Maybe a silly question (but serious)
william
I'm working on an essay about my favorite films and part of that essay
deals with an informal sense of film history. A history one would know
without a college course. Obviously, silent films are a large part of
that. Granted that silent films can be studied under any number of
ways, eg, stars, directors, countries, era, content. My question
relates to about how many silent films would constitute a reasonable
representation of the era for someone who is serious about films but
not a professional critic. Or, is there a list of essential silent
films for someone who is interested but not yet possessed?
Thanks,
William
www.williamahearn.com
The Picture Show Man
overview of the silent-film era is to take a look at my History of
Motion Picture Timeline which can be found at: http://www.pictureshowman.com/timeline.cfm
Although my timeline doesn't attempt to list all of the significant
films from the silent-film era, it does list quite a few of the
important films and puts them in their historical context. That may
help you decide which films you might want to see.
The Picture Show Man
http://www.pictureshowman.com
Dedicated to exploring the history of motion pictures . . .
william
The Picture Show Man wrote:
> I'm sure you'll get a lot of advice, but one way to get a quick
> overview of the silent-film era is to take a look at my History of
> Motion Picture Timeline which can be found at: http://www.pictureshowman.com/timeline.cfm
Thank you. Nice site and very helpful. One small minor quibble. Your
retelling of how film noir got its name contains the usual
inaccuracies. The French critics didn't "coin" the term. For a closer-
to-the-truth version of how all that came about, go here:
http://www.williamahearn.com/truenoir.html
I realize that almost every book on film noir retells the untrue
story. It's just plain bad scholarship and one day it will be
corrected.
Thanks again for the link to your site,
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Thank you. Nice site and very helpful. One small minor quibble. Your
> retelling of how film noir got its name contains the usual
> inaccuracies. The French critics didn't "coin" the term. For a closer-
> to-the-truth version of how all that came about, go here:
>
> http://www.williamahearn.com/truenoir.html
>
> I realize that almost every book on film noir retells the untrue
> story. It's just plain bad scholarship and one day it will be
> corrected.
Your article is very interesting but you seem to be unaware that "film
noir", when used by Frank or any other French critic in 1946, would have
carried an unmistakable reference to the "Serie Noire" editions of
American pulp fiction which began appearing in France in 1945. Most of
the films Frank was writing about were based on works by the kind of
authors the Serie Noire published.
Another problem is that "film noir" in French just means "dark film" --
a phrase that could have been applied earlier (pre Serie Noire) to many
different kinds of films, just as the English phrase could be applied to
many different kinds of films. The occurrence of the the phrase "film
noir" in earlier French film criticism is no indication that it meant
what it meant to Frank in 1946, or that it referred to any particular
tradition of filmmaking.
In truth, in my opinion, the term was picked up by American critics much
later to describe the wartime and atomic-era crime thriller, which
diverged in significant ways from the pulp fiction or hardboiled
detective fiction of the 30s and early 40s. When the French critics
first used the term in the late 40s and 50s, they were referring, via
the "Serie Noire" connection, to films based on that earlier type of
American fiction, and not necessarily to the new kind of crime thriller
that emerged out of the war.
This has led to a lot of confusion, and a blurring of the meaning of
"film noir", but I think it remains useful as a term to identify the
distinct type of crime thriller that emerged at the end of WWII and
petered out in the late 50s.
Some further thoughts on the subject here:
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/13/3877603.html
Mar de Cortes Baja
www.mardecortesbaja.com <http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog>
william
Lloyd Fonvielle wrote:
>
> Your article is very interesting but you seem to be unaware that "film
> noir", when used by Frank or any other French critic in 1946, would have
> carried an unmistakable reference to the "Serie Noire" editions of
> American pulp fiction which began appearing in France in 1945. Most of
> the films Frank was writing about were based on works by the kind of
> authors the Serie Noire published.
This always comes up in discussions of film noir. First off, there is
no "unmistakable" reference to the publishing imprint that began the
same year as Frank's article. They may not have had a single book in
the series when he wrote his article. Frank's reference was clearly to
the group of French films released in the 1930s.
>
> Another problem is that "film noir" in French just means "dark film" --
> a phrase that could have been applied earlier (pre Serie Noire) to many
> different kinds of films, just as the English phrase could be applied to
> many different kinds of films.
No. The term "film noir" was used in France to describe a given set of
films. See the O'Brien article. Usually those films are referred to
now as Poetic Realism.
The occurrence of the the phrase "film
> noir" in earlier French film criticism is no indication that it meant
> what it meant to Frank in 1946, or that it referred to any particular
> tradition of filmmaking.
Yes, it does. See the Jean-Pierre Chartier article as well. This isn't
hard. Both critics were quite specific.
>
> In truth, in my opinion, the term was picked up by American critics much
> later to describe the wartime and atomic-era crime thriller, which
> diverged in significant ways from the pulp fiction or hardboiled
> detective fiction of the 30s and early 40s.
Really? The term "film noir" doesn't show up in common usage among US
critics until the late 1970s. "Film noir" has evolved into an after-
the-fact, make it up as you go along description that almost anything
in B&W and containing a fedora can be described as.
When the French critics
> first used the term in the late 40s and 50s, they were referring, via
> the "Serie Noire" connection, to films based on that earlier type of
> American fiction, and not necessarily to the new kind of crime thriller
> that emerged out of the war.
No they weren't. Did you actually read the Nino Frank and Jean-Pierre
Chartier articles? Hotel Du Nord was a US pulp novel? Le Bete Humaine
is based on what? Mickey Spillane?
>
> This has led to a lot of confusion, and a blurring of the meaning of
> "film noir", but I think it remains useful as a term to identify the
> distinct type of crime thriller that emerged at the end of WWII and
> petered out in the late 50s.
>
Really? I think it's a wasted and useless term that's been mangled by
acacdemic flapdoodle and studios selling B movies on DVD marketed as
"noir." We'll just have to agree to disagree.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> First off, there is
> no "unmistakable" reference to the publishing imprint that began the
> same year as Frank's article. They may not have had a single book in
> the series when he wrote his article.
It's my understanding that the Serie Noire began in 1945, a year before
Frank's article.
> No. The term "film noir" was used in France to describe a given set of
> films. See the O'Brien article. Usually those films are referred to
> now as Poetic Realism.
>> In truth, in my opinion, the term was picked up by American critics much
>> later to describe the wartime and atomic-era crime thriller, which
>> diverged in significant ways from the pulp fiction or hardboiled
>> detective fiction of the 30s and early 40s.
>
> Really? The term "film noir" doesn't show up in common usage among US
> critics until the late 1970s.
Exactly my point -- it was used to designate a body of work whose
distinct nature only became apparent in retrospect. In GENERAL it was
used to refer to the atomic-era crime thriller, though it was such a
fuzzy term that it encompassed earlier films as well, ones which fit
more logically into other traditions.
> "Film noir" has evolved into an after-
> the-fact, make it up as you go along description that almost anything
> in B&W and containing a fedora can be described as.
I agree with you entirely as regards modern film criticism. The term is
becoming so vague as to be meaningless, with films like "Casablanca"
being called "noir" by some writers. It has become a kind of game to
see what new films can be subsumed into the category.
> I think it's a wasted and useless term that's been mangled by
> acacdemic flapdoodle and studios selling B movies on DVD marketed as
> "noir." We'll just have to agree to disagree.
We can agree that it is becoming a useless term in film criticism and a
marketing tool for DVDs. But I would argue that it has value when
applied strictly to the very distinctive wartime and post-war crime
thrillers which most people still consider the core of the "film noir"
tradition -- from "Detour", say, to "No Way Out", which I consider the
last of the classic noirs. Those films constitute a special sub-genre
of the crime thriller and deserve a unique designation, and film noir is
as good a one as any.
I'd refer you again to the most recent piece I wrote on the subject:
william
> We can agree that it is becoming a useless term in film criticism and a
> marketing tool for DVDs. But I would argue that it has value when
> applied strictly to the very distinctive wartime and post-war crime
> thrillers which most people still consider the core of the "film noir"
> tradition -- from "Detour", say, to "No Way Out", which I consider the
> last of the classic noirs. Those films constitute a special sub-genre
> of the crime thriller and deserve a unique designation, and film noir is
> as good a one as any.
>
Here's where we disagree. Your article assumes that film noir is a
purely American invention. What gets lost is the original French films
-- many of which were remade in horrible versions in the US -- and are
an important group of films. Most of the American "noirs" are
repressive, misogynistic crime movies. Don't get me wrong, some of
these films are some of my favorite flicks. But where the theory of
American noir fails is that nothing links the films. "Laura" (which
Frank went out of his way to say wasn't noir), "The Asphalt Jungle"
and "Double Indemnity," as examples, share nothing other than being in
B&W and have a crime or crimes in them. I realize that the discussion
is pointless, that the damage has been done and nothing will change it
now. This isn't about the films, per se, but about how slap-dash and
lazy the "theory" has been developed. The fact of the matter is that
the term "film noir" has become meaningless and so it can't be "as
good as any" to use to describe the films you mention. It just irks me
that the same old unsubstantiated nonsense (such as Series Noire as
the basis of film noir or French critics "coining" the term) being
used as a substitute for real film scholarship. That's not personal.
It's not directed at you. It's an epidemic of vagueness and I think
the films -- but apparently not the marketers -- have suffered.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Here's where we disagree. Your article assumes that film noir is a
> purely American invention.
No, it doesn't. It argues that there is a group of atomic-age American
thrillers which have a unique quality, which most people call films
noirs, and which are useful to think of collectively.
> What gets lost is the original French films
> -- many of which were remade in horrible versions in the US -- and are
> an important group of films.
Perhaps, and perhaps they influenced the films I'm talking about, but
they constitute a different tradition.
> Most of the American "noirs" are
> repressive, misogynistic crime movies. Don't get me wrong, some of
> these films are some of my favorite flicks. But where the theory of
> American noir fails is that nothing links the films. "Laura" (which
> Frank went out of his way to say wasn't noir), "The Asphalt Jungle"
> and "Double Indemnity," as examples, share nothing other than being in
> B&W and have a crime or crimes in them.
I agree. It makes no sense to call any of those films "noir", because
they fit logically into other categories.
> I realize that the discussion
> is pointless, that the damage has been done and nothing will change it
> now.
I disagree. If enough people point out how meaningless the term film
noir is becoming, it might be possible to rescue it. There is, as you
rightly point out, no coherent "theory" of what a film noir is in
American criticism, but that doesn't mean that a coherent and useful
theory of film noir couldn't be constructed.
> This isn't about the films, per se, but about how slap-dash and
> lazy the "theory" has been developed. The fact of the matter is that
> the term "film noir" has become meaningless and so it can't be "as
> good as any" to use to describe the films you mention. It just irks me
> that the same old unsubstantiated nonsense (such as Series Noire as
> the basis of film noir or French critics "coining" the term) being
> used as a substitute for real film scholarship.
The derivation from Serie Noire seems sound to me. You have failed to
demonstrate its implausibility.
> That's not personal.
> It's not directed at you. It's an epidemic of vagueness and I think
> the films -- but apparently not the marketers -- have suffered.
We share a frustration over the vagueness of the term "film noir". To
me, the issue is not the historical derivation of the term, but how it's
currently used. I think it can be rehabilitated, and discussions like
this are part of the process.
At the link below is a list of films which I consider to be uniquely
"noir", along with lists of films which some think of as noir but which
in my opinion fit more logically into other categories. I don't include
the pre-war French films of "Poetic Realism", but they would in my
opinion also constitute a different category.
If the films I see as "true noir" can't be called "films noirs", then we
need some new term for them, because they constitute a distinct
cinematic tradition.
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/6/3179932.html
william
> The derivation from Serie Noire seems sound to me. You have failed to
> demonstrate its implausibility.
