film noir

So is Bob Le Flambeur for more good frenchy stuff.

Criss Cross

Much as I love Out of The Past and much as everybody always calls it the noir of noirs, to me it seems to have a more langorous, elegiac pacing than most noirs - it's like the Vertigo to their Notorious.

What about something like Cagney in White Heat- I guess that's usually classified more as gangster pic than a noir, but there's a little bit of a grey area.

Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, right?)

Fury is way too early for noir.

It's definitely proto-noir though.

The Big Combo

Even better get Requiem for a Heavyweight!

Well most of those films are pretty essential too!

it also reminds me to mention scarlet street, where edward g. robinson plays a character named chris cross.

Le Doulos
Le Samourai

After you've tried the classics, try some Neo-Noir:

Chinatown
The Long Goodbye
Mean Streets
Night Moves
Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia
Diva

"the impossibility of true noir in our modern world, which automatically means the world of the 1930s and 1940s too."

This makes no sense.

Um, no. The look of a film noir is crucial, yes, but theme and tone are just as important.
http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

Also: narrative.
http://www.moderntimes.com/palace/inv_noir.htm

This makes no sense.

I have always read "The Long Goodbye" like this:
1. This is a Raymond Chandler novel set in 1970s California.
2. It couldn't really be taken seriously now, because of sexual liberation and changes in the culture; this story could never happen now.
3. But noir never really "happened", it was a film movement based on books and Geman Expressionist films to begin with.
4. Therefore, the whole idea of people buying into that aesthetic is bullshit. There was never any code, there were never hardboiled detectives serving as knights-errant in the degraded landscape of America.
5. Which is why, if Terry Lennox really treated Marlowe the way he does in Chandler's original novel, Marlowe TOTALLY would have shot him to death. In a heartbeat.

"Which is why, if Terry Lennox really treated Marlowe the way he does in Chandler's original novel, Marlowe TOTALLY would have shot him to death. In a heartbeat."

Nothing in any of the Marlowe novels indicate to me that he would have done that.

But they are both fictional characters. They don't exist. There's a whole code and mythology there, but it's not like we are actually examining the actions of real people. In fact, I'm always surprised that the novel was written in 1953, which was really late for Chandler, Marlowe, and this genre in general.

I think what Altman is saying in the movie (and what I was trying to say above) is that if there was a REAL Terry Lennox and he REALLY treated a REAL Marlowe like that, and it was a film 1973 instead of a film 1953, there would be more than just a bitch session and a disgusted sigh.

Alex I'm not trying to be an asshole here

X-Post: For what it's worth, I figured Marlowe did what he did in the movie as a way of punishing Lennox for everything he was directly and indirectly responsible for that had happened. Lennox would have gotten off scot-free.

Nightmare Alley and Detour - both about as uber-classic as it gets

Blood On The Moon - an odd one because it's a noir western, but it works for two reasons: 1. Robert Mitchum. 2. Robert Wise directs.

Marlowe punishes him in the book by not being his friend basically.

"I think what Altman is saying in the movie (and what I was trying to say above) is that if there was a REAL Terry Lennox and he REALLY treated a REAL Marlowe like that, and it was a film 1973 instead of a film 1953, there would be more than just a bitch session and a disgusted sigh."

And that's one of the reasons why the film is a failure, because I think that Altman is WRONG.

"Sure, in the novel of The Long Goodbye, Marlowe doesn't shoot Lennox at all, just bitches him out. To that extent, you're right."

Also I could be wrong here, but I don't think Marlowe ever shoots ANYONE in any of the novels!

"In fact, I'm always surprised that the novel was written in 1953, which was really late for Chandler, Marlowe, and this genre in general."

It was the second to last Marlowe novel and it was far more ambitious in scope and (dare I say it) less noir-ish than his previous ones.

"That's another thing that sets Out Of The Past apart - it's low on shadows!"

But high on darkness!

Also I have that book you mention and I have read it.

"Search: DOA (original)
Destroy: DOA (remake)"

You can destroy the remake of Out of the Past, Against All Odds while you are at it hah.

And The Long Goodbye (the movie) is about as far from most noir in theme and tone as can be!

But I understand your reservations about it all.

I recall the summit meeting with Marty Augustine being kinda shadowy...

Among Gould's most essential dialogue is "This is where I say ... then you say..."

Anyone seen the trailer for the Sundance noir where Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the dick -- in HIGH SCHOOL?

The greatest of noir heroes in a novel about the greatest of noir heroes crumbling and becoming disillusioned and irrelevant by the best noir writer (this is debateable btw) who was fumbling at the time with his own direction/pretensions. And anyway whatever the source material, Altman completely pulled it away from that anyway.

"It's still a story about a man pitted against society, out of touch with the vulgarity of his time, trying to do the right thing in an ugly world, which is one of the major noir themes."

