AUTO FOCUS (R) ****

Directed by Paul Schrader. 107 minutes.

Starring Greg Kinear, Willem Dafoe, Maria Bello, Ron Lieberman, and Rita Wilson. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

“I’m a likeable guy”

-Bob Crane

Auto Focus tells the sordidly funny and often terribly sad tale of Bob Crane, a Los Angeles based disc jockey and actor that began his career working on the radio, became the unlikely star of the equally unlikely hit television series, Hogan’s Heroes, and was eventually exposed for the seedy and self destructive lifestyle that he lived, documenting his own sexual autobiography of home videos, before being bludgeoned to death in a hotel as he slept in 1978. By most standards, Bob Crane was indeed a likeable guy and, as people have, of course, mentioned in numerous recounting of their experiences with him, the last person one would expect to have lived such a sad, lonely, and squalid existence. It is not surprising, however; that director Paul Schrader, a filmmaker whose best work, both on the page and screen, has focused on male lost souls who have fallen prey to the city, fame, and dangerous sexual appetites, would choose to make a film about Crane.

Bob Crane (Greg Kinear, in the performance of his career) wants very much for people to like him, which is possible because he is a likeable guy, but even more for people, or at least one person as he notes, to understand him, which is virtually impossible. Talking to his agent (Ron Lieberman), Crane figures that he can get into the public’s eye by selling himself as a Jack Lemmon type, which he pretty much is (at first, at least). Instead, he is given the lead role of Colonel Hogan, the clever and “quick on his toes” hero of the popular television show Hogan’s Heroes that ran from 1965 to 1971. It is soon after his quick launch to stardom that he meets John “Carpy” Carpenter (not that John Carpenter), played creepily by Willem Dafoe, a tech-whiz who introduces Crane to the latest breakthroughs in home video technology, which, in 1964, was rather inchoate. Yet, it is more than the love of technological equipment that draws them together, but more their fascination of female equipment, which begins, first, as seemingly harmless trips to the local strip clubs and eventually leads to the duo bringing home numerous pairs of women for some good old fashioned orgies. It is here that their love of technology meets their obsession with sex. At first unaware of its presence, but later fascinated with the possibilities, Crane allows Carpenter to film the aforementioned sexual exploits, which leads them both down a self destructive path, resulting in failed marriages, career suicide, loss of friends, loss of self respect, and eventually murder.

Though Crane, claiming that “a day without sex is a day wasted,” is obviously partial to the pleasures of the flesh, his obsessions lie more within the realm of his own celebrity and the benefits it brings. Crane uses his status to get sex, be amongst people, naively search for someone to understand his needs, and to find recognition. His conquests are part sexual appetite and part void-filling, hoping that, through sex, people will relate to him, but they cannot because, to them, he is Colonel Hogan, a celebrity and personal conquest. While it may appear that Crane uses the women he sleeps with, it appears that they are equally using him. They do not want to know Bob Crane, but expect him to forever play his role as Hogan, the “fun,” wise-cracking colonel, without ever knowing attempting to know anything about him.

It is obvious that Paul Schrader is at home with the material in Auto Focus, drawing numerous parallels to his other films that concern characters with similar conditions. His screenplay for Raging Bull and directorial work on Mishima both concern men whose celebrity and lifestyle lead them down paths that cannot and, similarly to the case of Bob Crane, refuse to be altered. Affliction also concerned a character whose secrets and hidden personality cause him to self-destruct. Light Sleeper, and Cat People, his screenplay for Taxi Driver, and American Gigolo and Hardcore (two other films about the darker side of sex getting men into trouble) are all films about characters getting into lifestyles and situations that are way beyond their control and completely over their heads. Schrader brilliantly visually narrates Crane’s career through the use of color, light and colorful Brady Bunch style at first, as Crane’s career takes off and dark and gloomy as his life takes a downward spiral.

As Crane, Kinear gives the best performance we have seen of him thus far, as well as one of the year’s best characterizations. For the first half of the film, he is Jack Lemmon, wise-cracking, but never mean spirited, charming, agreeable, and, yes, likeable. As the film nears its end, his manner is radically different, his earlier décor nearly unrecognizable, and his vocabulary outright crude, yet still very sympathetic, as if some of the filth that leaves his mouth is an attempt to force others to understand who he is after his subtle hints did not succeed. For most of the film, Dafoe plays Carpenter as a lit fuse, almost constantly ready to blow. From the start, there is something about him that leaves us uneasy, which becomes only worse as the film progresses. The two of them are a dynamic duo that eventually begin to trade traits as Auto Focus builds to its climax.

Auto Focus is a great film and, alas, a very sad one. While it is often difficult to empathize with celebrities and the petty whining of the wealthy, Bob Crane is a figure whose celebrity obviously sealed his fate. His obsessions and longings were apparently hiding just beneath the surface of his persona for years and his rise to stardom only made it more possible for him to explore such areas. Though Crane could have potentially conquered his needs and lived a full life, a catalyst like John Carpenter only helped to build his dark side to a point beyond repair. In a recent and much lesser film called The Rules of Attraction, a young female character, speaking far out of her intellectual league, makes the statement that “no one ever really knows anyone.” While that may not be true, nobody ever really knew Bob Crane, perhaps, not even Bob Crane.