Auto Focus

Auto Focus is the biopic of Crane (Greg Kinnear), a clean-cut all-American nice guy and popular DJ in the 1960s, who gets his lucky break with the staring role as Captain Hogan in the sitcom Hogan's Heroes, set in a Nazi POW camp. A God-fearing Christian, we see Bob dutifully going to church on Sundays with his wife (his childhood sweetheart), and his young children. With newfound fame, however, come new temptations. He finds himself surrounded by beautiful young women wanting to sleep with him, and the only way he can wind down after work is by drumming for the band in a local strip club. He is brought deeper into the world of sex and swinging by his friend John Carpenter (Willem Dafoe, and, no, not the John Carpenter), who works as an electronics and camera expert. It is not long before Bob fully embraces this new world, as he and John regularly hold private orgies where they take it in turns to film the events on their video camera, an expensive and cutting edge piece of technology at the time. Bob and John become so obsessed by sex, their motto being 'a day without sex is a day wasted', that they lose sight of everything else. It becomes clear that as Bob's life deteriorates his story is one of an addict, suffering in much the same way as a drugs or gambling addict might: right down to the circumstances of his untimely death.

Schrader's direction is subtly brilliant. His use of colour, for example, slowly moves from the bright PVC of the 60s, reflecting Bob's all-American image, to the seedy colouring of the strip clubs and John's pad, and the bleached-out cinematography in the late 60s and early 70s scenes as Bob's life goes sharply downhill. Similarly, the fixed and reassuring camera shots at the start of the film, reflected by the classic sit-com style of the Hogan's Heroes show, are steadily replaced by shaky hand-held camera shots. The latter half of the film therefore becomes almost documentary-like and the easy laughs of the first half become increasingly uncomfortable. Interestingly, the sub-plot is the coming of videotape technology itself and its implications. Through the film we see the development from the very first video recorders, to editing packages and video-cassettes. Bob and John are just as absorbed in the technique and technology involved in recording their orgies as they are in the orgies themselves. In many ways they are just kids in a candy store, which makes their deterioration all the more tragic. The central performances by Kinnear and Dafoe are wonderfully strong, although it may be true to say that Bob Crane is not a difficult role to pull off. It is Dafoe who impresses the most, portraying his character as a weak and needy man, paradoxically both an innocent and a sex-addict.

Auto Focus is a successful mix of comedy and tragedy, style and substance, depth and surface. Yet there is something that holds this film back: it never quite moves on to the next level. Perhaps it is the character of Bob Crane himself, an intriguing and entertaining man with a story to match, but he is no Larry Flint or Andy Kaufman. That said, it is an impressive return to form for Schrader and another quality notch in the bedpost for Alexander and Karaszewski.

Reviewed by Tim Smedley