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Skwirl posted:Are there any good Noir films starring women? There's a lot of great noir films with great female characters, but they're usually a femme fatale or a secretary or that one chick who works in the bookstore in The Big Sleep. Gaslight if you consider that noir. They Live By Night if you want something a bit more romantic. If neo-noirs also count, then Blood Simple and Fargo of course. On a sidenote, Orson Welles originally wanted Agnes Moorehead to play the detective role in The Stranger because he liked the idea of a clever spinster chasing Nazis. In the end, Edward G. Robinson took over the role though.
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Nov 3, 2018 12:01
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In a Lonely Place seems like the obvious companion piece, given that director Curtis Hanson cited it as one of his main inspirations.
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Nov 4, 2018 00:31
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Adlai Stevenson posted:Saw Touch of Evil for the first time last night. Out of curiosity, which cut did you end up watching?
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Nov 4, 2018 20:11
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Franchescanado posted:Is Kurotokage / Black Lizard (1962) considered a noir or neo-noir? Noir is a tricky genre to talk about, since the term was applied retroactively to a number of different films that just happened to share similarities and because it's as much about a particular visual style as it is about thematic and narrative elements. That being said, the more-or-less agreed-upon cut-off point for the classic noir period is Touch of Evil in 1958, with everything coming afterwards being some form of neo-noir. However, I don't think either film you mentioned is generally talked about as noir, classic or neo. Black Lizard is a campy spy story in the vein of something like Danger: Diabolik, and Cure is psychological horror. Adlai Stevenson posted:The one on Netflix. It has an opening card that talks about being formed as best as it can be according to Welles' memo so I think that means it's the 1998 release Yeah, that's the 1998 cut. There's technically four versions of Touch of Evil available right now, as both the original release and the 1998 cut can be seen in either 4:3 or 16:9. Samuel Clemens fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Nov 4, 2018 |
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Nov 4, 2018 22:51
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Oh, sweet, the preview cut still exists? For some reason I thought that was taken out of circulation a few years ago.
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Nov 4, 2018 23:41
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You had me at Robert Mitchum and Claude Rains appearing in the same film. Also, I just realised that 1950 was an insanely good year for noir. The Asphalt Jungle, Gun Crazy, In a Lonely Place, Sunset Boulevard, and The Breaking Point all came out during that time. I wonder if any year can top that. Samuel Clemens fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 14:16
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Now that I have more free time, I figured I'd use this opportunity to watch all the films on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? top 1000 which I haven't seen yet and which are also part of their 1000 Noir Films project. By sheer coincidence, it turned out be exactly thirty titles, which should be doable until the end of November. The full list in case anyone was curious (and looking for some ideas themselves): quote:Ace in the Hole Not sure how many of those are widely considered noirs (the TSPDT guy seems to use a pretty loose definition), but then, that's part of the fun of exploring. UNRULY_HOUSEGUEST posted:It also gave us Night and the City, which I think is my very favourite of an absurdly stacked year. I still gotta get on that one. Everyone who's seen it raves about it.
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Nov 12, 2018 16:08
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Those are just the ones I haven't seen. There are a lot more noirs on the list which I excluded because I already watched them at an earlier point. And yeah, the 1000 Noir Films list seems to include just about anything that somewhat resembles classic noir in style or plot. It can get a bit silly, but it might also provide a welcome change of pace every now and again.
