Why I Like Film Noir
As I have said before, I watch only two things on TV: Turner Classic Movies, for which I forgive Ted Turner all, and the news. Oh, occasionally I'll sit and watch Pawn Stars, a car repair reality show, Barrett Jackson car auctions, or even Duck Dynasty (which really is quite funny), if my husband has them on, but that's it.
On TCM one gets to see all the greats, although there are a couple they have never shown (Laura being one), and I have found that my favorites are film noir. This might seem strange coming from a middle-aged Southern Baptist lay Bible teacher in redneckville, but I like to surprise people who think they have me figured out from my outward looks and my job as an English teacher. Why do I like them? Let me count the ways (no, I won't break out into iambic pentameter; it mystifies me how poets do that!)
1. They are in black and white. A film noir in color makes absolutely no sense. Technicolor overloads my senses. There are a few exceptions.
2. They are from the time right before I was born, yet a time I vaguely remember.
3. They are urban and gritty; no one is really good, everyone has an agenda, ah, just like real life!
4. The "hero" often dies in the end, shot down. They are more Greek or Shakespearean tragedy than typical Hollywood drivel where no matter what happens the star lives (except for Armageddon where Bruce Willis gives his life.) For example, in DOA the hero (we don't really have heroes in film noir, just protagonists) spends the whole movie trying to learn who poisoned him--and he dies from the poison in the end, as he should. In Johnny Eager, despite his revelation of how he has wronged so many, even those closest to him, he dies, shot down in the street; he doesn't get a last-minute reprieve from the scriptwriter.
5. The protagonists look like real people. Did anyone really think Humphrey Bogart was good-looking?
6. The women play a role. Sometimes they are decent (but not that decent; otherwise they wouldn't be hanging out with shady characters), sometimes they are pretty evil. They are usually good looking, but not beautiful in the classic way (Lauren Bacall as an example). They are definitely sexy and impossible to resist. These are real roles for women back when most of them were pretty vapid.
7. The clothes are great. Love those clothes from the '30s, '40s, and '50s.
8. The plots are convoluted and you have to watch the films several times to really understand everything that is going on. I could give lots of examples here.
9. The characters are complex, almost always neither fully good or bad. They are often guys home from WWII who have given their lives for their countries but now don't know where to fit in (that is a whole theme in film noir).
10. Sometimes they are wonderfully cliched, but only because they seem so--they were the originals and we've gotten used to the tropes.
11. Often the directors and writers tried new techniques.
12. Dialogue is snappy, funny, and amazingly real considered the production codes. Now, I will say this; I've seen enough of those pre-code movies to know that if the code hadn't come along, by 1940s everything would have been pornography. I think the code made the creators have to be creative, to suggest without showing, which is really more powerful artistically. Sure, you can argue censorship, but it wasn't the government doing the censorship--it was the industry agreeing for business purposes.
13. I'll end here--I think the acting is often the best, not so stylized. Van Heflin in Johnny Eager is great, for example. Who can beat Barbara Stanwyck, in anything?
On TCM one gets to see all the greats, although there are a couple they have never shown (Laura being one), and I have found that my favorites are film noir. This might seem strange coming from a middle-aged Southern Baptist lay Bible teacher in redneckville, but I like to surprise people who think they have me figured out from my outward looks and my job as an English teacher. Why do I like them? Let me count the ways (no, I won't break out into iambic pentameter; it mystifies me how poets do that!)
1. They are in black and white. A film noir in color makes absolutely no sense. Technicolor overloads my senses. There are a few exceptions.
2. They are from the time right before I was born, yet a time I vaguely remember.
3. They are urban and gritty; no one is really good, everyone has an agenda, ah, just like real life!
4. The "hero" often dies in the end, shot down. They are more Greek or Shakespearean tragedy than typical Hollywood drivel where no matter what happens the star lives (except for Armageddon where Bruce Willis gives his life.) For example, in DOA the hero (we don't really have heroes in film noir, just protagonists) spends the whole movie trying to learn who poisoned him--and he dies from the poison in the end, as he should. In Johnny Eager, despite his revelation of how he has wronged so many, even those closest to him, he dies, shot down in the street; he doesn't get a last-minute reprieve from the scriptwriter.
5. The protagonists look like real people. Did anyone really think Humphrey Bogart was good-looking?
6. The women play a role. Sometimes they are decent (but not that decent; otherwise they wouldn't be hanging out with shady characters), sometimes they are pretty evil. They are usually good looking, but not beautiful in the classic way (Lauren Bacall as an example). They are definitely sexy and impossible to resist. These are real roles for women back when most of them were pretty vapid.
7. The clothes are great. Love those clothes from the '30s, '40s, and '50s.
8. The plots are convoluted and you have to watch the films several times to really understand everything that is going on. I could give lots of examples here.
9. The characters are complex, almost always neither fully good or bad. They are often guys home from WWII who have given their lives for their countries but now don't know where to fit in (that is a whole theme in film noir).
10. Sometimes they are wonderfully cliched, but only because they seem so--they were the originals and we've gotten used to the tropes.
11. Often the directors and writers tried new techniques.
12. Dialogue is snappy, funny, and amazingly real considered the production codes. Now, I will say this; I've seen enough of those pre-code movies to know that if the code hadn't come along, by 1940s everything would have been pornography. I think the code made the creators have to be creative, to suggest without showing, which is really more powerful artistically. Sure, you can argue censorship, but it wasn't the government doing the censorship--it was the industry agreeing for business purposes.
13. I'll end here--I think the acting is often the best, not so stylized. Van Heflin in Johnny Eager is great, for example. Who can beat Barbara Stanwyck, in anything?
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