>
Let me deal with that as succinctly as I can:
(a) "Film Noir" was used a term to describe a series of French films
in the 1930s. The term was used at that time -- the 1930s -- to
describe the films. Not decades later. That the term "film noir"
existed at that time to describe these films is a static fact. It is
not debatable. Ergo, "film noir" preceded the publishing imprint
Series Noire in the French language by nearly 15 years.
(b) The French critics refered to those French films of the 1930s when
they used the term "film noir" in their articles. If you read the
articles you'll see that there is no reference even obliquely to the
publishing imprint of Series Noire. None. There is nothing to suggest
that it can be assumed that they even knew about it. Not based on the
articles.
(c) The content of the French films were far more expansive of the
human condition than what became known as "film noir" in the US. The
remakes make that clear. One only has to watch "Scarlet Street" and
then Jean Renoir's "La Chienne" to see the difference. Or Lang's
"Human Desire" and Renoir's "La Bete Humaine." There are numerous
other examples. The original French films noir were highly influential
and it isn't surprising that French critics would mention them. The
films were French. Series Noire published non-French writers. Why
would a French film critic refer to them when he can claim French
influence on the new American films? It doesn't make sense. Both
articles are clear and unambiguous in what they are referring to when
they mention "film noir" and it is not Series Noire. It is the French
films of the 1930s that were known as film noir.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> (c) The content of the French films were far more expansive of the
> human condition than what became known as "film noir" in the US. The
> remakes make that clear. One only has to watch "Scarlet Street" and
> then Jean Renoir's "La Chienne" to see the difference. Or Lang's
> "Human Desire" and Renoir's "La Bete Humaine." There are numerous
> other examples. The original French films noir were highly influential
> and it isn't surprising that French critics would mention them. The
> films were French. Series Noire published non-French writers. Why
> would a French film critic refer to them when he can claim French
> influence on the new American films? It doesn't make sense. Both
> articles are clear and unambiguous in what they are referring to when
> they mention "film noir" and it is not Series Noire. It is the French
> films of the 1930s that were known as film noir.
I understand what you're saying, but the real question is, when and how
did the term "film noir" shift its meaning, from a phrase describing a
certain kind of French film from the 1930s to a phrase describing
post-war American thrillers, as it undoubtedly did, for both French and
American critics.
Obviously the word "noir" covered a lot of different ground for French
writers -- otherwise why would a publisher use it to designate a series
of American pulp novels? And if it was natural to use it to describe a
series of American pulp novels, it would have been just as natural to
use it to describe a series of American movie crime thrillers which had
a lot in common with and were often based on American pulp novels.
It's fascinating to know that the term was in use in France to describe
the films of "Poetic Realism" from the 1930s, but nobody uses it in that
sense today, and I don't think it makes sense to use it in that sense
today, just as I don't think it makes sense to call "Casablanca", or
Griffith's "The Mother and the Law", films noirs, even though both have
noirish elements.
[By the way, the film I see as ending the classic noir series is "Odds
Against Tomorrow", not "No Way Out".]
william
I understand what you're saying, but the real question is, when and
how
did the term "film noir" shift its meaning, from a phrase describing
a
certain kind of French film from the 1930s to a phrase describing
post-war American thrillers, as it undoubtedly did, for both French
and
American critics.
William: That’s an excellent question and I can’t answer it
definitively. The area I want to research now is years from 1946 to
1970. One major cloud in how the term “noir” would be used was the
publication of “A Panorama of American Noir.” It may be the worst film
theory book ever published. It’s incoherent, inconsistent and just so
far off the mark in so many ways that after it came out a real
definition was doomed.
Obviously the word "noir" covered a lot of different ground for
French
writers -- otherwise why would a publisher use it to designate a
series
of American pulp novels? And if it was natural to use it to describe
a
series of American pulp novels, it would have been just as natural to
use it to describe a series of American movie crime thrillers which
had
a lot in common with and were often based on American pulp novels.
William: This is a whole different kettle of fish. The term “roman
noir” was used by the French in the 18th century to describe British
Gothic novels. So there is a literary tradition that is separate from
the films. The publisher – I’m supposing – played off of that in
naming them series noire. But your question above makes sense only if
the facts of the history aren’t known. If you remember the American
films that the French critics wrote about “Laura,” “The Maltese
Falcon,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Lost Weekend,” you’ll see that only
“The Maltese Falcon” was anywhere near hard-boiled. One could argue
they weren’t crime films in the way that “The Asphalt Jungle,” or “The
Big Combo” or “Gun Crazy” are. Of all the French films noir that I can
think of, only “Pepe Le Moko” was about a career criminal. The French
films had crimes in them but committed by people driven by some
strange force or circumstances. Those American hard-boiled films
didn’t arrive in France until much later. In fact, many hadn’t even
been made yet.
It's fascinating to know that the term was in use in France to
describe
the films of "Poetic Realism" from the 1930s, but nobody uses it in
that
sense today, and I don't think it makes sense to use it in that sense
today, just as I don't think it makes sense to call "Casablanca", or
Griffith's "The Mother and the Law", films noirs, even though both
have
noirish elements.
William: If anything sets me off, it’s the notion of “noirish
elements.” The perfect example is “The Stranger On The Third Floor,” a
piece of junk film that only got made because Peter Lorre owed the
studio two days of work. What’s noirish? An over-done, ham-fisted
attempt at German expressionism? It’s in B&W? It’s a silly movie with
a happy ending that nobody needs to see. Just as aside, there are
three American films that do fall under “noir” as the French seemed to
define it. Wilder’s “The Lost Weekend.” Watch the pistol. Where does
it go? Not to redeem the coat that represents the relationship.
Sidomak’s “The Killers.” Suicide by proxy. Most of the French noirs
end up with the character insane or committing suicide. In this case,
The Swede isn’t killed because he’s a criminal but because he did
“something wrong once.” Sekely’s “The Scar.” Not a very good film but
it does portray the role of the woman as closer to the French theory.
In the American films – “Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Gun Crazy,”
etc. – the woman is the catalyst for the crime and then the death. In
“The Scar” it’s her innocent decision to leave that causes his
downfall. Very similar to “Pepe Le Moko.” Sorry to ramble but once I
get started on this stuff . . .
William
www.williamahearn.com
The Picture Show Man
However, since my website is designed to principally promote interest
and understanding in those with a casual or nascent interest in the
history of motion pictures, and attempts to avoid academic discussions
(as important as they are), for now I think I'll have to stick with
the information currently contained in my article on Film Noir which
reflects what most books on the subject maintain. If, in the future,
a revised history of Film Noir is published and generally accepted, I
will certainly rewrite my short article to reflect that newer
scholarship. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject of Film
Noir (or, for that matter, on most subjects relating to the history of
motion pictures), so when choosing information for my website I feel I
have to convey the views generally accepted by current researchers.
(For this purpose I have amassed and maintain a huge library of books
and DVDs.) I do periodically review and, when necessary revise, all
the information contained on my website. For instance, I just revised
and expanded my answer to the question, "Why is commercial movie film
35mm wide?" My new answer can be found at: http://www.pictureshowman.com/questionsandanswers.cfm
, and it contradicts the view found in many, if not most, current
histories of motion pictures. (I'm convinced, however, that the
source I used for my revision is accurate.)
Please keep up your research and discussions. The enthusiasm and
knowledge you both display is quite stimulating, and I know it will
lead to a deeper understanding of Film Noir.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> If you remember the American
> films that the French critics wrote about �Laura,� �The Maltese
> Falcon,� �Double Indemnity,� �The Lost Weekend,� you�ll see that only
> �The Maltese Falcon� was anywhere near hard-boiled.
My rule of thumb is that any film which fits (more or less) comfortably
into some other category should not be called a film noir. All of the
above films fit (more or less) comfortably into some other category and
so are not, in my opinion, films noirs.
Films that come out of the hardboiled detective tradition and fit (more
or less) comfortably into that category -- as "The Maltese Falcon" does,
for example -- don't need a new term like film noir to describe them.
It's when you get to a film like "The Dark Corner", which has the
outward trappings of hardboiled detective fiction but completely
subverts and deconstructs its conventions, that you need some other term
to describe it.
mikeg...@gmail.com
> william wrote:
> > If you remember the American
> > Falcon,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Lost Weekend,” you’ll see that only
>
> My rule of thumb is that any film which fits (more or less) comfortably
> into some other category should not be called a film noir. All of the
> above films fit (more or less) comfortably into some other category and
> so are not, in my opinion, films noirs.
>
> Films that come out of the hardboiled detective tradition and fit (more
> or less) comfortably into that category -- as "The Maltese Falcon" does,
> for example -- don't need a new term like film noir to describe them.
> It's when you get to a film like "The Dark Corner", which has the
> outward trappings of hardboiled detective fiction but completely
> subverts and deconstructs its conventions, that you need some other term
> to describe it.
>
> Mar de Cortes Baja
>
> www.mardecortesbaja.com<http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog>
Double Indemnity isn't a film noir?
Lloyd Fonvielle
> A very interesting, provocative, and informative discussion!
>
> However, since my website is designed to principally promote interest
> and understanding in those with a casual or nascent interest in the
> history of motion pictures, and attempts to avoid academic discussions
> (as important as they are), for now I think I'll have to stick with
> the information currently contained in my article on Film Noir which
> reflects what most books on the subject maintain.
This is a good summary of what has become a very vague term. My feeling
is that the term needs to be reigned in, applied more narrowly, if it is
to retain any meaning at all.
I think you get closest to the most sensible way to define the term when
you say, "Nevertheless, the key elements that link all Films Noir
together seem to be the moral ambiguity of the plot and the characters,
and an underlying sense of pessimism, fatality and alienation." But
this would apply to Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" as well as to "Out Of
the Past".
The question is, what do "Out Of the Past" and "Gun Crazy", say, have in
common with each other that they don't have in common with "Hamlet", or
with the hardboiled crime fiction of the 1930s? If they're essentially
the same as "Hamlet", then we can just call them tragedies. If they're
essentially the same as the hardboiled crime fiction of the 1930s, we
can just call them hardboiled crime thrillers.
To me, however, on a number of different levels, "Out Of the Past" and
"Gun Crazy" are different, part of a distinct tradition, which is why
they need a category of their own.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Double Indemnity isn't a film noir?
Not by any logical standards, in my opinion. It's part of a quite
distinct tradition, which one might call "domestic noir", but is
essentially a murder melodrama, or tragedy. It has more in common with
"Macbeth" than it has with "Out Of the Past". The moral boundaries in
"Double Indemnity" are clear -- the protagonists cross them and pay the
price. The moral boundaries in "Out Of the Past" are far from clear --
the protagonist can't figure them out, and pays a price for that.
More thoughts on it here:
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/17/2990974.html
Of course one CAN call any "dark film" a "film noir", but it makes the
term so vague as to be meaningless. More importantly, it leaves one
with no distinct category in which to place a film like "Out Of the
Past", which takes place in a different moral universe than "Macbeth" .
. . or "Double Indemnity".
mikeg...@gmail.com
Flashback structure? Check.
Deadly, amoral blonde? Check.
Protagonist sucked into moral vortex? Check.
Roots in hardboiled fiction? Check.
Vaguely expressionist look? Vaguely, yes. Check.
Ten bazillion undeniable films noir modeled themselves on it? Check.
You're insisting that societal rot is a necessary condition for the
noir. I think it's a common element, and part of what separates 40s
crime film from 30s crime film (in which the criminal is a deviant
from the fundamentally good, New Deal-era society), but I would
disagree strongly that it's essential to it-- many great noirs are
about the world being amoral, neither rotten nor upright, and thus
affording the weak-willed man enough rope to hang himself. You play
the red and it comes up black. Sorry, chump.
But in any case, the original ending of Double Indemnity-- which saw
MacMurray sucked into the impersonal mechanics of execution like a cog
on an assembly line-- does approach exactly that view of society--
amoral to the point of evil.
It's an interesting theory, but I'm going with my gut here. If Double
Indemnity isn't a noir, then I don't know what is.
william
> To me, however, on a number of different levels, "Out Of the Past" and
> "Gun Crazy" are different, part of a distinct tradition, which is why
> they need a category of their own.
