★Film Noir Classic Channel

Film noir ?

2012-01-06T20:49:00.004-05:00

is a film style and mood primarily associated with crime films that portrays its principal characters in a cynical and unsympathetic world. Film noir is primarily derived from the hard-boiled crime fiction of the Depression era (many film noirs were adapted from crime stories and novels of the period), and the moody visual style of 1930s horror films. Film noir is first clearly seen in films released in the early 1940s. "Noirs" were historically made in black and white, and had a dark, high-contrast style with roots in German Expressionist cinematography.
The term film noir (French for "black film"), first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unknown to most of the American filmmakers and actors while they were creating the classic film noirs. The canon of film noir was defined in retrospect by film historians and critics; many of the creators of film noir later professed to be unaware at the time of having created a distinctive type of film.

Neo-noir and the influence of film noir

2011-12-17T06:08:00.003-05:00

In the 1960s and 1970s, Hollywood filmmakers such as Arthur Penn (Mickey One [1964]), John Boorman (Point Blank [1967]), Sam Peckinpah (The Getaway [1972]), and Robert Altman (Thieves Like Us [1973]) created films that drew from (and commented upon) the original film noirs. In Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), based on a novel by Chandler, hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe is presented as a hapless misfit who can't help but lose the moral battle. The most acclaimed of the neo-noirs of this era was Roman Polanski's 1974 film, Chinatown, set in Los Angeles, one of the most familiar of classic noir locales. Director Martin Scorsese's black-and-white masterpiece Raging Bull (1980) tells a story of boxing and corruption that recalls in both theme and visual ambience noir dramas such as Body and Soul (1947) and The Set-Up (1949). From 1981, the popular Body Heat, directed by Lawrence Kasdan, invokes a different set of classic noir elements, this time in a humid, erotically charged Florida setting.
Over the last twenty-plus years, the films of Joel and Ethan Coen have constituted one of the most noteworthy cinematic ouevres influenced by noir, especially Blood Simple (1984) and The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), the comedy The Big Lebowski (1998)—a tribute to author Raymond Chandler and an homage to Altman's version of The Long Goodbye—and the gangster drama Miller's Crossing (1990), loosely based on Dashiell Hammett's novels The Glass Key and Red Harvest. The Man Who Wasn't There features a scene that appears to have been staged to mirror the shot from Out of the Past shown above. The Coens also include film noir elements prominently in both the script and direction of their movie Fargo (1996), considered by some a modern classic in the genre. Another leading neo-noir auteur has been Michael Mann, with the films Thief (1981), Heat (1995), and Collateral (2004), and the 1980s TV series Miami Vice and Crime Story. Like Chinatown, its more complex predecessor, Curtis Hanson's Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential (1997), based on the James Ellroy novel, is an example of a deliberately retro film noir, with a tale of corrupt cops and femme fatales seemingly lifted right from a movie of 1953, the year in which it is set. Films by director Quentin Tarantino such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) exemplify a different strain of neo-noir, in which classic themes and tropes are revisited in contemporary settings with an up-to-date visual style and sensibility. Other movies from the era readily identifiable as neo-noir (some retro, some more au courant) include director John Dahl's Red Rock West (1992) and The Last Seduction (1993); three adaptations of novels by pulp master Jim Thompson—After Dark, My Sweet (1990), The Grifters (1990), and the remake of The Getaway (1994); as well as many others, including The Hot Spot (1990), Miami Blues (1990), The Usual Suspects (1995), and A Simple Plan (1998). The films of David Lynch—particularly Blue Velvet (1986), Lost Highway (1996), and Mulholland Drive (2001)—show the influence of film noir filtered through a uniquely individualistic vision.
The cynical and stylish perspective of film noirs strongly influenced the creators of the cyberpunk genre of science fiction in the early 1980s, Blade Runner (1982) being the seminal film in the genre. A decade earlier, Soylent Green (1973) portrayed a dystopian, near-future world via an unmistakably noir detection plot featuring actors Charlton Heston (the lead in Touch of Evil) and Edward G. Robinson (star of over a half-dozen classic film noirs). Later examples of cyberpunk or similarly "sci-fi noir" films include Dark City (1997), Gattaca (1997), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), and Minority Report (2002). The animated Japanese film Ghost in the Shell (1995) and its sequel, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), may also be considered sci-fi noir.
Recently, one of the leading English-language directors in the neo-noir vein has been the British-born Christopher Nolan, with Memento (2000) and the remake of Insomnia (2002). Other recent neo-noir works include the films The Pledge (2001), Training Day (2001), and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005) and the video game series Max Payne. The most commercially successful of recent neo-noirs is Sin City (2005), directed by Robert Rodriguez in black and white with the odd bit of color. The film is based on a series of comic books, created by Frank Miller (credited as the movie's codirector), which are in turn heavily influenced by the works of Mickey Spillane and other pulp mystery authors. The TV series Veronica Mars and 2005 film Brick, in which adolescents are forced to take on adult roles when their friends or young loves face peril, have been referred to as "teen noir" or "kid noir." Veronica Mars—titular character of a show described not only as a youth-oriented but also feminist twist on film noir—is a mature, skeptical teenager who works as a P.I. for her father's business and solves felonies in her spare time.