But I see only a little of the first (certainly Gould's Marlowe is no more pitted against it than say any of the counter-culture figures of the moment), none of the second (he seems totally of and comfortable with his time), and gah-wha? I guess but on the final one that's pretty much the theme of like "life" ya know and not real exclusive to noir

But I do have a question: who's a better noir writer? James Cain is the only other real candidate, right? And I love Cain, so if that's yr choice I can get behind that.

The Driver

White Heat is on TCM tonight in teh wee hours.

Robert Mitchum C/D, S/D

I haven't seen The Big Sleep for some reason, but can anyone tell me if my favorite line made it into the movie? -
"Mr. Cobb was my escort," she said. "Such a nice escort, Mr. Cobb. So attentive. You should see him sober. I should see him sober. Somebody should him sober. I mean, just for the record. So it could become a part of history, that brief flashing moment, soon buried in time, but never forgotten--when Larry Cobb was sober."

and The Empire Strikes Back. (and she was a she)

Only Chandler book I've read is The Big Sleep; vastly prefer the film. Without the lighting and the actors blowing smoke in each others' face, on the page so much hardboiled fiction comes across as macho bullshit.

Scarlet Street is a remake of Renoir's 1931 La Chienne, which obv has the same plot, but in style is a sort of absurdist tragicomedy.

i'm borrowing the lady in the lake from the library to remind myself if I feel like championing it or not

anyway, in high school, when my friend kip and i used to hang out at his brother's condo and watch movies all night, dark victory came on; kip was bored and went to sleep, but i stayed up and watched the whole thing, because it was AWESOME

I just read on ILM that the picture in the newspaper of Lauren Bacall's dad is of the director, Delmer Daves.

I recently saw John Boorman's Point Blank. I'm assuming maybe it doesn't exactly fit into the "noir" category, maybe neo-noir, "hollywood rennaissance"? I love how lots of people die in it and the main character's motivation is violence and revenge, but nobody gets killed by him. Such a fantastic movie with some very funny/brutal parts.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol17/issue09/screens.windsor.3.gif

"I bet your the kind of man that does push-ups every morning just to keep his belly hard."
"..You got something against good health?"

Just saw something about Richard Fleischer by Dave Kehr in the Times- a few films showing at the Walter Reade and Film Comment in the coming weeks.

Oh man just saw Night and the City starring Richard Widmark. One of the bleakest noir films I've ever seen. Widmark is amazing in it.

Richard Fleischer thing starts on Friday at FF. It's in color- in Cinemascope!

Wow this 1948 UK film Daughter of Darkness was just given dvd reissue by Redemption films. It's both British noir and femme fatale wrapped in one with plenty of chiaroscuro and gothic vibe. Definitely recommended.

http://www.thelmagazine.com/images/blogimages/2009/09/30/1254335093-daughterofdarkness.jpg

I think I'm noir illiterate. Watching the big sleep - drunk, granted - and I can't make a lick of sense out of it.

iirc an actor approached hawks before filming the scene for his death. "i know my lines, howard," he said, "but who kills me?" and hawks thinks for a second and says "well hell, i'm not sure. hang on." so he rings faulkner, who wrote the screenplay, and he asks him "hey bill, who kills this guy?" and faulkner says "damn howard, I'm not sure. hang on." and he telegrams chandler "who killed butler STOP hawks wants to know STOP"

next day hawks gets a telegram: "hell if i know--ray"

iyigd

why chandler had to telegram hawks when they were in the same city is beyond me, but i fuckin love that story

I thought Chandler's line was actually "who cares?" which I think is funnier.

Isn't there some companion story of Hawks saying something to the effect that making that movie taught him that the plot didn't really have to make sense?

the studio thought the original was boring and made him do reshoots. the result capitalized on the bogart-bacall relationship but made less sense.

hawks continued to make films whose scripts were well-crafted by conventional standards.

later people began to interview this great maestro, this incomparable innovator of cinematic form, and he made up some stories that made him sound cool but don't really accord with the facts.

I'll buy that.

the original cut is on the US DVD and it gives an explanation for the chauffeur's death.

Anyone seen Nightmare Alley? I have seen most of the classics save, Detour and this. Think I like Kiss Me Deadly or Gun Crazy best.

Spent last week at the Noir City festival - always tremendous, especially with Eddie Muller's commentary.

nightmare alley is good, tyrone power trying to ditch the pretty boy rep

AFI Silver has just announced its 2019 Noir City DC lineup: https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/EventsAndExperiences/EventDetails/0000000010

Not sure yet which screenings I plan to attend, but a couple of them will be free co-presentations with the National Gallery of Art. And last year I liked Muller's intro to both versions of The Killers.