>
Here's where we agree. These films could be referred to as "The James
M Cain Template" films. Cain revisioned the femme fatale as a woman
who ultimately suffers death as well as the man (who is no longer a
victim as much as he is a co-conspirator). "Postman," "Double
Indemnity," "Gun Crazy," "Out of the Past," "Detour" and many others
all follow this particular template. To me, a noir has to have a
serious or fatal ending. So films like "Gilda," "Macao," "Somewhere In
The Night," or "Laura" are faux noirs. "Breathless" and "Last Tango In
Paris" are far more noir than "Laura" or "Gilda." And again, in the
Cain Template the characters are not professional criminals as they
are in "Asphalt Jungle" or "The Killing." Those films are crime films
pure and simple. Jules Dassin made a great noir with "Night and the
City" but calling "Brute Force" or "Du rififi chez les hommes" film
noir is just silly. So this is an area where we agree and even
limiting a definition to post-war American films will drive you insane
as you try and determine what is actually "noir."
William
www.williamahearn.com
william
wrote:
> It's an interesting theory, but I'm going with my gut here. If Double
> Indemnity isn't a noir, then I don't know what is.
While I tend to agree that in terms of what passes for American noir,
Double Indemnity would fill the bill I would like to point out that
James M Cain bristled when he was described as a "hard-boiled" writer.
Chandler, Hammett, Spillane are true hard-boiled writers in style and
subject. Cain had a much more mainstream style and I agree with Lloyd
that hard-boiled and noir are not even similar.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> You're insisting that societal rot is a necessary condition for the
> noir.
Not at all. There's societal rot in 30s hardboiled detective fiction
and in 30s gangster films. But in both those forms there's also a
sense, however eccentric, of right and wrong. The detective has his
code, which makes a kind a moral sense amidst the messiness of a crummy
world. There are forces of reform and order which will bring the
30s-era gangster to his inevitable end.
There's also right and wrong in "Double Indemnity". Neff doesn't just
gamble -- he goes over to the dark side out of greed and lust and the
dark side consumes him.
Things are much different in the world of the classic noir. Moral codes
make no sense, reform and order aren't waiting in the wings to do their
thing, the line between right and wrong has vanished. At the same time,
we're not yet in the realm of nihilism -- the protagonist still longs
for redemption, even if he has no idea where it's to be found.
> It's an interesting theory, but I'm going with my gut here. If Double
> Indemnity isn't a noir, then I don't know what is.
I think this is the prevailing understanding of the term, but if your
gut is your guide, and your gut tells you that "Casablanca" is a film
noir, as it does for some people, there's really no way to argue the
issue. The term just dissolves into thin air -- or into checklists like
the one you provided.
Take Orson Welles's "Macbeth", for example. Femme fatale? Check.
Protagonist sucked into moral vortex? Check. Expressionist look?
Check. Shares a number of themes with other films noirs? Check. Gives
you sort of the same feeling in your gut as "Odds Against Tomorrow"? Check.
Well, we got most of them. "Macbeth" is a film noir.
mikeg...@gmail.com
pretending you don't have ideals and finding that you do by the fade-
out, quite the opposite.* Casablanca is as anti-noir as, I dunno,
Going My Way. Or Easter Parade.
But Macbeth? Shakespeare noir, the way Pursued is western noir, and
Reign of Terror is costumer noir. Is it a surprise that aspects of
noir seeped into lots of other genres at that time?
I think you overstate the number of noirs in which there's truly no
moral compass at all. There's a discernable right and wrong in most
noirs, the question is how far it's been pushed out of sight and out
of mind. The number of truly nihilistic ones is fairly small: Kiss Me
Deadly, and...
Anyway, although I agree that what you talk about is a significant
component of many noirs, I just can't agree that it's a make-or-break
condition. I also think that it's silly to rule out any of the, to my
mind, four most important influences on noir, all of which have some
aspect in which they don't really fit the genre they helped spawn. Le
Jour se Leve is more psychological than societal; Citizen Kane isn't a
crime picture (in the conventional sense); The Maltese Falcon is
hardboiled but not really dark; Double Indemnity is, at heart, a buddy
picture about forgiveness. Yet they made noir what it was, ruling
them out would be like denying that George Washington was eligible to
be president because he wasn't born in America.
* Okay, I'll come up with my own counterargument: that's exactly what
the noir Force of Evil is about.
william
> Things are much different in the world of the classic noir.
Could you give some examples of "classic" noir? "The Dark Corner"
doesn't strike me as noir at all. It's pretty much a run-of-the-mill
detective flick. And I tend to like Henry Hathaway's work.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Here's where we agree. These films could be referred to as "The James
> M Cain Template" films. Cain revisioned the femme fatale as a woman
> who ultimately suffers death as well as the man (who is no longer a
> victim as much as he is a co-conspirator). "Postman," "Double
> Indemnity," "Gun Crazy," "Out of the Past," "Detour" and many others
> all follow this particular template. To me, a noir has to have a
> serious or fatal ending. So films like "Gilda," "Macao," "Somewhere In
> The Night," or "Laura" are faux noirs. "Breathless" and "Last Tango In
> Paris" are far more noir than "Laura" or "Gilda." And again, in the
> Cain Template the characters are not professional criminals as they
> are in "Asphalt Jungle" or "The Killing." Those films are crime films
> pure and simple. Jules Dassin made a great noir with "Night and the
> City" but calling "Brute Force" or "Du rififi chez les hommes" film
> noir is just silly. So this is an area where we agree and even
> limiting a definition to post-war American films will drive you insane
> as you try and determine what is actually "noir."
I don't think it's all that complicated, if you concentrate on the moral
universe of the films, their existential posture, rather than on themes
or settings or visual style or narrative devices. The femme fatale is a
red herring, since femmes fatales figure in many traditions. The vamp
from the early silent era was a femme fatale, but the films about her
weren't films noirs. The femme fatale in Welles's "Macbeth" suffers
death as well as the man, but "Macbeth" isn't a film noir. Endings also
don't get to the heart of it. Lots of films which aren't films noirs
have fatal or downbeat endings, and lots of films noirs have ambiguous
or non-fatal endings -- or even tacked-on "happy" endings, which
nevertheless don't resolve the film's moral tension in any convincing way.
But there is a body of films dating from WWII to the late 50s which are
1) crime thrillers 2) set in a universe of unresolved moral ambiguity,
inherent in society and in individuals, and 3) infused with angst over
the resulting moral bewilderment and consequent male impotence,
especially as regards women.
Point three is useful for understanding the apparently inconsistent role
of women in film noir. They can be fatale, the source of a man's doom,
or they can be good, and help rescue the man. The essential issue is
that the male has no ultimate control over the situation. The woman,
whether good or bad, helpful or fatal, serves merely as a symbol of his
loss of control. This is one reason why the women in film noir are
often memorable as images but rarely convincing as human beings. They
exist primarily to reflect the state of the man's psyche.
You can tell that "Chinatown" is a riff on film noir, as opposed to a
film made within the tradition, because it concentrates so much
attention on the effect on women of the male protagonist's loss of
control. Classic film noir was a fundamentally male cry of despair.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Anyway, although I agree that what you talk about is a significant
> component of many noirs, I just can't agree that it's a make-or-break
> condition. I also think that it's silly to rule out any of the, to my
> mind, four most important influences on noir, all of which have some
> aspect in which they don't really fit the genre they helped spawn. Le
> Jour se Leve is more psychological than societal; Citizen Kane isn't a
> crime picture (in the conventional sense); The Maltese Falcon is
> hardboiled but not really dark; Double Indemnity is, at heart, a buddy
> picture about forgiveness. Yet they made noir what it was, ruling
> them out would be like denying that George Washington was eligible to
> be president because he wasn't born in America.
The films I call film noir didn't arise out of nothing -- they were
reworkings and reimaginings of many earlier traditions, just as
Shakespearean drama was. But I think it's a fallacy to conflate a
tradition with its sources. Shakespeare took a lot from Marlowe --
really a lot -- but that doesn't justify calling Marlowe's plays
Shakespearean drama.
And George Washington was born in America, wasn't he?
> * Okay, I'll come up with my own counterargument: that's exactly what
> the noir Force of Evil is about.
Must counter with a counter-counterargument. "Force Of Evil" is not
noir, in my book. Like "The Godfather", it's a late-era variant of the
30s gangster film. More on that very subject here:
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/5/3634307.html
Lloyd Fonvielle
Here's a fairly extensive list of films I consider canonically noir:
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2007/10/6/3179932.html
It's followed by lists of films which most people think of as noir but
which I see as fitting more logically into other categories.
I like "The Dark Corner" a lot, though my argument as to its noir status
is not based on its quality.
The title of the film comes from a line that to me sums up the essence
of the film noir protagonist's predicament:
"I feel all dead inside. I'm backed up in a dark corner and I don't
know who's hitting me."
This is not a temporary predicament -- it's existential.
I write:
With this little speech, the hardboiled private-eye protagonist of Henry
Hathaway's "The Dark Corner", from 1946, leaves the world of 30s pulp
fiction where he was born and enters the realm of the film noir. He's
lost the romantic nobility of the traditional private eye, summed up by
Raymond Chandler when describing his idea of the hero in a work of
detective fiction -- "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not
himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid."
The hero of "The Dark Corner", played by Mark Stevens, is tarnished by a
past frame-up for manslaughter, almost unhinged by the memory of his
impotence in the situation, his sense that it will follow him forever
and destroy him in the end. He's a tough guy, not afraid of taking his
licks but gripped by the dread of a consuming darkness he doesn't
understand and so can't control. The film documents what is for him
essentially an existential nervous breakdown.
The rest of the piece on the film is here:
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2007/6/5/2980280.html
william
strikes me as what Barry Gifford once described as "academic
flapdoodle." You might have a theory of something but it certainly
isn't noir. The justification of the "happy ending" in your theory
totally ignores the influence of the Hays Office and the Box Office
and assumes that such endings were the intent of the writers and
directors. They clearly weren't in numerous cases. You must have that
option in your theory because most American films made in those days
were repressive and morally centered (and not in a good way) and the
studios made sure they ended happily. This is faux noir. Say what you
want about the French films noir but they are brilliant films made by
masters of the medium and not two-week hack jobs cranked out of a B-
movie studio according to a formula. To try and retro-actively create
a philosophic center for "The Dark Corner" or any number of other
similar films just strikes me as insane. That isn't to say that there
aren't some wonderful and important films made during that time. As
for Chinatown, there's nothing at all noir about it. What's noir in
it? Some submerged after-the-fact philosophical reading? Noir isn't
morally based. Not in the French theory. That's why most American
"noirs" are so disappointing. A perfect example: Watch the American
version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and watch the Visconti
version. I've heard versions of your theory before and it just seems
to me to be the result of too many bad films and too much good coffee.
Many of these films are just rip-offs or watered down versions of more
successful films and to assume that there is a "moral compass"
divining the path of "Gilda" is not credible to me. I don't mean any
of this personally. As I mentioned, I've heard this theory before and
it just strikes me as vague and unconvincing.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> To try and retro-actively create
> a philosophic center for "The Dark Corner" or any number of other
> similar films just strikes me as insane.
> I don't mean any
> of this personally.
Gotcha.
william
> william wrote:
> > To try and retro-actively create
> > a philosophic center for "The Dark Corner" or any number of other
> > similar films just strikes me as insane.
> > I don't mean any
> > of this personally.
>
> Gotcha.
>
can go. We're both passionate about these films and sometimes things
can be misstated or misunderstood. So I disagree passionately but am
not attacking you personally.
William
www.williamahearn.com
mikeg...@gmail.com
Yes, Force of Evil is a variant on the 30s gangster film.
It's a NOIR variant!
