LoC #129 - Film Noir - rules and regulations

[George-2.0]

Noir, the genre nobody knew they were making (at first), was developed during and after WWII - and was all about mood, style, tone.

When people think of noir they often think of detectives, though in truth noir can be about writers, painters, Hollywood folk, insurance agents, war vets, reporters, and any other regular Joe.

Being a mystery movie doesn't automatically make it noir. Noir is not Scooby-Doo, or the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew or the Naked Gun. Sherlock Holmes isn't noir, neither is Agatha Christie.

But while Hercule Perot isn't noir, Phillip Marlowe is. So it can be about cracking a case if done a certain way.

This is the look of noir...


What are the characteristics of noir? Cynical, disillusioned male characters - the femme fatale - moral ambiguity, some kind of crime is involved - it traditionally has an urban setting - the look is very important to noir, which drew from German expressionism: There's contrasting, chiaroscuro lighting. Heavy, deep shadows, stark angles - also language is smart, snappy, and hard.

What is acceptable:
Noir began either in 1940, with the Stranger on the Third Floor, or 1941 with I Wake Up Screaming or the Maltese Falcon, it reached a peak with a fantastic year in 1944 and went on strong until the mid-50s, eventually losing steam by the late 50s. That's you're classic era - pull from that era and your Jake.

Pre-noir films are fine if you really feel they fit, they did set the table even if they don't always follow each and every characteristic.

Post noir, or Neo-Noir - anything from the 60s to today is even more acceptable (since they are aware of what they are doing)

French poetic realism? There are a couple of those that are considered noir - not all, but a few might be acceptable.

Feminist noir is acceptable.

Cross-overs? Look, we've done western LoCs, we've done comics, so I'd rather noir be noir, stick to the spirit of the subject - but if there's a western noir, or something that you absolutely have to have on your list, I won't scold you, just, make sure whatever it is, is truly noir.

Heist and caper films are their own thing, but there are a few that are noirish and acceptable (but nix to the Great Muppet Caper, there's no seedy urban underbelly in a Muppet movie, so until Frank Miller directs the R-rated, "Murder, My Muppet", that'll be a firm no. And no to Ant-Man too, cute superhero heist film, but not noir)

You know the drill: Send me 25 via PM (don't post here for all to see), with #1 being your top film noir feature (40 minutes or longer) and on down till you hit #25.

Partials are welcome

Deadline: Wed, Feb 17 - and if I take your case you'll pay me a $200 retainer, and $25 a day plus expenses (I'm from the 40s you see, and LoCs don't come cheap).

[Cyrusso]

Wow... I want to submit a list but I'm not sure I'll be able to think of 25 films I've actually seen that fall into this very specific category.

[George-2.0]

Wow... I want to submit a list but I'm not sure I'll be able to think of 25 films I've actually seen that fall into this very specific category.

Not seen many 40-50s era crime stories? Here's a flickchart list, you (or others) can look it over, see if you've seen any of these, and give y'all a rough idea of what would be suitable...

https://www.flickchart.com/Charts.aspx?genre=Film+Noir&perpage=50

[Edward J Grug III]

Here's a list of 900+ https://letterboxd.com/jbutts15/list/noir/

Certainly much of that list is noir-adjacent rather than noir, but worth a look.

[Pak-Man]

So my classic film vocabulary is sorely lacking, and both of those links declare Noir to be dead after the '60s. I could probably scrape together a list but it would likely include a lot of those "noir adjacent" movies. (Neo Noir, Tech Noir, and its ilk.)

Honest question: Should I try to scrape together a list that is likely going to contain the likes of Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner, and Sin City, or should I bow out to keep the list about more "Pure" noir movies?

[George-2.0]

So my classic film vocabulary is sorely lacking, and both of those links declare Noir to be dead after the '60s. I could probably scrape together a list but it would likely include a lot of those "noir adjacent" movies. (Neo Noir, Tech Noir, and its ilk.)

Honest question: Should I try to scrape together a list that is likely going to contain the likes of Pulp Fiction, Blade Runner, and Sin City, or should I bow out to keep the list about more "Pure" noir movies?

Short answer? How noir adjacent would the list be? Those 3 are fine, but how close to noir are the others?

And I'd ask anyone who's in the same pickle, is it possible to try one of the classics, just one? That's maybe 2 hours out of the next 2 weeks to spend on 1 movie. By all means, submit a list, but get a taste of the peak period. (and partials are fine, too, in fact, that's preferable to padding out a list with stuff that doesn't fit).

[George-2.0]

I've given this a lot of thought, and while I don't want to discourage lists, I do want to take a moment to address this, seriously.

First... there are subjects where we have covered all the angles. Star Wars, for one, we've done the movies, music, characters, weapons, and vehicles. We've also explored superheroes and comedy and animation and games to exhaustive levels. But how often has a western film shown up on an LoC, how many martial arts or noir films have in the past or will in the future, had the spotlight, other than the spotlight they received as the subject of an LoC?

