the instant expert: film noir - the national

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  • 7/28/2019 The Instant Expert: Film Noir - The National

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    Page ttp://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/the-instant-expert-film-noir

    The instant expert: film noir

    THE BASICS Film noir ("black film" in French) is the term for a genre of mainly Amer

    can films of the 1940s and the 1950s that stylishly explore the dark underside of life. I

    a world of tough guys and doomed heroes, of double-crossing dames and deadpan di

    logue, of light and shadow and cigarette smoke, of high heels clicking along on wpavements, of hard-boiled private eyes in trench coats and fedoras. Get the idea, swee

    heart?

    THE FRENCH INFLUENCE They later inexplicably idolised the buffoonish America

    comic actor Jerry Lewis, but French critics should be applauded for applying the ter

    film noir to Hollywood films in the 1940s, though it wasn't until the 1970s that it becam

    widely used. Most noir titles are so classified in retrospect; at the time they were l

    belled melodramas.

    A SEMINAL ANALYSIS In a 1946 essay, The Crime Adventure Story: A New Kind

    Detective Film, the French critic Nino Frank wrote of dark new films that told "of certa

    disagreeable realities that do in truth exist". In short, the French, suddenly viewing Ho

    lywood films that had been unavailable during the Second World War, understandab

    embraced stories about world-weary individuals in a hostile universe.

    SOME COMMONALITIES If a Hollywood film from roughly 1940 through to 1958 hlow-key lighting, stark contrasts, dramatic patterning, skewed camera angles, a conv

    luted story, flashbacks, voice-over narration, murder, greed, jealousy and an alienate

    protagonist - well, sister, it's film noir.

    SOME TITLESCriss Cross, Force of Evil, Touch of Evil, The Naked City, The Asphalt Jung

    Gun Crazy, They Live by Night, The Lost Weekend, The Big Clock, The Big Heat, The Big Slee

    The Killers, Kiss of Death, This Gun for Hire, The Woman in the Window and so many mo

    similarly evocative titles - it ain't Busby Berkeley, baby, it's film noir.

    SOME LEADING MEN Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, John Garfiel

    Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster, Victor Mature, Robert Mitchum, Tyrone Power - ma

    culine but vulnerable, laconic but passionate, dangerous but lovable, these tough guy

    would put some lead in your guts and then dance with the devil.

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    SOME LEADING LADIES Lauren Bacall, Joan Crawford, Ava Gardner, Gloria Gr

    hame, Jane Greer, Rita Hayworth, Ida Lupino, Ann Savage (perfect name), Barbara Sta

    wyck, Lana Turner - with curvy figures, sultry voices, eroticism and mystery, the

    broads would cut out your heart, eat it for breakfast and not smudge their make-up.

    SOME PROMINENT CHARACTER ACTORS If Elisha Cook Jr or Peter Lorre is in it's likely to be film noir. If they're both in it, as in The Maltese Falcon, there's no doub

    doll face.

    SOME LITERARY SOURCES James M Cain, Raymond Chandler - the pulp writer

    formula of intricate schemes, wisecracks, private dicks, crooked cops and fake blond

    with great gams translated perfectly to the screen.

    OTHER NOIR Proto-noir, neo-noir, science fiction noir, stoner noir, psycho noir, horr

    noir, superhero noir, noir westerns, noir comedies - there's seemingly a sub-genre f

    every kind of film fan. Knock yourself out, angel puss.

    The best noir

    There are scores, perhaps hundreds of lists of film noir classics. One that seems to be i

    cluded in everyone's Top 10 is Double Indemnity (1944). Here's why it's so good:

    THE DIRECTOR Billy Wilder shows his legendary genius. The film's keen pacing, su

    tle humour and crackling drama and tension are sublime.

    THE SCREENWRITERS Wilder and Raymond Chandler make magic with a grippin

    plot and smart, witty dialogue.

    THE SOURCE MATERIAL The writers, shrewdly, were faithful to the brilliant Jam

    M Cain's hard-boiled novel.

    THE LEADING MAN Fred MacMurray, cast against type, excels as the insurance age

    with a larcenous heart who is seduced by a sultry housewife into killing her husban

    and making it look like suicide.

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    THE FEMME FATALE Barbara Stanwyck is icy, evil and irresistibly alluring.

    THE TENACIOUS INVESTIGATOR Edward G Robinson is perfectly gruff, canny an

    nobody's fool.

    AND ALSO A jangling score by Miklos Rozsa, gritty cinematography by John Seit

    costumes by Edith Head and seedy real-life Hollywood locales enhance the appeal.