It's about a guy's personal rot and sense of guilt finally making him
hit rock bottom. That's what makes it a noir (even though it doesn't
have a noir ending). And why it's different from all those 30s
gangster movies that are just about poor, usually immigrant-culture
guys who saw a way to make a living outside the law. Nothing
existential about that.
I mean, I admire your rigor in insisting that not every movie that has
a shadow and a gun in it and was made during the Truman administration
is a noir, but there comes a point where you can rule out almost
anything for deviating from the straight and narrow. Especially in
the case of a genre that was only defined retrospectively anyway; no
surprise that few followed the ground rules which were only written
after the fact.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> . . . I admire your rigor in insisting that not every movie that has
> a shadow and a gun in it and was made during the Truman administration
> is a noir, but there comes a point where you can rule out almost
> anything for deviating from the straight and narrow.
The problem with the term film noir as it's currently used is precisely
the opposite -- it's applied to anything that's even vaguely "dark", and
usually indicates a value judgment ("I like it") rather than a
description. This is exacerbated by the use of the term as a marketing
tool for home video, which is totally indiscriminate.
The term has no real meaning -- it's just a way of saying "dark film" in
a foreign language, as though that tells us anything at all about the
work in question.
> Especially in
> the case of a genre that was only defined retrospectively anyway; no
> surprise that few followed the ground rules which were only written
> after the fact.
Most traditions are recognized retrospectively, especially when they're
genuinely original. Most artists who create original work THINK they're
working within a past tradition, even as they're reimagining and
reconstructing it -- a process which Harold Bloom calls "creative
misreading". The artists of the Renaissance THOUGHT they were reviving
classical art, but the art of the Renaissance is a long way from the art
of the ancient world.
It's the job of criticism to look back and see trends that may not have
been apparent to the artists who were creating that tradition. Lumping
"Force Of Evil" and "Out Of the Past" together because they have SOME
things in common distorts our understanding of both films, whose
divergent perspectives are what's primarily interesting about them.
"Out Of the Past" and "It's Always Fair Weather" have SOME things in
common, and they're important things, but it makes no sense to view them
as part of the same tradition.
william
Lumping
> "Force Of Evil" and "Out Of the Past" together because they have SOME
> things in common distorts our understanding of both films, whose
> divergent perspectives are what's primarily interesting about them.
> "Out Of the Past" and "It's Always Fair Weather" have SOME things in
> common, and they're important things, but it makes no sense to view them
> as part of the same tradition.
>
Aren't you doing the same thing? You don't seem to be dealing with any
specific film as a total film but picking elements out of them as you
did with "The Dark Corner"? If anything, I think you picked the wrong
title in trying to describe your theory as noir since the vast number
of films called "film noir" are misnamed to begin with. So you're
taking a subset of those films -- what you call "atomic age whatever"
-- and creating a theory based on pieces and bits of dialog. I get a
lot of heat and noise for using the French theory. Your disregarding
"Double Indemnity" as film noir and including "The Dark Corner" is not
going to be taken seriously by most people. That doesn't mean I think
you theory isn't valid. Your theory just seems so far removed even for
what limps along as a theory for American noir -- a pastiche of
nonsense that makes no sense -- that calling it noir just further
confuses the issue. I'm not arguing with you here I'm just trying to
help.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 2, 12:21 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Lumping
>> "Force Of Evil" and "Out Of the Past" together because they have SOME
>> things in common distorts our understanding of both films, whose
>> divergent perspectives are what's primarily interesting about them.
>> "Out Of the Past" and "It's Always Fair Weather" have SOME things in
>> common, and they're important things, but it makes no sense to view them
>> as part of the same tradition.
>>
> Aren't you doing the same thing? You don't seem to be dealing with any
> specific film as a total film but picking elements out of them as you
> did with "The Dark Corner"? If anything, I think you picked the wrong
> title in trying to describe your theory as noir since the vast number
> of films called "film noir" are misnamed to begin with. So you're
> taking a subset of those films -- what you call "atomic age whatever"
> -- and creating a theory based on pieces and bits of dialog.
My theory isn't based on dialogue -- I just found that particular bit of
dialogue from "The Dark Corner" exemplary of the new type of
protagonist, the new type of male anxiety, one finds in post-war crime
thrillers, especially when contrasted with Chandler's idea of the
protagonist in the sort of crime thriller he wrote.
> I get a
> lot of heat and noise for using the French theory. Your disregarding
> "Double Indemnity" as film noir and including "The Dark Corner" is not
> going to be taken seriously by most people.
Perhaps -- my problem is that I can't take seriously the idea that
"Double Indemnity" and "The Dark Corner" are the same type of film, when
they're so different to me. I'm not talking about quality here --
"Double Indemnity" is a far finer film than "The Dark Corner" . . . but
that in itself is part of the rhetorical problem. When film noir has no
distinct meaning, it becomes a term of approbation rather than a
descriptive or analytical tool. As used today it mostly means "a film
with dark themes and some crime content which is cool." So if "Double
Indemnity" is cooler than "The Dark Corner", which it certainly is, it's
more "deserving" of being called noir. This seems illogical to me.
> That doesn't mean I think
> you theory isn't valid. Your theory just seems so far removed even for
> what limps along as a theory for American noir -- a pastiche of
> nonsense that makes no sense -- that calling it noir just further
> confuses the issue. I'm not arguing with you here I'm just trying to
> help.
All the films in my version of a film noir canon are films that most
people would agree are noir. I think I can make a good case that the
films I exclude fit more logically into other categories. I don't see
how the term can ever become meaningful unless one applies some such
standards as these.
william
> Perhaps -- my problem is that I can't take seriously the idea that
> "Double Indemnity" and "The Dark Corner" are the same type of film, when
> they're so different to me. I'm not talking about quality here --
> "Double Indemnity" is a far finer film than "The Dark Corner" . . . but
> that in itself is part of the rhetorical problem. When film noir has no
> distinct meaning, it becomes a term of approbation rather than a
> descriptive or analytical tool. As used today it mostly means "a film
> with dark themes and some crime content which is cool." So if "Double
> Indemnity" is cooler than "The Dark Corner", which it certainly is, it's
> more "deserving" of being called noir. This seems illogical to me.
>
Let me play devil's advocate here. For one, I agree that "Double
Indemnity" and "The Dark Corner" are not the same type of film. And
that is indicative of how flawed I find the so-called definition of
American film noir. Yet according to your master list, "Night and the
City" and "Gilda" are the same type of film. I don't understand how
you can reconcile that. For what it's worth, I'd toss about half of
the films that you consider noir and they always show up in film noir
lists.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Let me play devil's advocate here. For one, I agree that "Double
> Indemnity" and "The Dark Corner" are not the same type of film. And
> that is indicative of how flawed I find the so-called definition of
> American film noir. Yet according to your master list, "Night and the
> City" and "Gilda" are the same type of film. I don't understand how
> you can reconcile that. For what it's worth, I'd toss about half of
> the films that you consider noir and they always show up in film noir
> lists.
"Gilda" and "Night and the City" are different in many ways, but they
share a quality which distinguishes them from all crime thrillers which
came before them -- namely a profound moral ambiguity about the
character of the hero.
It is strongly implied that the Ford character in "Gilda" has been
dodging the draft in South America and feels no remorse about failing to
contribute to America's effort in WWII. It's hard to appreciate today
how radical that was in the immediate post-war years. And yet he is the
hero of the film. The happy ending of the film can be seen as a
redemption earned through suffering or as a silly unearned sop to
convention, but it doesn't negate the deep ambivalence of the film's
moral universe.
"Night and the City" takes place in the same universe of moral ambiguity
-- we feel an unaccountable sympathy for the Widmark character, who's an
amoral hustler, precisely because he seems to have lost his moral
compass in a world that has lost its moral compass.
Sam Spade is a moral man with a code which he's true to, though it costs
him dearly. Walter Neff is an immoral man who clearly crosses the line
between right and wrong. The protagonists of "Gilda" and "Night and the
City" are different -- their moral positions are totally ambiguous.
Their angst arises not because of the cost of being moral in an immoral
world, or the cost of being immoral in a moral world, but because they
don't have a clear sense of what being moral or immoral MEANS.
I'm not interested in creating a "theory" of film noir. I just see a
body of films, crime thrillers, from a particular historical period,
roughly 1945 to 1958, which seem to share a common atmosphere of moral
ambiguity and consequent existential angst which distinguishes them from
previous crime thrillers. Most of them are seen as films noirs, which
seems as good a term as any with which to identify the tradition they
constitute.
There are other films from the same period, or earlier periods, which
people call films noirs but seem to me to fit more logically into other
traditions. Calling those films noir seems both illogical and
misleading -- because they distract us from the unique qualities of the
new tradition.
Feuillade
> mikegeb...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Double Indemnity isn't a film noir?
>
> Not by any logical standards, in my opinion.
Lloyd, since when have you ever been about logical standards?
If "Double Indemnity" isn't a film noir, then the term has no meaning.
Tom Moran
mikeg...@gmail.com
historical period, roughly 1945 to 1958, which seem to share a common
atmosphere of moral ambiguity and consequent existential angst which
distinguishes them from previous crime thrillers."
The thing is, there's nothing about visual style there. And most
people would primarily recognize noir as a visual style-- German
Expressionism in a pulp detective setting, the look of Frankenstein
applied to the material of Scarface. First, a noir looks like a noir,
then it thinks like one.
Beaver Lad
<2a9fe5c8-1e2d-4669...@t54g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
<"mikeg...@gmail.com"> wrote:
==========================
Beautifully and succinctly stated.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> If "Double Indemnity" isn't a film noir, then the term has no meaning.
If "Double Indemnity" and "Out Of the Past" are both films noirs then
the term has no meaning.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> The thing is, there's nothing about visual style there. And most
> people would primarily recognize noir as a visual style-- German
> Expressionism in a pulp detective setting, the look of Frankenstein
> applied to the material of Scarface. First, a noir looks like a noir,
> then it thinks like one.
Paul Schrader, who wrote the first widely influential American essay on
film noir, came to a similar conclusion -- that noir was basically a
question of style. I disagree vehemently -- that's too loose of a
definition. It leave the term so vague as to be meaningless -- i. e.,
essentially, "a film whose style I find cool".
More importantly, the idea that the look of noir derives from German
expressionism is yet another bit of conventional wisdom that doesn't
bear close scrutiny. I write about this here:
http://www.mardecortesbaja.com/blog/_archives/2007/7/17/3074015.html
. . . and say, in part:
"The proposition gets a little shaky . . . when you examine the visual
style of film noir with a careful attention to detail. Its resemblance
to the look of UFA-style expressionism is mostly superficial. The UFA
style had a Romantic quality, evoking candlelight and gaslight rather
more than popping flashbulbs, stabbing headlights and glaring neon --
which characterized the noir style. The UFA influence is very clear in
the Hollywood horror film cycle of the 30s, with its atmospheric, Gothic
sets and lighting -- but it's less clear in the jagged edges of light,
the jarring collisions of black and white in film noir."
The UFA-style of lighting is characterized predominantly by chiaroscuro.
I argue that the look of noir derives more directly from, and more
closely resembles, the look of tabloid news photography as practiced by
Weegee and others. Look at a book of tabloid news photographs from the
30s and 40s, then look at any film made by Murnau, the most influential
of the German expressionist directors, especially in Hollywood, and
you'll see immediately what I mean.
Lloyd Fonvielle
But totally unrelated to the actual visual style of the films in question.
william
> It is strongly implied that the Ford character in "Gilda" has been
> dodging the draft in South America and feels no remorse about failing to
> contribute to America's effort in WWII. It's hard to appreciate today
> how radical that was in the immediate post-war years. And yet he is the
> hero of the film. The happy ending of the film can be seen as a
> redemption earned through suffering or as a silly unearned sop to
> convention, but it doesn't negate the deep ambivalence of the film's
> moral universe.