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Nov 12, 2018 21:50
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Ace in the Hole Has all the qualities I've come to associate with Billy Wilder: stark black-and-white photography, acerbic, razor-sharp wit, and characters so cynical the only reason they haven't murdered each other yet is because they deem it more profitable to leave the others alive. Ace in the Hole is often described as a media satire, and it does take plenty of shots at crooked reporters, but it seems even more vitriolic towards the general public who treat the tragedy of a man like a (literal) carnival. It's not quite as unrelentingly bleak as Sunset Boulevard or Double Indemnity, since it does suggest a path of redemption for our protagonist: If only we could learn to see the Leos of this world as people rather than headlines, we'd be able to overcome the media circus. Of course, we didn't, so we got Nightcrawler instead. Favourite aspect: This may very well be the coolest way to light a match ever.  Least favourite aspect: Not enough banter between Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling. In fact, the whole film should have just been them going at each other. Alphaville I feel the same way about Godard as I do about Tarantino: a talented director with an appealing and unique visual style marred by his overwrought dialogue. Alphaville is pretty good whenever no one speaks and the minimalistic depiction of urban Paris at night does all the talking. However, the philosophical ramblings concerning the question of emotions vs logic left me cold. Still, there are a few neat touches (the Bible being replaced by a dictionary for example), and Godard is at least self-aware enough to not take the whole thing too seriously. Favourite aspect: The execution scene is perfectly grotesque, striking a good mix between funny and horrifying. Least favourite aspect: Alpha 60's grating voice. How did this computer ever manage to convince people to put it in charge when it sounds so unappealing? Bob le flambeur Due to my poor French skills, I assumed this would be the story of an arsonist called Bob. Turns out that 'flambeur' actually means 'gambler'. Initial disappointment aside (seriously, there must be some noir featuring a protagonist with a proclivity for starting fires), this doesn't make for a very good thriller since there's no clear goal until halfway through and every narrative turn is telegraphed way in advance, but it does work as an interesting character study. Bob is about as affable as criminals come, liked by gangsters and the police alike. The pleasant mask hides a nasty dark side though, one which only surfaces when he's gambling or scheming. The gambling scenes themselves are great, particularly the final one, highlighting the rush you feel whenever a winning streak comes along and the difficulty of getting out before it's too late. Favourite aspect: Guy Decomble giving an excellent performance as inspector torn between his admiration for Bob and his duty as an officer of the law. Least favourite aspect: This is pretty much male chauvinism: the movie. The women primarily exist as eye candy or to drive the plot along and Bob threatens to spank the female lead twice and actually slaps her once. Shame because Anne had the potential to be an interesting character if the film had fleshed her out a bit more. Branded to Kill This is a noir in the same way that El Topo counts as a western. The studio executives supposedly fired Suzuki after they saw the final cut, deeming it incomprehensible, which is clearly nonsense. Even without the exposition common to the genre it's not that hard to follow the overall narrative of a disgraced assassin having to fight his former organisation. However, the executives were right insofar as that Suzuki clearly doesn't care too much for this plot, treating it as a mere vehicle for examining existentialist themes in style. And, my God, what style. This film just oozes cool in every frame, from the opening action scenes all the way to the final confrontation. It's the work of someone so confident in his skills as a director that he liberally breaks every cinematic convention without regard for the audience, resulting in one of the most unique gangster films I've seen. Favourite aspect: Hard to narrow it down to one, but the assassination by drainpipe is definitely an all-timer. Least favourite aspect: The fact that it didn't spawn a million sequels.
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Nov 17, 2018 10:05
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Casque d'or Reminded me strongly of Children of Paradise, another French film about the life of petty criminals in the Parisian underworld during the 19th century. Casque d'or lacks the narrative complexity of Carné's outing but is no less emotionally devastating. Marie and the outsider Mandes fall in love, much to the chagrin of Marie's lover Raymond and gang boss Léca. What follows is both one of the most erotically charged romance stories in cinema and an honest look at the brutality of a society in which power grows out of the barrel of a gun (or the edge of a knife). Even those who don't care too much for romance or period pieces should take a look, if only for the extremely bleak ending. Favourite aspect: Every close-up of Simone Signoret's face is a small slice of Heaven. Least favourite aspect: I just can't take Serge Reggiani seriously with that moustache. La chienne The American noir primarily seems to draw from two cinematic wells: German Expressionism with its love for the interplay between shadows and light, and French poetic realism with its unadorned look at the inner lives of sometimes very