun, a tale of US fighter aces, into a sensation and went on to score further hits with Beverly Hills Cop II, Crimson Tide and True Romance. That last film, based on a script by Quentin Tarantino, even managed to land a host of excellent reviews. Tarantino always declared himself a fan and felt Scott’s Revenge, a thriller from 1990, was something of an overlooked classic.
Ridley received more respect. But Tony was arguably the more influential director. His taste for scoring rapidly edited violence to furiously heightened walls of sound appealed greatly to the generation weaned on pop videos. The contemporary action picture would be inconceivable without Scott jnr’s input.
Raised in South Shields near Newcastle-on-Tyne in England’s northeast, Tony studied art at Sunderland Art School and – like his brother – went on to take a degree at the Royal College of Art. After graduation, Ridley lured Tony into his production company and the two men appear to have worked together harmoniously ever since.
They began by focusing on commercials, moved into movies and, in recent years, developed major TV shows such as The Good Wife and an upcoming adaptation of Kate Mosse’s fantasy novel Labyrinth.
When Top Gun became a smash (elevating Tom Cruise to proper stardom in the process), Ridley could have been forgiven for harbouring jealous thoughts. But the brothers were always too close for that.
Indeed, the older film-maker’s first film, Boy and a Bicycle (poignantly, still available on YouTube), featured the future action specialist pedalling about the industrial architecture of Tyneside in the early 1960s.
“No. We’re not so competitive,” Ridley told The Irish Times earlier this year. “Being the older brother helps a bit. I think the elder brother always backs down if he’s smart.”
Tony married three times and is the father of two young sons. At time of writing, the motivations behind his suicide remain obscure. Police reports suggest he jumped off the suspension bridge at 12.35pm local time. A suicide note was later found in his office.