1994: THe CroW
DESPITE ITS MACABRE COMIC BOOK ORIGINS AND BRANDON LEE’S TRAGIC ON-SET DEATH, THE CROW BECAME A SURPRISE MOVIE HIT, UNLEASHING A GOTHIC VISION THAT ENDURES TODAY
The movie adaptation of the comic book helped revive goth. It can’t rain all the time…
When comic book creator James O’Barr licensed The Crow to a movie studio for $1,500, he never expected it to get made, let alone become an enduring gothic touchstone. Written gradually over nine years, starting in 1980, the original comic book story follows a young man named Eric Draven who returns from the dead to avenge the murder of his fiancée, Shelley Webster, at the hands of a gang. The black-and-white panels drip with anguish, as Eric, face painted in a sinister scowl, stalks the rainy streets of a retro-noir city.
The film version, released in 1994, took this vision to the masses and became a cult classic. Under the eye of Australian director Alex Proyas, and starring Brandon Lee – son of 70s Kung Fu legend Bruce Lee – as bloodthirsty antihero Eric, it plugged into the zeitgeist, riding on the coattails of the emerging wave of industrial bands and playing a part in a 90s goth revival.
But The Crow also became infamous for a tragic event: Brandon Lee was killed during filming, due to an improperly loaded stunt gun, two weeks before he was due to get married.
The original comic book itself was born out of tragedy. James wrote it to help him get to grips with his own grief; his fiancée was killed by a drunk driver while they were still in high school.
“She was the polar opposite of me. I was dark and moody and sullen and hostile and prone to aggressiveness, and she was pure sunshine and happiness,” he recalls today. “My life was changed irrevocably, in one instant, for no real good reason. All those negative traits in me were amplified after that.”
Following the loss of his fiancée, James enlisted in the military and was posted to Berlin. It was 1978, when the wall still divided the city, at the height of the Cold War. He yearned for a routine to block out his misery: to be told when to get up, when to dress, when to march. Yet the monotony and isolation of life in the Marines only drove him further into his own head.
“I became big and strong and physically imposing, but the desired effect was not reached,” he remembers. “In fact, it was probably amplified a little more because I internalised it rather than speak out about it. Luckily, I had art as therapy.”
He began creating The Crow in 1980, at the same time as he discovered the downbeat post-punk and goth bands coming out of England – Joy Division, The Cure, The Comsat Angels and Bauhaus. He drew Eric Draven as that band’s singer, Peter Murphy, with a touch of Iggy Pop. The dank streets of Berlin also fed into his work.
“The populace was either angry about the outcome of World War II, or they were ashamed,” he says. “It was on everyone’s face, but it was not spoken of. In six years, I don’t have any recollections of the sun ever shining.
It was a good visual analogy to the post-punk and darkwave stuff that
I was listening to.”
After six years in Berlin’s darkness, James’s dad passed away, and he was reassigned to
Michigan in 1984 to take care of his mother.
Three years later, he got a job at the
Ford dealership in Detroit, working on cars by day and drawing until two in the morning. The Crow was picked up by a local publisher and enjoyed a small run.
The Crow comic book came out in 1989 and became a cult success, though not enough for James to give up his day job. He was still working at Ford in 1992 when Hollywood showed interest in turning it into a film, and welcomed the idea of extra money. He thought the hyper-violence and intense romance would put people off adapting it, but Tim Burton’s Batman had found enormous worldwide success, and studios were hoping to cash in with similar projects.
Brandon Lee was a rising star in Hollywood. Good-looking and charismatic, he had enjoyed moderate success with 1992 action film Rapid Fire, but was keen to step out of his father’s shadow and prove he could do more than fight scenes. At 28 years old, he had a bright future in front of him, and he was due to be married a few weeks after filming.
The cameras began rolling in early 1993. James had initially been sceptical of Brandon as Eric, thinking the actor “too sweet” to play the vengeful role, but was won over when he saw him in the distinctive make-up and leather pants. James, who was on set most of the time, was struck by Brandon’s humility.
“The whole film was shot at night in miserable conditions, in freezing rain,” he explains. “So in between takes, everyone would go huddle around a 50-gallon oil drum that was filled with wood, and start a fire to get warm, like vagrants do. A lot of the crew had brought their kids with them, and instead of going back to his trailer, Brandon would go over and spend time with them. He was personable, charming and genuine.”
On March 31, 1993, tragedy struck.
Brandon was
“IT Pushed dArK fAshIoN
INTo The mAINsTreAm”
THE CROW CAME OUT AS INDUSTRIAL MUSIC WAS EXPLODING, NOTES CREATOR JAMES O’BARR