Gun Crazy (1950)

2011-12-01T09:20:00.003-05:00

"Bart, I've never been much good--at least up till now I haven't. You aren't getting any bargain, but I've got a funny feeling that I want to be good. I don't know. Maybe I can't. But I'm gonna try. I'll try hard, Bart. I'll try."

Bart and Laurie robbing a bank in Gun Crazy.
Poor Bart. He's got a thing for guns and when he meets a woman who loves guns also, he's smitten for life. But as the carnival clown tells him: "Some guys are born smart about women and some guys are born dumb . . . You were born dumb." And thus starts his downward spiral in one of the greatest B movies ever made, Gun Crazy. Directed by Joseph H. Lewis, Gun Crazy is anything but typical film noir. It's a stylish, exhilarating rush of startling camera work and amazing characterizations. Its audacious visual style makes Gun Crazy as fresh today as it was nearly fifty years ago.

And the story is quintessentially American--a Bonnie and Clyde-like saga of two lovers who go on a robbery spree across several states. Bart and Annie Laurie Starr first meet at a carnival. He's fresh out of the Army, where he tired of the routine. Back in his hometown, he's taking in the carnival with his two old school chums, when they stop at a sideshow shooting exhibition. And Laurie struts forward onto the stage, dressed in a cowgirl outfit and firing her pistols--pow! pow! pow!--over her head. Sparks fly from the pistols and smoke curls toward the ceiling. She sees Bart in the first row, and her eyes eagerly size him up, head to toe, the way a sailor on leave might size up a woman at a bar. And she grins--a delicious, devious grin--that suggests she'd just love to eat him all up. Bart watches from the edge of his chair, rapt and already in love as she performs her shooting tricks.

Bart and Laurie meet during her shooting exhibition at a carnival.
He jumps at the chance to join her on stage in a shooting match. They prowl around one another like two dogs sniffing out each other's goods. In an interview with Danny Peary (Cult Movies, New York: Delacorte Press, 1981), director Lewis revealed his instructions to actors John Dall (Bart) and Peggy Cummins (Laurie Starr):

I told John, "Your cock's never been so hard," and I told Peggy, "You're a female dog in heat, and you want him. But don't let him have it in a hurry. Keep him waiting." That's exactly how I talked to them and I turned them loose. I didn't have to give them more directions.

And that's exactly how they played it.

For both John Dall and Peggy Cummins, these are the performances of their careers. Dall also starred in The Corn is Green (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, and Peggy Cummins would star in the excellent horror movie Curse of the Demon (directed by Jacques Tourneur); but neither actor ever came close to capturing the same degree of devotion to character. They create two people who desperately need one another, two lovers who can't hardly survive without the other. "We go together, Laurie," says Bart. "I don't know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition go together."