When we did Martial Arts, I had enough knowledge to make a solid list of 25, I knew Bruce and Jackie and Crouching Tiger and Hero and had just finished with Zatoichi... but as I was doing research I kept seeing this name pop up, Chang Cheh. "Who the hell was Chang Cheh", I thought, I've never heard of him, never seen one of his movies? But he's this big deal in martial arts, one of the directorial foundations of the genre. So I set out to watch some of his flicks and wound up watching a lot and had a blast doing so. But why did I do that, because I wanted to respect the subject - How could I do a list on martial arts if I hadn't even seen a single film from one of its giants?

That's all I ask here, that we respect the subject.

That doesn't mean that I expect you to binge-watch a bunch of classic noir, and I can't make you put Double Indemnity or Murder, My Sweet on your lists if you haven't seen them.... but, and it's early, I haven't received every list, but right now, there's a chance neither of those will make it. And if I get to the voting deadline and Batman and Sin City are at the top of the list and a Double Indemnity or Murder, My Sweet didn't even make the grade, then I have to ask... what was the point? All I've got is another comic book -or whatever- thread. Even though some Batmans and Sin City have noir elements and are acceptable - if we minimize noir in its pure, peak form, that's going to make me one sad host.

Now, I don't think it will go that far off the beam, I think we'll have a nice, balanced LoC to enjoy.

But I did want to call attention to this, especially with Muppett movies being brought up, and 'noir adjacent' being spoken of. Respect the subject, just as we've respected lists for animation, comics, games, etc... let a noir LoC be a noir LoC. Let it have this moment, as this is all the LoC love it's likely to receive.



Because if you don't, femme fatale Gene Tierney will get in her rowboat and hunt you down... 

[Edward J Grug III]

i've never seen murder my sweet

[George-2.0]

i've never seen murder my sweet

Ah, if only we were next-door neighbors, I'd lend you my copy.

And that's okay, your list was loaded with the classics. (I was using it as an example, there are a couple of other biggies that are light on the points, but I'm hoping as more lists pour in they'll get the love they deserve)

[dbsommer]

Before you make your list, watch "Laura' by Otto Preminger. You'll thank me for it later. Also prepare yourself for Vincent Price, gigolo. And yes, that music is indeed 'Laura's Theme' which has been used more times in more things that I can count.

[stethacantus]

On the topic of pure Film Noir  possibly being eliminated from it's own Top 50 List. Which for those of you who don't get it, is as if someone did a movie musical  LoC, and Sound of Music, West Side Story and Singing in the Rain were not on enough lists to make the top 50, meanwhile Flashdance, Footloose, Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing were all in the top 10.  ( Actually, that did happen when VH1 did a countdown of the greatest movie musicals about 20 years ago. ) There is always going to be a problem with old vs new. Old has to be sought out while new is still currently being promoted. New is what you remember seeing in theaters or on premium cable. Old is what your parents remembered seeing when they were kids. Everyone is going to have a bias for the films from their generation as being the best. Only a few old films have the luck of being timeless, like The Wizard of Oz, and now Star Wars which is 6 years shy of it's 50th anniversary, and therefore belong to every generation since their release.  Having said that, yes, it is a f&%king shame that the best Film Noir's will probably not be on this list. The trade off is that if there was a hard cut off at 1960 then not many people here would be able to submit a top 25 list.  Perhaps many would not participate. As for me, I currently do not have any time for watching Noir films of any era. I have a backlog of unwatched television episodes on my 98% full DVR which piled up when I was writing the previous LoC.  So I have to go with what I have already seen.  I have only seen a few Noir films from the classic era, and they are all on my list. Well, actually that is not true. I left out all of the awful ones that aired on MST3K, including I Accuse My Parents, Teenage Crime Wave, Kitten With a Whip and High School Big Shot. ( Also, one can make the case that Mitchell is a botched attempt at a Neo Noir film. )  I compared every film I have seen with a coupled of Film Noir and Neo Noir lists, removes some I thought didn't really count as Noir, then took the 30 or so left and ranked them by favorite to least favorite.

[Pak-Man]

On that note, I'm going to sit this one out. I try to contribute when I can, but some topics I think I'd contaminate more than contribute-to. I dig Noir, I just haven't seen much of it outside of modern homage.

This is not a pity-party-post, or a "this topic was stupid" post. Still looking forward to the list, and maybe I'll check out a few of the winners.

[ColeStratton]

Looking forward to this one. I love Noir. And I do think there are plenty of instances of "modern" film noir that can help fill out a list if you haven't seen enough of the classics. There will be enough of us here who have to make sure a good portion of the spots are taken up with traditional noir films. Like I'm not gonna be mad at you if you put something like "Brick" on there.

[CJones]

Unfortunately, I'm in the same position as Pak-Man. I try to participate in these lists whenever possible, but this is a subject I know nothing about. Looking through that flickchart list, I see a grand total of 2 movies I've actually seen.

I'm happy to read the write-ups though Always looking for good movies to try out.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I was thinking of doing a partial list but my top picks would mostly be "recent" stuff like Blade Runner, and a couple of Bogart films that would qualify would make up the rest.  A bunch of films on that flickchart list I recognize but haven't seen them in 30+ years.

So, I'm looking forward to reading the LOC but won't be submitting.