>
"Gilda" to me is a false film that toys with Ford's character. Let's
see: We have this alienated man of questionably character in a morally
ambiguous environment and he meets a woman from his past and she
brings out his good side and he breaks up the tungsten cartel to help
the war effort and they find love again. Frankly, I liked this movie
much better when it was done as "Casablanca." Radical? Bogie's
character was radical. It was made before or just as the US entered
the war. Ford's character is a total rip-off and made safely after the
war. Everything in the film is false because it's totally derivative
and calculated. Nothing is lost by either character on their way to a
happy ending as they discover that he isn't that bad and she isn't a
slut. Oh, please, the characters are as deep as the paint on the
scenery. "Deep ambivalence of the film's moral universe"? The
"ambivalence" is a tease, a posture, a fake. There's an old saying
that the only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. There is no
redemption in noir. That's the whole point. That's why it's "noir."
"Gilda" is a bucket of deriviative junk that tacks a happy ending on a
rip-off of "Casablanca." If anything is faux noir is it "Gilda." How
anyone can believe for a moment that this hack job of a film is noir
boggles my mind and proves how misunderstood and misused the term has
become.
William
www.williamahearn.com
william
>
> Paul Schrader, who wrote the first widely influential American essay on
> film noir, came to a similar conclusion -- that noir was basically a
> question of style. I disagree vehemently -- that's too loose of a
> definition. It leave the term so vague as to be meaningless -- i. e.,
> essentially, "a film whose style I find cool".
I totally agree with this. If "Double Indemnity" is noir -- and I'm
not saying it isn't -- then so is "Pretty Poison."
>
> More importantly, the idea that the look of noir derives from German
> expressionism is yet another bit of conventional wisdom that doesn't
> bear close scrutiny.
>
I also agree with this. This is the theory that suggests that "The
Stranger On The Third Floor" is noir because of its film style.
"SOTTF" is a second-rate version of Hitchcock's "Muder" and also has a
happy ending. It's about as noir as "Heidi."
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> "Gilda" to me is a false film that toys with Ford's character. Let's
> see: We have this alienated man of questionably character in a morally
> ambiguous environment and he meets a woman from his past and she
> brings out his good side and he breaks up the tungsten cartel to help
> the war effort and they find love again. Frankly, I liked this movie
> much better when it was done as "Casablanca."
It's hardly "Casablanca". Rick in that film pretends to be a heel but
is, underneath it all, an idealist of the noblest sort, who sacrifices
the most important thing in his life for a cause greater than himself.
He doesn't get the girl in the end.
In "Gilda", Ford plays a guy who really is a heel, an actual traitor to
his country, who spends most of the film either unconcerned with issues
of right and wrong or bewildered as to what the line between them is.
Rick's cynical POSE has become an existential reality.
I agree that the happy ending has a tacked-on quality, but the moral
universe of the film is light years away from that of "Casablanca".
Again, noir has become a term of approval rather than of description and
analysis. Whether or not "Gilda" is a good film has nothing to do with
its status as a noir -- part of a new tradition in crime thrillers that
grew out of the moral dislocations and anxieties of the war.
It's the ways in which "Gilda" differs from "Casablanca" that make it
interesting -- and noir.
Lloyd Fonvielle
I agree. Whatever you think of it as a film, "The Stranger On the Third
Floor" is part of an entirely different tradition -- though perhaps not
the tradition of "Heidi".
mikeg...@gmail.com
chiaroscuro.
I argue that the look of noir derives more directly from, and more
closely resembles, the look of tabloid news photography as practiced
by
Weegee and others."
All depends on which noir you're talking about. Calling Northside
777, yes. Lady From Shanghai, with its direct quotes from Caligari
and Last Laugh, no. Crossfire, with its very shadowy look but social
problem picture tone... yes and no.
Nevertheless, forget the films and just look at the people-- Hollywood
film noir is as full of Germans as the space program. Film noir is
what happened when Germans met ex-newspaper guys like Ben Hecht, who
taught them how to make Expressionism American (and in the process,
escape the horror genre ghetto).
If you want to deny that influence, try denying it to ex-UFA employees
like Fritz Lang. Or Edgar Ulmer. Or Robert Siodmak.
william
>
> In "Gilda", Ford plays a guy who really is a heel, an actual traitor to
> his country, who spends most of the film either unconcerned with issues
> of right and wrong or bewildered as to what the line between them is.
> Rick's cynical POSE has become an existential reality.
>
let's suppose you're right about Johnny Farrell. Johnny's soul travels
from the darkness to the light. He is redeemed and he gets the girl.
To me, this is the antithesis of noir. Where is the blackness in
"Gilda"? In a murky beginning? Noir means black. And the black is in
the resolution. For real and true noir, the character must be
destroyed at the end of the story. As in dead, insane or in prison or
any of these events are looming in a not so distant horizon. That is
noir. "Morals" and "Redemption" are the values of the Hays Office and
not some ambiguous moral universe. Anything less than a black ending
of death, insanity, or worse is posing or posturing as noir. It's not
only in the French films noir but also in the American literature as
manifested by James M Cain and Cornell Woolrich (The Bride Wore Black
and Waltz Into Darkness). One only has to see the films that Francois
Truffaut made of Bride Wore Black or Waltz Into Darkness to see that
most people -- to paraphrase Jack Nicholson -- "can't handle the
noir." There is no getting around this. Noir never ends well for
anyone and that's why there are so few true films noir made in the US.
And when I see people suggesting that "His Kind of Woman" or "Macao"
or "Laura" (which Nino Frank went out of his way to say wasn't noir)
or "Gilda" are films noir, I can't help but chuckle. Most of the
criticism written about noir these days is pseudo-intellectual drivel
based on silly references to flashbacks, traces of German
Expressionism, narration, moral ambiguity and other such nonsense. Nic
Rays' "In A Lonely Place" is a perfect example. The book is definitely
noir. In the book Dix Steele is a serial killer. In the movie he's a
nasty scriptwriter. What a joke. Granted, I go back and forth on Ray's
work and Bogart's performance is brilliant in the film but what
happens? He's suspected in a murder and he loses the girl. Jeez,
louise I'll cry myself to sleep. In the book he's driven by urges he
can't control and it leads to his downfall. In the film he gets his
heartbroken. This is noir for sissies. If the ending isn't black, it
ain't noir.
William
www.williamahearn.com
william
wrote:
> All depends on which noir you're talking about. Calling Northside
> 777, yes. Lady From Shanghai, with its direct quotes from Caligari
> and Last Laugh, no. Crossfire, with its very shadowy look but social
> problem picture tone... yes and no.
>
Yes and no? What does that mean? Calling Northside 777 -- another
Henry Hathaway film -- noir is totally missing the point. It's a
procedural. A policier as the French used to call them. It's a far,
far, far better movie than Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" -- and
Hitchcock's film has more superficial cinematic references to what
passes for noir than "777" -- yet no one offers Hitch's flcik as noir
(and I'm certainly not). Any description of a film type that includes
"sort of" or "yes and no" isn't a description. It's confusion.
William
www.williamahearn.com
mikeg...@gmail.com
Watch The House on 92nd Street, then watch Calling Northside 777, and
you'll see why one is a procedural, and the other is a noir in the
form of a procedural.
Anyway, the sort of referred not to its noir status, but to how much
of each influence it had.
william
wrote:
>
> Watch The House on 92nd Street, then watch Calling Northside 777, and
> you'll see why one is a procedural, and the other is a noir in the
> form of a procedural.
>
Night" that many consider a noir based on the cinematography. So
please tell me what it is that makes "Calling Northside 777" a film
noir.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> "The UFA-style of lighting is characterized predominantly by
> chiaroscuro.
> I argue that the look of noir derives more directly from, and more
> closely resembles, the look of tabloid news photography as practiced
> by
> Weegee and others."
>
> All depends on which noir you're talking about. Calling Northside
> 777, yes. Lady From Shanghai, with its direct quotes from Caligari
> and Last Laugh, no. Crossfire, with its very shadowy look but social
> problem picture tone... yes and no.
I think this means that you take my point -- you can't define noir by
its look.
> Nevertheless, forget the films and just look at the people-- Hollywood
> film noir is as full of Germans as the space program. Film noir is
> what happened when Germans met ex-newspaper guys like Ben Hecht, who
> taught them how to make Expressionism American (and in the process,
> escape the horror genre ghetto).
>
> If you want to deny that influence, try denying it to ex-UFA employees
> like Fritz Lang. Or Edgar Ulmer. Or Robert Siodmak.
I'm not saying there's no influence. Both the UFA style and the noir
style have exaggerated ("expressionist" with a small e) visuals.
They're just different, as a general rule, and drastically so in most
cases. The tabloid news-photo style is far more characteristic of noir
than the moody chiaroscuro of Murnau.
Lang is an interesting case in point -- his Hollywood lighting style
tends to be very flat . . . the fact that he used to work for UFA tells
us nothing about the way his films actually look. Same with Ulmer. He
used UFA-style lighting in a film like "The Black Cat", a more
tabloid-style lighting in "Detour".
It's important to look closely at the films themselves, rather than
simply make assumptions based on a director's past affiliations.
mikeg...@gmail.com
> I think this means that you take my point -- you can't define noir by
> its look.
Not at all. It means I think there's a range within noir from tabloid
realism to nightmarish expressionism that is nevertheless quite
distinct from how, say, a black and white Carole Lombard or Abbott and
Costello movie looks.
> Same with Ulmer. He
> used UFA-style lighting in a film like "The Black Cat", a more
> tabloid-style lighting in "Detour".
NOT how I would describe either of those films at all, and to me
Detour looks far more like, say, Asphalt or Warning Shadows than the
sleekly Bauhaus modernist Black Cat does.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> For real and true noir, the character must be
> destroyed at the end of the story. As in dead, insane or in prison or
> any of these events are looming in a not so distant horizon. That is
> noir.
Your prescription would rule out any number of films which are clearly
part of the noir tradition.
> "Morals" and "Redemption" are the values of the Hays Office and
> not some ambiguous moral universe.
I think you're missing something here. What distinguishes noir from
mere nihilism is a yearning for redemption in a world where the path to
redemption has been lost. Redemption may or may not occur in a film
noir, but it's never a Hayes Office version of redemption -- with the
suggestion that the world has been set right in the end and enduring
moral values affirmed. It's a provisional redemption, a stay of execution.
In a 30s gangster film, forces of social order always intervene to bring
the gangster to justice and restore the moral equilibrium. In
hardboiled detective fiction there's a mystery to be unraveled -- its
solution affirms the rough justice of the detective's personal code of
honor. Such resolutions are no longer available to the noir
protagonist, whether or not he lives or dies at the end.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> What does that mean? Calling Northside 777 -- another
> Henry Hathaway film -- noir is totally missing the point. It's a
> procedural. A policier as the French used to call them.
True.
> It's a far,
> far, far better movie than Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man" -- and
> Hitchcock's film has more superficial cinematic references to what
> passes for noir than "777" -- yet no one offers Hitch's flcik as noir
> (and I'm certainly not).
I see "The Wrong Man" as a noir. The hero gets saved in the end, but it
has nothing to do with his own efforts. The world that almost destroyed
him goes on about its dreadful, implacable, morally meaningless business
-- as it does in all true noirs.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Watch The House on 92nd Street, then watch Calling Northside 777, and
> you'll see why one is a procedural, and the other is a noir in the
> form of a procedural.
Procedural is procedural and noir is noir. According to your
formulation, we could say that "Macbeth" is an Elizabethan drama in the
form of a noir. Either the term noir defines a distinct tradition, for
which we have no other name, or it's redundant and useless -- just a
fancy French word that seems to mean something but doesn't.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 3, 12:57 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>> I think this means that you take my point -- you can't define noir by
>> its look.
>
> Not at all. It means I think there's a range within noir from tabloid
> realism to nightmarish expressionism that is nevertheless quite
> distinct from how, say, a black and white Carole Lombard or Abbott and
> Costello movie looks.
But not necessarily distinct from the way a Murnau looks, or the way
"Dracula" looks, or the way "The Magnificent Ambersons" looks. Just
different from the way a conventional comedy looks. That's a pretty
vague sort of criterion.
