The Dean of Cinema

Every moment is another chance. For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit’s vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice – and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.

Writer Scott Silver wrote 8 Mile based on some events in Eminem’s actual life, working closely with the rapper to develop the script from the very beginning. A lot of films about musicians, starring musicians tend to be nothing more than vanity projects produced on the whim of the musician to inflate their own ego. However, Eminem made sure 8 Mile was different. He didn’t want the film to be a fluff piece, he wanted to make something of substance.

Life in Detroit in the 90s wasn’t easy, and Hanson, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and production designer Philip Messina go to great lengths to show the full scope of urban decay occurring in the city during that time. The crumbling city mirrors the inner turmoil of Jimmy, aka Rabbit, trying to survive and make a better life for himself and his family. Hanson and Prieto approached shooting the film more spontaneously than normal to give it the feeling that everything is happening on the fly, mimicking how these characters live their everyday lives. Hanson told Prieto during pre-production that he wanted the movie to be gritty and “look like a weed growing in the crack of a sidewalk.” The resulting greying color palette with tones of green and some subtle hues of orange harkens back to the industrial background and heart of the city. The result is one of the best looking films of 2002.

The green tones of the interior scenes give the environment a bleak, sickly look that evokes the pain and torture in Rabbit’s life and mind. Torn between getting out and being stuck in the same routine forever. It’s a shame it was overlooked for even a nomination at the Academy Awards. Prieto and his camera team made a beautiful looking film. Prieto cut his teeth on Amores Perros, Original Sin, and Frida and then went on to lens 25th Hour for Spike Lee and work with Oliver Stone on Alexander and Martin Scorsese on The Wolf of Wall Street. Talk about a helluva career!

Hanson captures some top level performances out of the entire cast. Like everyone else, I wasn’t sure how to take Eminem as an actor when I first saw the film back when it first released. Also like everyone else, I was pleasantly surprised at the nuanced performance he turned in as Rabbit. He didn’t phone in the performance like he easily could have. Instead, he gave Rabbit a heart and soul yearning to break free from the vicious cycle of life in 8 Mile. Kim Basinger is a tour de force as always, playing Stephanie, Rabbit’s down-on-her-luck mother. She goes through a few transformations in the film and slips through each of them with ease. Michael Shannon plays Stephanie’s good for nothing boyfriend who abuses her. Shannon is one of the best actors in the game right now and this performance was a great glimpse of what was to come in the following two decades. The late great Brittany Murphy plays Alex, an ambitious, albeit promiscuous aspiring model who is also looking her ticket out of 8 Mile, and she’ll do anything to get it. She effortlessly embodies the character and gives her layers that her peers never could.

Anthony Mackie plays Papa Doc, rival to Rabbit and his crew and like Michael Shannon it’s a wonderful look at the promising career coming his way. Papa Doc is one of those antagonists you can’t wait to see get his comeuppance and Mackie nails the role. Mekhi Phifer is great as Future, the host of the underground rap battles, and friend to Rabbit.

The music is obviously superb in the film with Eminem writing and performing his critical and Grammy/Academy Award Winning song “Lose Yourself.” He also wrote his own rap battle rhymes and Craig G, a member of the Juice Crew was brought in to write the competitors rhymes. The result is an authentic look at the rap scene in 1990s Detroit.

Overall, 8 Mile is a compelling film that doesn’t pull its punches and keeps you engaged the entire time. It forces you to watch the struggle so many people deal with on a daily basis, but who don’t have a way out like Rabbit. Eminem and Kim Basinger elevate this from simply another movie about musicians to a league of its own.

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