unpleasant people. La chienne is one of the earliest examples of the latter, showing us a love triangle whose angles are driven to reprehensible deeds through a mixture of love and greed. Ironically, the titular 'female dog' ('bitch' gives off the wrong connotations, since I don't believe the French actually use it as a derogatory term for women) comes across as the most sympathetic of the lot by the end, primarily because she is far more entrapped in her powerless situation than the two men. Which is not to say that their ultimate fate is a simple case of just desserts. As usual with Renoir, fate and society are far crueller than any individual could ever hope to be. Favourite aspect: The opening not only sets the tone for the rest of the film, but also works as a perfect summation of noir as a genre. Least favourite aspect: The subplot involving the second husband contributes little to the overall narrative and primarily seems to exist for a bit of additional (and not very funny) comedy. Dirty Harry I believe Pauline Kael called this the first facist American film. Whether the term truly applies is debatable, but there's no denying that Dirty Harry wears its conservative pro-police brutality and pro-vigilante justice agenda on its sleeve: The film opens with a dedication to all the members of the San Francisco police force who fell in the line of duty, we're introduced to the wife of Harry's partner purely so she can give a speech about the perils of police work, and the story goes out of its way to provide a reason why Scorpio can't be defeated through the legal system. What's scary is how well this works. I found myself laughing at Harry's sardonic quips and shaking my metaphorical fist at the brutal acts of his adversary. When the finale comes around, you really want to see that smug psycho destroyed. It's a film that manages to engage you on a very visceral level, and I think that's why it holds up as a shining (and dangerous) example of conservative filmmaking. Favourite aspect: I do like the few touches indicating that Harry is not the idealistic hero he'd like to be. He nearly gets beat up by an angry mob for misjudging a situation, ruins his first chance of bringing in Scorpio by spying on a naked woman, and bungles the final arrest, forcing the departement to let Scorpio go free. It's an interesting contrast to the badass reputation he's managed to earn in popular culture, and I wish the film had done more with it. Least favourite aspect: The nighttime photography is horrendously dark at times, leading you to wonder what's going on in certain scenes. That seems to be a common issue with action films from that period though. Get Carter Despite being another example of vigilante justice, I found Get Carter a lot less objectionable than Dirty Harry. Perhaps because it never suggests that Carter's destructive tendencies serve a greater good, his violent rampage across Newcastle leaving the bodies of innocent and guilty people alike in his wake. This is the logical endpoint of the hard-boiled noir archetype you see in The Big Heat or Kiss Me Deadly: A disturbingly violent protagonist who, after being personally wronged, lashes out at anyone in the vicinity with little regard for casualties. It's also easy to see how this served as a blueprint for a lot of subsequent thrillers with its bleak portrayal of a decaying urban landscape and its minimalist score accentuating key moments. Favourite aspect: Michael Caine deserves all the acclaim he received for this role. He's sensational as Carter, alternatively sneering, brutal, and salacious. This is a guy who you believe would walk naked in the streets with a shotgun in hand, because he's just that determined. Least favourite aspect: The first act is very meandering, introducing lots of characters without fleshing them out and showing a haphazard investigation that's driven more by coincidence than logical thought. It all sort of coalesces by the end, but not as much as you'd hope.
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Nov 19, 2018 15:30
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Gilda Only the second-best 1946 noir about a love triangle where one of the angles has close ties to the Nazis, but almost certainly the most captivating story about the machinations of a tungsten cartel ever told. I was surprised to read that this is Charles Vidor's only notable work, because if nothing else, he shows himself to be a skilled technician here, employing smooth camera movements and beautiful framing. The story centres around Glenn Ford's character, but it's quite clear why they named it after his love interest Gilda. She dominates every on-screen moment, and I spent most of the scenes focusing on someone else waiting for her to show up again. Rita Hayworth's performance is so captivating that the film essentially pauses the story three times just to offer her an opportunity to show off her singing skills. The actual plot derails rather badly after the plane scene, culminating in a weak finale that almost comically deflates all the tension which has been built up to that point. The journey there is undeniably fascinating though. Le jour se lève Near the end, one of the characters remarks, "I'm unhappy" to which another responds, "Who cares?". That sums up the general attitude presented here pretty well. Opening with a bystander remarking that blind people are better off dead and closing on police violence, a sense of cruelty and indifference towards the well-being of others permeates nearly every scene of Carné's film, the harshness of its world present on both an individual and societal (working people to death, responding to a criminal with lethal force) level. Like fellow director