I also wouldn't define the tabloid style as realistic -- the flash units
which allowed news photographers to penetrate the urban night created
highly expressionistic images, and this is the "expressionism" of film
noir, as opposed to the more delicately-shaded and aestheticized
expressionism of Murnau.
>> Same with Ulmer. He
>> used UFA-style lighting in a film like "The Black Cat", a more
>> tabloid-style lighting in "Detour".
>
> NOT how I would describe either of those films at all, and to me
> Detour looks far more like, say, Asphalt or Warning Shadows than the
> sleekly Bauhaus modernist Black Cat does.
"The Black Cat" has sleek Bauhaus-style sets, but the lighting is
UFA-style expressionism. To my eye, "Detour" has the un-aestheticized
starkness of Weegee -- though of course a lot of that can be attributed
to the budget.
william
> william wrote:
> > For real and true noir, the character must be
> > destroyed at the end of the story. As in dead, insane or in prison or
> > any of these events are looming in a not so distant horizon. That is
> > noir.
>
> Your prescription would rule out any number of films which are clearly
> part of the noir tradition.
No. It would rule out films that you think are part of the noir
tradition. Name three.
>
> > "Morals" and "Redemption" are the values of the Hays Office and
> > not some ambiguous moral universe.
>
> I think you're missing something here. What distinguishes noir from
> mere nihilism is a yearning for redemption in a world where the path to
> redemption has been lost.
No. That's after the fact waffling. Noir is not about redemption and
never was.
>
> In a 30s gangster film, forces of social order always intervene to bring
> the gangster to justice and restore the moral equilibrium. In
> hardboiled detective fiction there's a mystery to be unraveled -- its
> solution affirms the rough justice of the detective's personal code of
> honor. Such resolutions are no longer available to the noir
> protagonist, whether or not he lives or dies at the end.
>
Nope. More waffling. The gangster film and detective film have nothing
to do with noir and noir has only one ending and it is black. Not
"sort of" or "noirish" or "yes and no" but a definitive black end for
the character. All this intellectualizing about moral universes and
social resolutions is over thinking the form.
William
www.williamahearn.com
mikeg...@gmail.com
Right, because no filmmaker could ever seem to be doing one thing, and
subverting the genre in the process.
william
> Your prescription would rule out any number of films which are clearly
> part of the noir tradition.
>
Not if you really understand the noir tradition that came out of the
French films in the 1930s or American literature of the same time. As
I mentioned, Cain and Woolrich were pretty much the originators in the
US where films with this content wouldn't be made for another decade.
The French were releasing these films in the US and they were highly
influential. This is the real noir and the difference in what America
passed off as this kind of content can be seen in the remakes. See
Anatole Litvak's "The Long Night" (1947) and then Marcel Cranes' "Le
Jour se lève" (1939). The Americans were late to the game even with
Cain's novel "The Postman Always Rings Twice." The French did "Le
Dernier tournant" (1939) and Visconti made "Ossessione" (1943). Tay
Garnett didn't get around to the Hollywood version until 1946. This is
where noir came from and its tradition is cleary in the black ending.
Everything else is trying to justify a series of films based on
everything but the black ending. "Gilda" is the same vein as "Le Bete
Humaine"? Not in my moral universe.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 3, 2:11 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>> william wrote:
>>> For real and true noir, the character must be
>>> destroyed at the end of the story. As in dead, insane or in prison or
>>> any of these events are looming in a not so distant horizon. That is
>>> noir.
>> Your prescription would rule out any number of films which are clearly
>> part of the noir tradition.
>
> No. It would rule out films that you think are part of the noir
> tradition. Name three.
Films noirs in which the protagonist doesn't end up dead, insane or on
his way to prison:
The Big Combo
The Set-Up
Touch Of Evil
The Wrong Man
On Dangerous Ground
Thieves Highway
The Lady From Shanghai
Road House
Gilda
Crossfire
The Dark Corner
There are many others. There are also many films that end with the
destruction of the hero which aren't noirs.
Your idea that a film is noir only if the protagonist suffers total
defeat at the end is a purely arbitrary criterion. It misses what's
unique about the tradition -- which is the existential moral
bewilderment of the protagonist, not the narrative consequences of his
predicament.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 3, 2:11 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Your prescription would rule out any number of films which are clearly
>> part of the noir tradition.
>>
> Not if you really understand the noir tradition that came out of the
> French films in the 1930s or American literature of the same time.
Film noir developed out of a lot of different traditions. If it didn't
become something new, we don't need a special name for it.
You seem to want to recognize as noir only those films which fit into
the French tradition of Poetic Realism as it existed in the 1930s, just
because French critics once used the term film noir to describe those
films. I think the term has evolved too much in the meantime for that
ever to be a practical possibility.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 3, 1:25 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>> mikegeb...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Watch The House on 92nd Street, then watch Calling Northside 777, and
>>> you'll see why one is a procedural, and the other is a noir in the
>>> form of a procedural.
>> Procedural is procedural and noir is noir. According to your
>> formulation, we could say that "Macbeth" is an Elizabethan drama in the
>> form of a noir. Either the term noir defines a distinct tradition, for
>> which we have no other name, or it's redundant and useless -- just a
>> fancy French word that seems to mean something but doesn't.
>
> Right, because no filmmaker could ever seem to be doing one thing, and
> subverting the genre in the process.
All of film noir is about the business of subverting the traditional
crime thriller. A director might also be about the business of
subverting the traditional procedural. Ford and Mann subverted the
traditional Western. Kelly and Donen, in "It's Always Fair Weather",
subverted the traditional musical. That doesn't mean that the genres
being subverted all become one new genre. Unless you want film noir to
mean just "subversive cinema", of any kind -- in which case, why not
just use the phrase "subversive cinema"?
Feuillade
> Feuillade wrote:
> > If "Double Indemnity" isn't a film noir, then the term has no meaning.
>
> If "Double Indemnity" and "Out Of the Past" are both films noirs then
> the term has no meaning.
>
To you, perhaps.
But "Double Indemnity" and "Out of the Past" are both excellent
examples of films noir. As are any number of other films.
Film Noir derived directly from the unexpected box office success of
"Double Indemnity," and many major studios rushed to jump on the
bandwagon and imitate it to try and cash in. Read the memos by Jerry
Wald regarding "Mildred Pierce," which was rewritten to include
elements of Wilder's film in a deliberate attempt to make it more like
"Double Indemnity."
Tom Moran
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Film Noir derived directly from the unexpected box office success of
> "Double Indemnity," and many major studios rushed to jump on the
> bandwagon and imitate it to try and cash in. Read the memos by Jerry
> Wald regarding "Mildred Pierce," which was rewritten to include
> elements of Wilder's film in a deliberate attempt to make it more like
> "Double Indemnity."
The people who made films noirs had no familiarity with the term, and
generally did not see themselves as working in a new and distinct
tradition. They saw themselves as doing darker and edgier variants of
traditional forms. Several film genres got darker and edgier in the
wake of WWII -- including domestic melodramas like "Double Idemnity" and
"Mildred Pierce". The trend eventually influenced Westerns and even
musicals.
For many people, film noir has come to mean simply "dark and edgy", and
is applied to many different kinds of films that really don't belong in
the same formal category. That may be just the way things are, but I
think it makes the term virtually meaningless, and also encourages fuzzy
thinking about movies, blurring the very real distinction between
traditions which have their own unique formal rules and histories --
between domestic melodramas, for example, and the atomic-era crime
thriller, which really was something new . . . at least as seen in
retrospect.
Beaver Lad
<navigar...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> The people who made films noirs had no familiarity with the term, and
> generally did not see themselves as working in a new and distinct
> tradition.
The plural of "film noir" is "films noir". No "s" on "noir". Thought
you'd like to know.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> ================================================
> The plural of "film noir" is "films noir". No "s" on "noir". Thought
> you'd like to know.
That's a common usage in English, but the French "films noirs" is just
as correct, since it's a French term. Depends on whether you think of
or pronounce "films" as a French or English word. For mixed phrases
like "noir" Westerns, the plural makes less sense.
Old Movie Fan
chimes in again and again about what this (obviously vague) term means
today, or in the past? Ask 100 people, and you'll probably get more
than 100 definitions.
I'm thinking back to all those endless debates on Seinfield shows as I
read all these comments (none that refer to the original "silly"
question). Now we're up to discussing proper spelling? What's next?
Drafting an official definition? That might be fun to see just how many
can agree on just one or two?
To add to the humor, I'd like to remind everyone that at one time.
"potatoe" was an alternate and equally correct spelling.
Not that this had anything to do with how Dan Quale was set up by the
incorrectly written 'Flash Card' so many years ago.
Just one of the dirty tricks in politics. Making fun of your opponent.
Rich Wagner
Lloyd Fonvielle
> This thread has become amazingly funny (to me anyhow), as everyone
> chimes in again and again about what this (obviously vague) term means
> today, or in the past? Ask 100 people, and you'll probably get more
> than 100 definitions.
This is quite true -- and yet people use the term film noir as though it
does have a meaning, when in fact it can mean just about anything one
wants it to mean.
We should either stop using it as though it were a meaningful critical
term or there should be some new consensus about its definition.
This is not impossible. The term has shifted in meaning quite a bit
over the years -- it's not out of the question that it could come to
mean something more specific than it does today.
It's also possible that people want it to mean simply "a dark, edgy film
that I think is cool" -- in which case that's what it will go on meaning.
Jim Beaver
"Old Movie Fan" <BigMo...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:14523-48E...@storefull-3131.bay.webtv.net...
Quayle.
Beaver Lad
<navigar...@cox.net> wrote:
============================
You are incorrect, Sir.
william
> Films noirs in which the protagonist doesn't end up dead, insane or on
> his way to prison:
>
> The Big Combo
> The Set-Up
> Touch Of Evil
> The Wrong Man
> On Dangerous Ground
> Thieves Highway
> The Lady From Shanghai
> Road House
> Gilda
> Crossfire
> The Dark Corner
>
These aren't noir films. They're bogus noir. "The Wrong Man" is a
boring procedural. "The Big Combo" is good vs evil with a sexually
repressed middle and good wins and the hero gets the girl. Oh, please.
"Crossfie" is social criticism, a protest film. "Gilda" as I mentioned
before is a joke, etc, etc.
We're never going to agree. You say "Double Indemnity" is the same
kind of film as most noir films and therefore isn't noir. I say it's
more noir than the movies on this list.
William
www.williamahearn.com
william
> Film noir developed out of a lot of different traditions. If it didn't
> become something new, we don't need a special name for it.
>
No it didn't. Your theory did. And your theory -- and I say "your"
because of this situation. In fact many people use this theory --
doesn't make one whit of sense to me. I don't know what else I can say
other than, for me, "Gilda" is the breaking point. Anyone who
considers "Laura," "Gilda" or "His Kind of Woman" to be noir is
talking in a tongue I don't understand. It shows how inconsistant,
arbritrary and nonsensical it is. The fact is that the theory was
based on those films not having films assessed by the theory. It's
bassackwards and that's why it makes no sense.
William
www.williamahearn.com
william
> Film Noir derived directly from the unexpected box office success of
> "Double Indemnity," and many major studios rushed to jump on the
> bandwagon and imitate it to try and cash in. Read the memos by Jerry
> Wald regarding "Mildred Pierce," which was rewritten to include
> elements of Wilder's film in a deliberate attempt to make it more like
> "Double Indemnity."
>
You have hit on the crux of the matter and it shows how much of so-
called American film noir is typical Hollywood bandwagon jumping. That
"Double Indemnity" started a tradition in the US is a given. The
theory that has been offered by Llloyd is based on deriviatives and
variations so watered down and tainted by happy endings and star turns
as to be pointless. Those films may have something in common but it
ain't noir.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> We're never going to agree. You say "Double Indemnity" is the same
> kind of film as most noir films and therefore isn't noir. I say it's
> more noir than the movies on this list.
