What exactly is "Film Noir?"

[MudInYerEye]

Film Noir was a term coined by film academics to envelope a lot of things certain film makers were doing during a particular debatable period of time. Some of the things were self-consciously done, most (as in all creative endeavors) weren't. The academics simply saw something that they lumped together under a style. Some noirs have happy endings (Pickup on South Street), some have kinder dames (Laura), some are even in color (Leave Her to Heavan.) Nonetheless there is a certain heaviness and grittiness and nihilism that is present in most noir or noirish or noir-style movies.
Harry Lime

I don't agree with the films mentioned as being Noir. LAURA is an excellent but fairly standard detective story/mystery. LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is basically a plodding love story courtroom/melodrama with a bit of OF MICE AND MEN thrown in for good measure. PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET arguably skirts the boundries, but it's heavy politics puts lumps it into THIS GUN FOR HIRE's nebulous realm of qualification. While I find all of these films watching to varying degrees, and they do contain some elements of Noir, they don't cut the proverbial mustard as true examples.

 

[MudInYerEye]

Film Noir was a term coined by film academics to envelope a lot of things certain film makers were doing during a particular debatable period of time. Some of the things were self-consciously done, most (as in all creative endeavors) weren't. The academics simply saw something that they lumped together under a style. Some noirs have happy endings (Pickup on South Street), some have kinder dames (Laura), some are even in color (Leave Her to Heavan.) Nonetheless there is a certain heaviness and grittiness and nihilism that is present in most noir or noirish or noir-style movies.
Harry Lime

I don't agree with the films mentioned as being Noir. LAURA is an excellent but fairly standard detective story/mystery. LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is basically a plodding love story courtroom/melodrama with a bit of OF MICE AND MEN thrown in for good measure. PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET arguably skirts the boundries, but it's heavy politics puts lumps it into THIS GUN FOR HIRE's nebulous realm of qualification. While I find all of these films worth watching to varying degrees, and they do contain some elements of Noir, they don't cut the proverbial mustard as true examples.

 

[Harry Lime]

I don't agree with the films mentioned as being Noir. LAURA is an excellent but fairly standard detective story/mystery. LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is basically a plodding love story courtroom/melodrama with a bit of OF MICE AND MEN thrown in for good measure. PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET arguably skirts the boundries, but it's heavy politics puts lumps it into THIS GUN FOR HIRE's nebulous realm of qualification. While I find all of these films worth watching to varying degrees, and they do contain some elements of Noir, they don't cut the proverbial mustard as true examples.

Again, we all live in our own worlds. Yours, as defined by academics you agree with, has its own boundaries. Enjoy, but you'll never find a judge or jury that finds you 100% correct as none exists. Meanwhile, there exist just as many knowledgable people who will disagree with you.

Making movies and watching movies are fun endeavors. Living by the labels others put them under too stridently is pointless.

Harry Lime

 

[MudInYerEye]

Again, we all live in our own worlds. Yours, as defined by academics you agree with, has its own boundaries. Enjoy, but you'll never find a judge or jury that finds you 100% correct as none exists. Meanwhile, there exist just as many knowledgable people who will disagree with you.

Making movies and watching movies are fun endeavors. Living by the labels others put them under too stridently is pointless.

Harry Lime

Didn't measn to ruffle your feathers there Harry. Here's your goat back (hands Harry his goat).

 

[airfrogusmc]

Anyone here French New Wave fans?

 

[jake_fink]

Anyone here French New Wave fans?

Yes.

:beer: :kick: :cool2:

 

[MudInYerEye]

Anyone here French New Wave fans?

What's "French"?

 

[Harry Lime]

What's "French"?

I was under the impression earlier you were fairly knowledgable about film. I'm starting to realize I was mistaken; you're more of a "know-it-all." It's fine to have opinions but to present them as "defining opinions" is really a self-serving fool's game. And it's obnoxious. In the future you will make more friends and your opinions will be more carefully considered if you offer them with a bit more humility and respect and a bit less smugness.

Harry Lime

 

[MudInYerEye]

I was under the impression earlier you were fairly knowledgable about film. I'm starting to realize I was mistaken; you're more of a "know-it-all." It's fine to have opinions but to present them as "defining opinions" is really a self-serving fool's game. And it's obnoxious. In the future you will make more friends and your opinions will be more carefully considered if you offer them with a bit more humility and respect and a bit less smugness.

Harry Lime

EXTRA! EXTRA!
POT CALLS KETTLE BLACK!
READ ALL ABOUT IT!

 

[Clyde R.]

I think one of the interesting things about noir is that nobody seems to ever really agree on what exactly it is! If you read any of the literature on the subject, it's obvious that Mud and Harry aren't the first to disagree about what constitutes Noir, Film Noir, whatever you want to call it. I don't really have a dog in their fight, but I tend to be pretty free-wheeling in my definition of noir (deliberately lower case) and would just say FOR ME it tends to mean a dark film about dark places. These places could be places in the soul or heart dealing with obsession and betrayal for example, or the more literal dark and shadowy places/settings in the night time city streets and interiors that were part and parcel of the classic era Film Noirs. I would just say I know it when I see it. Whether you define noir in narrow terms or cast a wider net, I say this: just enjoy it. How you define it is up to you really.

 

[Harry Lime]

I think one of the interesting things about noir is that nobody seems to ever really agree on what exactly it is! If you read any of the literature on the subject, it's obvious that Mud and Harry aren't the first to disagree about what constitutes Noir, Film Noir, whatever you want to call it. I don't really have a dog in their fight, but I tend to be pretty free-wheeling in my definition of noir (deliberately lower case) and would just say FOR ME it tends to mean a dark film about dark places. These places could be places in the soul or heart dealing with obsession and betrayal for example, or the more literal dark and shadowy places/settings in the night time city streets and interiors that were part and parcel of the classic era Film Noirs. I would just say I know it when I see it. Whether you define noir in narrow terms or cast a wider net, I say this: just enjoy it. How you define it is up to you really.