Bart and Laurie are always on the lam in Gun Crazy.
The scene that best illustrates the total conviction in Dall and Cummins' performances is also one of the most ballyhooed scenes in the movie: a single take episode where Bart and Laurie rob a bank. All the while, the camera never leaves the back seat of the getaway car. Many writers have commented on the audaciousness of filming the entire sequence in just one take--and it indeed does give the sequence a documentary-like realism--but it's Dall and Cummins that really make the scene work. We watch them from the back seat as they nervously drive around the city block, looking for a parking space near the bank. It's a busy day and cars are everywhere. Dall and Cummins talk to one another like an old couple--in dialogue that must have been ad-libbed it's so spontaneous. Dall sits on the edge of his seat, his eyes groping for a parking place, while Cummins twists and turns behind the wheel. And later as they speed away from the crime scene, we see Cummins as she looks back and sees no cars are following. She grins broadly, a beautiful, deadly grin that is full of delight and danger.

Dall and Cummins are perfect for each other. Dall's innately weak and troubled Bart finds a perfect mate in Cummins' thrill-seeking Laurie Starr ("I want things. A lot of things. Big things."). Of course, no good can come from their union, but while it lasts they give each other a lifetime of thrills. And while Cummins does indeed lead Bart into a life of crime, teasing him with sex and luring him with her proclamations of love, she eventually falls in love with him.

In another of the movie's great scenes, we see Bart and Laurie after they pull a major payroll heist. Their plan calls for them to split up and meet again in three or four months. They each jump in separate cars and start to drive away, but then they look back and stop. They turn around and Bart leaves his car on the side of the road. He grabs his suitcase and runs to Laurie. They embrace like long lost lovers, and we see that wonderful, beautiful, obsessive smile of Laurie again. Pure ecstasy. It's not just love in her eyes. It's the thrill of totally possessing Bart. That's what really gets her off. To totally possess the poor sap. For Laurie, that feeling is exhilarating. Hell, it's even better than sex. And maybe that's why she loves him--because here's one poor sap that'll do whatever she wants and yet still be totally devoted to her. He might complain about their life of crime, that they can never ask anyone for help ever again, they're totally on their own, but that's part of Laurie's plan. To isolate themselves in their own world, which thrives on their need for each other in order to survive. Yes, she truly loves the guy. But it's a twisted, perverse brand of love, albeit it's all she can manage. Initially she just wants Bart for sex. And initially she probably plans to just use and discard him, the same way she used and discarded the carnival manager. (In an early scene, we see Laurie getting gussied up for a night out with Bart, while the carnival manager sits on her sofa and watches, powerless to stop her.) But eventually she comes to depend on Bart's presence and then she loves him.

For director Lewis, Gun Crazy remains a testament to his brilliant use of the camera (cinematography by Russell Harlan). Lewis was never satisfied with just filming two characters talking. His camera dips low in one take and then soars high in the next, constantly searching for unexpected and enlightening perspectives. In one scene, we see the young Bart as his boyhood friends are in the hills, when they spot a mountain lion. They urge Bart to shoot the cat so they can claim the bounty. But Bart isn't a killer and he won't fire. Another boy grabs the gun away from him. In the foreground, we see Bart's fist clench and tighten as the other boy, visible in the background, jerks the trigger and sends shots skittering across the rocks. Lewis uses the whole frame to constantly give us information about the characters and the situations. In Gun Crazy, he found the perfect vehicle for his visual style, as the stylish, kinetic camerawork captures the destructive, crazed amour of the story.

Gun Crazy is one of the great American movies, a giddily romantic story of two people who thrive off of each other and only completely come to life when in each other's presence. Some people might call Citizen Kane the great American movie. I might just opt for Gun Crazy instead.