No, we're never going to agree but I've found the conversation interesting.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> In article <jG3Gk.18818$cX6....@newsfe07.iad>, Lloyd Fonvielle
> <navigar...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> Beaver Lad wrote:
>>> ================================================
>>> The plural of "film noir" is "films noir". No "s" on "noir". Thought
>>> you'd like to know.
>> That's a common usage in English, but the French "films noirs" is just
>> as correct, since it's a French term. Depends on whether you think of
>> or pronounce "films" as a French or English word. For mixed phrases
>> like "noir" Westerns, the plural makes less sense.
> ============================
> You are incorrect, Sir.
I beg to differ.
william
> For many people, film noir has come to mean simply "dark and edgy", and
> is applied to many different kinds of films that really don't belong in
> the same formal category. That may be just the way things are, but I
> think it makes the term virtually meaningless, and also encourages fuzzy
> thinking about movies, blurring the very real distinction between
> traditions which have their own unique formal rules and histories --
> between domestic melodramas, for example, and the atomic-era crime
> thriller, which really was something new . . . at least as seen in
> retrospect.
>
But that's exactly what you're doing. You throw around the "tradition"
of film noir and at the same time you have no idea what the French
critics were referring to and you assume -- because there was no
evidence of it in the text -- that they were "unmistakably" referring
to Series Noire which they weren't. Your "tradition" starts in some
vague place after "Double Indemnity" -- a domestic melodrama, indeed
-- yet you never pinpoint where. In your universe "Double Indemnity"
is inconsistent with film noir but somehow there's a consistency
between "The Big Combo" and "His Kind of Woman." That, my man, is
fuzzy. And contradictory. If you want to use "Atom Age Crime Thriller"
instead of film noir you'd make way more sense.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Your "tradition" starts in some
> vague place after "Double Indemnity" -- a domestic melodrama, indeed
> -- yet you never pinpoint where.
For me, classic film noir begins with "Detour" and ends with "Odds
Against Tomorrow". No genre or tradition has absolute boundaries. All
genres and traditions emerge out of earlier ones and have echoes in
later ones. Still, in retrospect, it's possible to identify films from
particular historical periods which have enough in common to constitute
a tradition that's distinct in important ways from other traditions, and
which it makes sense to view through that analytical lens.
> In your universe "Double Indemnity"
> is inconsistent with film noir but somehow there's a consistency
> between "The Big Combo" and "His Kind of Woman." That, my man, is
> fuzzy
"His Kind Of Woman" is a special case. It starts out noir and then goes
completely haywire -- as noirs sometimes did when they crossed south of
the border. I think it's best understood as a parody of a film noir but
still a noir, since it follows the formal patterns of a noir even as it
pokes fun at them. Its very self-consciousness in this regard tells me
that on some level its makers were aware of a new tradition, which they
were sending up.
You seem to have made up your mind that film noir can only mean films
related to the school of Poetic Realism as practiced in France in the
1930s, and which end with the destruction of the protagonist. That's
certainly a very precise definition, but I don't think it says anything
useful about the body of atomic-era crime thrillers which most people
now think of, however imprecisely, as noir.
william
>
> You seem to have made up your mind that film noir can only mean films
> related to the school of Poetic Realism as practiced in France in the
> 1930s, and which end with the destruction of the protagonist. That's
> certainly a very precise definition, but I don't think it says anything
> useful about the body of atomic-era crime thrillers which most people
> now think of, however imprecisely, as noir.
>
should be present. To me, the content of the film is far more
important than the look. Some films that I consider film noir that
most people don't are "Pretty Poison" and "Last Tango In Paris" and
"The Lost Weekend." There is nothing vague about the connections these
films have. Of course my definition of noir doesn't say anything
useful about Atomic Age Crime Thrillers that even you admit are
"imprecisely" thought of as noir. How could it? They're not -- for the
most part -- noir. It's that simple.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> It's not set in concrete but the spirit of the French films noir
> should be present. To me, the content of the film is far more
> important than the look. Some films that I consider film noir that
> most people don't are "Pretty Poison" and "Last Tango In Paris" and
> "The Lost Weekend." There is nothing vague about the connections these
> films have. Of course my definition of noir doesn't say anything
> useful about Atomic Age Crime Thrillers that even you admit are
> "imprecisely" thought of as noir. How could it? They're not -- for the
> most part -- noir. It's that simple.
Of course anybody can make up their own definition of film noir, just as
anybody can make up their own definition of Elizabethan drama (e. g.
"Plays which feature a character or characters named Elizabeth".) But
in order to be useful, the definition has to have SOME relationship to
the way the term is conventionally used in contemporary writing, however
loosely it's used.
Your definition of film noir includes films which nobody but you would
call noir, and leaves out almost all the films that people do call noir.
Your definition has the merit of being strict and logical, but I think
it's too personal and eccentric to be practicable.
william
> Your definition of film noir includes films which nobody but you would
> call noir, and leaves out almost all the films that people do call noir.
> Your definition has the merit of being strict and logical, but I think
> it's too personal and eccentric to be practicable.
>
Many other people besides myself see content as the decider to what is
and isn't noir. My theory -- and it isn't mine -- includes the roots
of the form and also takes into account that films noir have showed up
in numerous other cultures. Your theory limits it to the US in a
specfic timeframe and is totally inconsistent. So there you have it. I
can connect "Bladerunner" and "The Lost Weekend" as films noir far
more consistently than you can connect "On Dangerous Ground" and "The
Big Combo." The reason that we are having this discussion is that the
current definition of film noir is totally incoherent and
contradictory. No one can agree on anything with the current
definition because it is a slapdash, build-it-yourself, free-for-all
mess based more on the feeling of Judge Potter Stewart's assessment of
pornography: I know it when I see it. (That statement, by the way, was
in reference to Louis Malle's "The Lovers" and Stewart and decided it
was not pornographic.) Yes, most people might disagree but then ask
them for a definition of film noir. Don't forget to bring your lunch.
It'll be a long time before they sputter the whole mess out.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Many other people besides myself see content as the decider to what is
> and isn't noir. My theory -- and it isn't mine -- includes the roots
> of the form and also takes into account that films noir have showed up
> in numerous other cultures.
The meaning of the term film noir, if it ever has a clear definition,
will be decided by a complex cultural conversation, of which you and I
are only a small part. I may disagree with your proposal for a
definition, but I think the conversation is one worth having, since, as
I think we both might agree, the term as presently used is all but
meaningless.
william
> The meaning of the term film noir, if it ever has a clear definition,
> will be decided by a complex cultural conversation, of which you and I
> are only a small part. I may disagree with your proposal for a
> definition, but I think the conversation is one worth having, since, as
> I think we both might agree, the term as presently used is all but
> meaningless.
>
Agreed. One last thing. Some people are only concerned as to whether a
film is noir (by whatever definition) or not. I find it more valuable
to determine whether it's a "good" film and then whether it's noir or
not. I can't believe how so many incredibly mediocore films have been
given a second life by marketers calling them noir. But that's
probably just me.
William
www.williamahearn.com
mikeg...@gmail.com
> But
> in order to be useful, the definition has to have SOME relationship to
> the way the term is conventionally used in contemporary writing, however
> loosely it's used.
A very good point-- but not one that aids your argument. To quote
from my BFI Companion to Crime:
"The term film noir originated in France at the end of World War II.
When The Maltese Falcon, Laura, Murder My Sweet, Double Indemnity and
The Woman in the Window were shown within a week of each other in
Paris, where very few American films had been released during the
period of German occupation, they were labeled films noirs by French
critic Nino Frank, who perceived thematic similarities between the
films and the pulp fiction previously published in France in the Serie
Noir."
So the original use in contemporary writing is exactly in reference to
the films you want to read out of the movement.
As far as atomic age anxieties go (of course, film noir predates the
atomic age, or at least it does for most people including, obviously,
Nino Frank), the author (David MacGillivray) goes on to locate noir's
origins in another set of anxieties which I think most of us will
recognize more readily as being central to the genre:
"America's entry into the war in 1941 resulted in significant changes
in the position of women, which made their portrayal as mere girl-
friends or molls problematic... In short, women became more active...
Masculine energy is not a common feature of film noir, and the rise-
and-fall narrative typical of the gangster film, a plot in which
energy was essential, is little found in film noir... the rise-and-
fall structure is replaced by that of the investigation, often in a
present that is seemingly stretched to fill the running time of a
film, leaving the central character, as it were, trapped in a
ceaseless present in which time is forever running out, as in The Big
Clock."
It's a good essay (though I don't agree with him that von Sternberg
was especially a major influence on noir, except perhaps the most
rococo examples such as Lady From Shanghai).
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Agreed. One last thing. Some people are only concerned as to whether a
> film is noir (by whatever definition) or not. I find it more valuable
> to determine whether it's a "good" film and then whether it's noir or
> not. I can't believe how so many incredibly mediocore films have been
> given a second life by marketers calling them noir. But that's
> probably just me.
I take your point, but what always amazes me is how consistently
entertaining films noirs (as I define them) are. They may not always be
great films, but they are vibrant with energy and invention. I think
this has to do with the new horizons opened up by the war and the
audience's appetite for darker themes . . . and a concurrent relaxation
of Code standards in response to this new audience mood -- though at
first only within the confines of the crime thriller. Filmmakers got
inspired by their new sense of freedom and responded with an
extraordinary renaissance of creativity and excitement, albeit within
some very strict generic limits.
william
wrote:
> "The term film noir originated in France at the end of World War II.
> When The Maltese Falcon, Laura, Murder My Sweet, Double Indemnity and
> The Woman in the Window were shown within a week of each other in
> Paris, where very few American films had been released during the
> period of German occupation, they were labeled films noirs by French
> critic Nino Frank, who perceived thematic similarities between the
> films and the pulp fiction previously published in France in the Serie
> Noir."
>
That information -- that gets passed from one lazy writer to another
-- isn't true. Please see my article here:
http://www.williamahearn.com/truenoir.html
Serie Noire was dealt with earlier in this conversation. What you
quoted above is absolute bunk.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 5, 6:17 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>> But
>> in order to be useful, the definition has to have SOME relationship to
>> the way the term is conventionally used in contemporary writing, however
>> loosely it's used.
>
> A very good point-- but not one that aids your argument. To quote
> from my BFI Companion to Crime:
>
> "The term film noir originated in France at the end of World War II.
> When The Maltese Falcon, Laura, Murder My Sweet, Double Indemnity and
> The Woman in the Window were shown within a week of each other in
> Paris, where very few American films had been released during the
> period of German occupation, they were labeled films noirs by French
> critic Nino Frank, who perceived thematic similarities between the
> films and the pulp fiction previously published in France in the Serie
> Noir."
>
> So the original use in contemporary writing is exactly in reference to
> the films you want to read out of the movement.
This is true. But as william points out, French critics were using the
term in an even more limited sense before Frank, to identify a group of
French films from the 1930s which almost nobody today would call noir.
The term has evolved, and didn't become a critical convention until
American critics took it up in the 1970s. I don't think it makes sense,
or is practicable, to set the meaning of the term according to
historical usages which have been superseded.
> As far as atomic age anxieties go (of course, film noir predates the
> atomic age, or at least it does for most people including, obviously,
> Nino Frank), the author (David MacGillivray) goes on to locate noir's
> origins in another set of anxieties which I think most of us will
> recognize more readily as being central to the genre:
>
> "America's entry into the war in 1941 resulted in significant changes
> in the position of women, which made their portrayal as mere girl-
> friends or molls problematic... In short, women became more active...
> Masculine energy is not a common feature of film noir, and the rise-
> and-fall narrative typical of the gangster film, a plot in which
> energy was essential, is little found in film noir... the rise-and-
> fall structure is replaced by that of the investigation, often in a
> present that is seemingly stretched to fill the running time of a
> film, leaving the central character, as it were, trapped in a
> ceaseless present in which time is forever running out, as in The Big
> Clock."
