Dark City Indie-film fans sometimes argue there are no true auteurs in the studios anymore. Whereas galactic talents like Hitchcock, Ford, and Wilder once wove their signature artistic styles through disguised genre pieces, even today's most popular filmmakers must cut through too much red-tape, studio interference, audience testing, and reshooting to really leave their stamp on a film. One of the exceptions to this rule is Alex Proyas. His fingerprint is stamped solidly on the screen throughout Dark City , the follow-up to his 1994 hit The Crow . Murdoch learns this too, when the clock strikes midnight and everything in this city freezes.
Every single person falls unconscious-except Murdoch.
And the Strangers. They appear, in pale white skin and dark overcoats and hats, and rearrange the slumbering people as they please. Buildings grow from the ground as others crumble away into eternity. The set-up is intriguing. But what sets Dark City apart is the look.