Renoir, Carné has no interest in judging his characters. He simply observes their violent struggle for happiness with resigned pity. Also, no one can brood like Jean Gabin. The Killing Kubrick's talent for captivating images seems to have been present from the very beginning (not too surprising given he started out as a photographer I suppose), but he lacks the confidence in his storytelling capabilities which would come to define his later works. The first half of this heist thriller is ridiculously exposition-heavy, primarily featuring characters standing around and explaining their plans and motivations to each other. There's even a voice-over just to make sure we don't miss anything important. I can understand the desire to add realism to the proceedings by focusing on details, but given how simple the robbery turns out to be in the end, a lot of it seems superfluous. Correspondingly, most of the memorable moments occur near the end, the unconventionally edited shootout and the airstrip scene being particular standouts. Not a dud exactly, but certainly the weakest Kubrick I've seen so far. Mildred Pierce This must have been Douglas Sirk's favourite film. Seriously, if it were in Technicolor and didn't have the police investigation as bookends, it could easily pass for one of his melodramas. You have a strong, independent woman juggling her career and private life, commentary on wealth and class, and intergenerational conflicts. The last aspect sticks out most prominently due to Veda Pierce being one of the least likeable characters ever put on screen. Every line she utters oozes with condescension towards those she deems inferior: servants, workers, even her own mother who enables her lavish lifestyle. The film strongly pushes the notion that parents shouldn't spoil their children, but given how toxic Mildred's acquaintances are in general, maybe the real problem was the social environment. Frankly, I'm surprised the whole thing ended in only one murder. DeimosRising posted:Have you seen Get Carter quasi remake I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead? Nope. Worth checking out?
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Nov 25, 2018 15:28
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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie As usual, Cassavetes is mainly interested in faces. Angry and worried faces in this case, since it is a noir after all, albeit one where the crime elements take a backseat to the character study. There's something fascinating and kind of endearing about Cosmo Vittelli, a man who would go to any lengths to protect his shabby nightclub. His devotion to the joint is so great that he takes time during an assassination mission to phone the bartender and ask how the performances are going. At the beginning, I wondered why he felt so strongly about a place that neither seems very profitable nor much to be proud of, but by the end I started to buy into his vision. In a world run by greedy opportunists, his club is perhaps the one real and honest thing he can latch onto. It really feels like a story about the power of making art more than anything. lovely art perhaps, but art nonetheless. The Lady from Shanghai It took me a while to get used to Orson Welles' putting on an Irish accent. I have no idea how accurate it is, and to be honest, I don't think it really matters. Welles' voice had such a unique cadence that any minor alteration feels immediately off-putting, like coming home to your apartment and finding all the furniture slightly rearranged. About halfway through his performance started to feel natural, which was good, because that's when the plot goes off the rails. What starts out as straightforward noir setup (forbidden love, jealous husband) becomes something entirely different, halfway between social satire and surrealist fever dream. I don't want to spoil the ending for those of you fortunate enough never to have heard of it, but it really deserves all the praise it has received over the years. A great finale that feels decades ahead of its time. The Long Goodbye What I like most about The Long Goodbye is that it works as both a straightforward neo-noir and a parody of the genre. Elliot Gould's Marlowe feels like the polar opposite of Bogart's. Badly dressed (he somehow always manages to look like he just got out of bed), constantly mumbling (mostly about cat food), a complete failure with the ladies, and incapable of delivering a witty one-liner. Yet, there's also something refreshingly archaic about his beliefs and values, a 40s relict trapped in the 70s. He seems to be the only character not preoccupied with either money or mindless hedonism, arguing for integrity and justice instead. That his quest his doomed to failure makes the small triumph at the end all the more satisfying. No Country for Old Men I'm increasingly convinced that calling a film one of the all-time greats is one of the worst things you can do to its reputation, because it establishes a promise that's almost impossible to fulfill. So when I finally sat down and watched No Country for Old Men, frequently touted as one of the best works of the 21st century, I was a bit let down. Not disappointed, because it is a genuinely great film, in terms of performances an cinematography without a single misstep, just not as impressed as I expected to be. I feel like the Coen brothers managed to touch on the same themes more concisely in their first film, Blood Simple. Perhaps that'll change when I rewatch it at a later date without the impossibly high expectations in the back of my head. My favourite part was definitely Javier Bardem's amoral murder spree across the country, coming across like a more polished version of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