Yes, exactly, one-hundred percent agree. Which is why I don't really have a dog in this fight either as I am trying to avoid one. I simply hate being corrected on something that is in-correctable (subjective opinion) by nature.
There are plenty of academic lists and definitions; better to watch the films, read the books and concoct your own. You're no less in-correct for it. (There wasn't a "Noir" division at Warners or Republic. They just happened.)

Harry Lime

 

[MudInYerEye]

Everybody has a right to their own opinions. Even me and Harry.
STRENGTH THROUGH DIVERSITY!

 

[jake_fink]

Guys,

The beauty of this is that no-one is worng.... though most often someone is.

Baiting each other is best done over beer - you're not drinking at this hour are you?

Film Noir, the term, was coined by French academics (in the mid 40s), so I guess they get to define it. The most important element at that time was the amount of darkness on the screen. It's been argued that the French were seeing prints of prints, and those were of poor quality, so their films were more noir than the makers had intended, but that gets back to splitting hairs.

The term is so loose that it applies to a lot of films, and so the defiinition gets redefined. Schrader, among others, places Film Noir in a particular period, 1941 to 1958, or Maltese Falcon to Touch of Evil. (Schrader's essay is part of the extras on the Criterion Collection edition of The Killers.) Others try to define it as a genre, though the makers of most Film Noir were at the time unaware that they were making Film Noir, whereas makers of comedies, gangster pictures, romances, etc. knew what they were supposed to be doing. Finally, others define it more nebulously as a mood, an expression of nihislm, or alienation in a mechanized society, or any number of other things.

Looking at earlier films and later films you see, clearly, the beginnings and follow-up, even the slavish imitation of Film Noir of the calssic period... so people started calling some movies - like "M" or "They Drive By Night" - proto-noir, while others - like "Point Blank" or "99 44/100 % Dead" - neo-noir. Still others are pure pastiche, which is essentially a spoof that isn't intended to make fun or ridicule, "Body Heat" and "Blood Simple" are pastiche noirs just as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a serial pastiche. Then there is cyber-punk... now often called, a terrible term, Tech Noir. Obviously Blade Runner is in this group, as well as Strange Days, Johnny Mnemonic, and films even worse than those.

Maybe we can settle this by agreeing that defining, that is definitvely defining (redundant:kick Film Noir is like catching lightning in a bottle... or darkness. We could use - even if we, as I do, disagree with them - the terms Classic, Proto and Neo, and then get down to splitting hairs over which particular films fit in which particular area and why. F'r'instance, I'm calling Leave Her to Heaven as definite noir, that is Classic Film Noir (of the Classic period of Film Noir.... maybe this is more trouble than it's worth.)

Anyweay, I leave you with this link to the Blackboard, if you don't already know about it. It's a Film Noir forum:

http://members.boardhost.com/mrvalentine/

I also leave you with this link to Eddie Muller's site, which will hopefully go back to being something other than an ad for Noir City sometime soon:

http://www.noircity.com/

 

[MudInYerEye]

Well said, Jake (as usual).

 

[nightandthecity]

Been away from the lounge the last couple of weeks. Seems I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve missed some great threads, and what can be said has mostly been said in this one.

Which won't stop me from adding my two pennies?¢‚Ǩ¬¶

First penny: If we are to understand and discuss the world we have to put things into categories, but its a weakness of the human brain that we like those categories to be neatly bounded and internally homogenous. But real life just isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t like that?¢‚Ǩ¬¶edges blur?¢‚Ǩ¬¶..categories subdivide and subdivide?¢‚Ǩ¬¶.especially with something like film noir which was ?¢‚Ǩ?ìinvented?¢‚Ǩ?, so to speak, after the event. Nobody set out to make ?¢‚Ǩ?ìfilm noir?¢‚Ǩ?, they thought they were making thrillers, crime films, detective stories.

Second penny: two of my favourites haven?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t been mentioned: ?¢‚Ǩ?ìThey Live by Night?¢‚Ǩ? and ?¢‚Ǩ?ìPhantom Lady?¢‚Ǩ?. I think the former is probably Ray?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s best film (I think it was his first too?) while the latter blew me away when I first saw it some thirty years ago - despite the unsatisfactory ending (well, nothing?¢‚ǨÀús perfect)

 

[jake_fink]

Welcome back nightandthecity

?¢‚Ǩ?ìThey Live by Night?¢‚Ǩ? and ?¢‚Ǩ?ìPhantom Lady?¢‚Ǩ?. I think the former is probably Ray?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s best film (I think it was his first too?) while the latter blew me away when I first saw it some thirty years ago - despite the unsatisfactory ending (well, nothing?¢‚ǨÀús perfect)

They Live By Night is a good movie. Did you read the book upon which it was based - Thieves Like Us, which in turn became an Altman movie?

I prefer Ray's In a Lonely Place. Also a Noir. (noir...?)

 

[nightandthecity]

Never read the book - and haven't yet seen the Altman movie. I understand he made it after reading the book, and he hadn't seen the Ray film....and used to get annoyed when people called his film a "remake".

In a Lonely Place...maybe. Two great films anyway!

 

[MudInYerEye]

Ed Anderson wrote the book. Excellent. His other novel, he was mainly a newspaperman, HUNGRY MEN is bit dated by it's heavy pro-Labor/Communist leanings and Steinbeck-worshipping, but it's a realistic and gritty glimpse into the 30's also worth reading if you can find it.
IN A LONELY PLACE is one of my favorite Bogart and I'd recommend it to most.