>
> It's a good essay (though I don't agree with him that von Sternberg
> was especially a major influence on noir, except perhaps the most
> rococo examples such as Lady From Shanghai).
It has often been argued that "changes in the position of women" during
WWII -- that is, their entry into the workforce in great numbers --
influenced noir and the character of the femme fatale, making women
somehow more threatening to male egos. Eddie Muller has countered this
argument pretty effectively, I think, by pointing out that the good
girls in noir are always working girls, the femme fatales always
non-working leeches who want something for nothing.
It wasn't the economic threat of women in the workforce which challenged
the male ego after WWII -- it was something deeper, a general sense of
helplessness and moral bewilderment connected with the war itself, the
greatest catastrophe in human history, and the specter of nuclear
annihilation hovering over the post-war world.
Film noir reflected a kind of cultural PTSD, affecting men
predominantly. One reason Charles Lindbergh opposed the war, among lots
of other bad reasons, was that he felt it would "so exhaust the virility
of the West that it would create a vacuum in which demons would breed."
He wasn't just talking about the men who would be killed but the men
whose reserves of energy and sacrifice would be depleted, unfitting them
for the hard work of peacetime civilization.
Such exhausted and bewildered men are the protagonists of true noir --
they exist in a world light years away from the world of Sam Spade,
Walter Neff and the detective in "Laura".
mikeg...@gmail.com
Yes, I know you make that claim, and I find your evidence interesting
but inconclusive. Nevertheless, it's beside the point to my central
point, which is that they were talking about-- in WHATEVER terms-- the
very films Lloyd thinks don't belong, and doing so at a time that was
before his atomic age anxieties could have really begun in any
meaningful sense. (I don't regard people as having woken up, the
morning of Hiroshima, with atomic age anxieties, for instance.)
mikeg...@gmail.com
>the male ego after WWII -- it was something deeper, a general sense of
>helplessness and moral bewilderment connected with the war itself, the
>greatest catastrophe in human history, and the specter of nuclear
>annihilation hovering over the post-war world.
This is where I simply think your argument is circular. To make noir
about events that really date to at least 1946 if not 1948 and after,
you have to define noir in a way that excludes its first flowering and
many of the films most closely associated with the genre.
I simply don't agree that noir is about your atomic-age anxieties
primarily, let alone exclusively, and feel that trying to orient the
genre to that-- which is at best a late-blooming subcurrent within the
genre-- is stretching it beyond what most of us recognize.
william
wrote:
>
> Yes, I know you make that claim, and I find your evidence interesting
> but inconclusive.
Then I suggest that you get a copy of Film Noir Reader 2 and read for
yourself what the French critics wrote. That's what I did. I was
trying to find some sense in all the ridiculous theories and I went to
the source material. You'll come away knowing two things: That Frank
did not consider "Laura" to be noir and that Series Noire isn't
mentioned or referred to even in the most oblique way. Don't take my
word for it. Go read it for yourself.
William
www.williamahearn.com
william
>
> This is true. But as william points out, French critics were using the
> term in an even more limited sense before Frank, to identify a group of
> French films from the 1930s which almost nobody today would call noir.
>
"Scarlet Street," "Human Desire," "The Long Night," and others. The
originals would certainly be identifiable as film noir. "Le Quai des
brumes" ("Port of Shadows") is almost a roadmap for American film
noir. A deserter on the run arrives in a strange place. Sound
familiar? What these films don't have is the so-called German
Expressionism influences, narration, flashbacks and the other
hackneyed traits of deriviative films. There is no question these
films would be seen as noir by anyone who would pay attention.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I simply don't agree that noir is about your atomic-age anxieties
> primarily, let alone exclusively, and feel that trying to orient the
> genre to that-- which is at best a late-blooming subcurrent within the
> genre-- is stretching it beyond what most of us recognize.
It wasn't just the atomic bomb which fueled atomic-era anxieties. It
was a world war whose scope and destructiveness is still hard to get
one's head around.
Much of the world was at war by 1939 -- there had already been massacres
in Asia of unprecedented size. Hitler marched into Paris in 1940 -- the
viability of England was in doubt.
All this would have had a deep impact on American culture even if we'd
never gotten into the war.
Films started getting darker in Hollywood during these years -- it would
have been bizarre if they hadn't. But this new mood of darkness
wouldn't by itself constitute a new tradition -- it could affect many
different narrative traditions.
Obviously this new mood of darkness was related to the very distinctive
new tradition which emerged at the end and after the war -- the
atomic-era crime thriller, or, as I would call it, film noir.
The atomic bomb was just an enduring objective correlative to the
dislocations and moral uncertainties which began during the war.
The darkness we find in a musical like "It's Always Fair Weather" or a
Western like "The Searchers" is part of the broader cultural trend that
created the film noir -- but they were still a musical and a Western.
--
Lloyd Fonvielle
Anyone who would pay attention AND accept a priori your definition of
film noir.
On the other hand, if you think that film noir identifies a historical
trend in American movies, one which in turn reflected specific cultural
trends in American society, as well as artistic and thematic
cross-influences among American filmmakers who all worked in Hollywood,
addressing primarily an American audience . . . then your French films
from the 1930s might be considered influences on film noir but not
themselves films noirs.
william
> Anyone who would pay attention AND accept a priori your definition of
> film noir.
No. The French made "The Postman Always Rings Twice" before the
Americans. So did the Italians. You're the one who dismisses "Double
Indemnity" as noir so maybe you wouldn't see it. Again, I think you're
on to something in your definition. I just don't think it should be
called noir.
>
> On the other hand, if you think that film noir identifies a historical
> trend in American movies, one which in turn reflected specific cultural
> trends in American society, as well as artistic and thematic
> cross-influences among American filmmakers who all worked in Hollywood,
> addressing primarily an American audience . . . then your French films
> from the 1930s might be considered influences on film noir but not
> themselves films noirs.
>
I don't agree. At all. They are not only more clearly noir, for the
most part they're better films. You limit noir to time and place and I
don't since I consider "Bladerunner" noir in the classic sense. You
also consider noir an American invention and there is no case for
that. If you want to take these films that you mention and class them
as something else, that's just jake with me. You'll have
inconsistencies but at least you won't have to explain all the happy
endings.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> Again, I think you're
> on to something in your definition. I just don't think it should be
> called noir.
I'll tell you what. You can call your set of films Poetic Realism, if I
can call my set of films film noir. The advantage of this is that most
people already call your set of films Poetic Realism and most people
already call my set of films film noir. Much less confusion all around.
By the way, I agree with you that "Blade Runner", in its concentration
on moral and existential bewilderment as a core theme, is noir --
although I prefer to call anything made after the original time period
when the tradition flourished neo-noir. "Blade Runner" is one of the
few films which falls into this category for me.
william
>
> I'll tell you what. You can call your set of films Poetic Realism, if I
> can call my set of films film noir.
That's not going to work.
The advantage of this is that most
> people already call your set of films Poetic Realism and most people
> already call my set of films film noir. Much less confusion all around.
Actually, no. It's not those French films, per se. It's how they
portrayed noir. They are noir because their souls are black. And films
are still being made in that tradition because the content of noir is
what counts. I'm not going to start calling "Double Indemnity" poetic
realism. It is noir. "Gilda" isn't. That's what the French critics
meant.
>
> By the way, I agree with you that "Blade Runner", in its concentration
> on moral and existential bewilderment as a core theme, is noir --
> although I prefer to call anything made after the original time period
> when the tradition flourished neo-noir. "Blade Runner" is one of the
> few films which falls into this category for me.
>
It's noir because he's doomed and there's nothing he can do about it.
If it's noir -- according to my theory -- it's noir. That "neo"
distinction is pointless. What's that mean? It's in color and there
aren't any flashbacks? You guys complicate things just so you can make
pointless rules. This stuff isn't hard.
William
www.williamahearn.com
Lloyd Fonvielle
> It's noir because he's doomed and there's nothing he can do about it.
So what's the difference in your theory between noir and traditional
tragedy, dating back to ancient Greece?
mikeg...@gmail.com
They weren't wearing fedora hats and talking snappy in Aeschylus.
mikeg...@gmail.com
I thought about this, for a bit, and-- there's a big difference
between seriousness and darkness. Plenty of World War II movies are
serious as hell, accepting of death and sacrifice, but they're not
dark. Nobody in Casablanca feels fucked by fate, in fact they're all
quite alive and active for their causes. The atomic age malaise you
describe is not only NOT synonymous with the seriousness of the war,
it absolutely requires the moral clarity of the war to be over,
replaced by the moral cloudiness and looming threat of the bomb.
I just don't think anybody felt the way you describe during the war,
and so if noir exists before V-J Day-- and since it was identified by
then, it must-- then what you describe can't be essential to it.
I actually think a lot of the wartime noirs were a form of escapism--
what if I didn't have to fight for the common good, but could just be
a louse falling for a blonde and murdering her husband, or a full time
drunk, or a mother worried by her obnoxious daughter? Noir was a way
of putting the cares of the Good Fight aside and reveling in
selfishness and antisocial behavior for a moment.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> I just don't think anybody felt the way you describe during the war,
> and so if noir exists before V-J Day-- and since it was identified by
> then, it must-- then what you describe can't be essential to it.
It wasn't identified by anybody until 1946 and then only in the vaguest
terms. Frank may have been writing about wartime films, but he was
writing from a post-war perspective. There was no attempt to codify
film noir as a critical category until the 1970s, and even then the
"codification" was extremely vague. I don't think that invalidates it
as a concept, however, since many distinct traditions are only
recognizable after the fact.
I can assure you that anyone who'd been in combat felt the way I
describe -- the sense of dislocation one finds in post-war noir mirrors
fairly exactly the clinical symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
As I've written before:
"The sort of trauma that engenders PTSD is identifiable by several
characteristics -- a sense of being out of control and confused, a sense
of terror, a sense of being outside the normal realm of human
experience. Is there a better description of the usual predicament of
the protagonist in a classic film noir?
"PTSD on a broad cultural and societal level is what best explains the
phenomenon of film noir, which on its surface is so mysterious. Why
should a triumphant nation, after a great collective victory in a good
war, have been gripped by that mood of existential dread which informs
so many Hollywood films of the post-war era? Why should the most
spectacular achievement of American arms have led to a crisis of
manhood, a sense of impotence, a fear of powerful women incarnated in
the morbid fantasy of the femme fatale?
"Film noir was a dream landscape where the buried costs of WWII could be
recognized, reckoned and mourned, as a prelude to psychic recovery, or
at least psychic survival. Veterans of combat often report the
difficulty of dealing with people who have not shared their experience
of it -- people who can never really know what it's like. Film noir,
far more than the WWII combat film, was one of the few arenas of
American life where the true legacies of war, its lingering moral and
psychological dislocations, could be engaged without apology or shame."
> I actually think a lot of the wartime noirs were a form of escapism--
> what if I didn't have to fight for the common good, but could just be
> a louse falling for a blonde and murdering her husband, or a full time
> drunk, or a mother worried by her obnoxious daughter? Noir was a way
> of putting the cares of the Good Fight aside and reveling in
> selfishness and antisocial behavior for a moment.
I continue to argue that there were no wartime noirs per se -- just
darker variants of existing genres. They may have been a kind of
escape, and they may have reflected a new sense of realism about the
darkness at the heart of the social order. Most likely it was a bit of
both. Classic noir was something else -- essentially a post-traumatic
phenomenon.
Lloyd Fonvielle
> On Oct 6, 5:34 pm, Lloyd Fonvielle <navigareNOS...@cox.net> wrote:
>> william wrote:
>>> It's noir because he's doomed and there's nothing he can do about it.
>> So what's the difference in your theory between noir and traditional
>> tragedy, dating back to ancient Greece?
>
> They weren't wearing fedora hats and talking snappy in Aeschylus.
william doesn't seem to require even the fedoras or the snappy dialogue
for a film to be noir -- just a hero who's doomed.