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Nov 26, 2018 20:42
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Odd Man Out The opening disclaimer indicates how controversial a subject matter this must have been for a British film in 1947. Consequently, the screenplay mostly eschews real-life parallels. The IRA is never mentioned by name (only ever referred to as 'the organisation'), and we don't hear much about the political and religious background informing the conflict. With a few minor adjustments, this could have easily worked as a story about a gang of robbers. The lack of commitment becomes especially apparent in the second half, where the film obviously tries to say something about the nature of violence and redemption; ideas that fall flat because we can't link them to anything concrete. Was Johnny wrong to act the way he did? Hard to say when we don't even know why he did it. What works much better is the cinematography. Reed is perhaps the most overtly expressionistic of all noir directors, and while Odd Man Out isn't quite as dreamlike as his later masterpiece The Third Man, there are plenty of bold stylistic choices even outside of the occasional hallucinatory sequence. Showing the slow progression from sunny day to snowy night as a means of mirroring the character's journey is a brilliant touch as well. Pépé le Moko I'm torn on this one. One the one hand, I do like that they didn't try to sanitise Pépé too much. He's not the archetypical gentleman thief you'd expect from this kind of story. While he can be charming and generous if he wants to, he's also pretty quick to drop that facade and show a much more brutal side if things don't go his way. On the other hand, I feel like this approach also limits the film's appeal. This kind of story works best when you either root for the outlaw or are amused by the proceedings. It's hard to sympathise with Pépé, and there's honestly not much going on besides watching him flirt and shout. Most of the running time involves the polices' inept schemes to capture Pépé, schemes we know are doomed to fail, because it's established very early on that the inspector will be the one to finally make the arrest. The real star in the film is the Casbah itself, which manages to look both mysteriously alluring and uncomfortably cramped. Pickup on South Street Pretty drat nasty for 1953, perhaps even more so than the better-known The Big Heat. The men are brutal at best and outright murderers at worst, and the few kind characters suffer constant abuse. I'm actually surprised the Hays code didn't object to the ending in which our anti-heroic pickpocket walks off scot-free. Perhaps the film's almost comically rabid anti-communism sentiment allowed it to get away with a few more questionable elements than the average noir. Incidentally, aside from being a great crime film, this is also an fascinating time capsule of an era where the very mention of 'reds' drives even the most hardened criminals into a patriotic frenzy. They may all be scum, but they're American scum. Port of Shadows Stop me if you've heard this one before: Jean Gabin plays a brooding loner whose tough exterior hides a sensitive soul. He falls in love with a woman who reawakens his gentler side, but fate conspires against them and the whole affair ends tragically. I like the guy as much as anyone does, but watching him embody the same basic character in three films in a row does get tiring. At least he gets to square off against Michel Simon this time, who plays a more sinister take on his role in La chienne. On top of that, Michèle Morgan is lovely and so are the images of Le Havre trapped in what seems to be eternal fog. DeimosRising posted:Say what now "I even lost my cat," is a pretty good one, I'll give him that.
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Nov 30, 2018 23:43
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Electronico6 posted:Speaking of which, Kiss Me Deadly is NOT in the Criterion Channel at the moment, even though it's part of the collection. Boo this channel! Boo!
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Apr 11, 2019 16:09
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It certainly established a lot of the visual language that later noirs would employ. Same with von Sternberg's Underworld and some of the poetic realist films from the 30s.
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Nov 1, 2019 23:48
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How many noirs with a snowy setting are there anyway? Aside from the two Tycho mentioned, I can only think of Odd Man Out.
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Aug 9, 2021 17:06
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Thanks for all the snow recommendations. Those'll come in handy once winter starts.
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Aug 10, 2021 16:21
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It was definitely a Cahiers favourite. When the writers of Bonnie and Clyde asked Truffaut to direct their screenplay, he declined but organised a screening of Gun Crazy for them to serve as inspiration (a screening Godard also attended).
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Aug 11, 2021 07:41
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Bob le flambeur is definitely not a film where I'd expect people to foresee the ending. Speaking of New Wave (neo-)noir, there's also Godard's Made in U.S.A., aka "Disney with blood", starring Anna Karina as private dick.
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Aug 13, 2021 06:19
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