Gritty. Hardboiled. Hardbitten.
All great words to describe a great genre. Film noir is one of the most easily recognized of genres; when it is parodied, people know it immediately and are delighted by it. Well, I am, at least.
It's funny. I could recognize film noir before I had ever seen it, mostly because of this:
Yes, that's Calvin and Hobbes. It used to be my favorite part, when Calvin donned his imaginary trench coat and fedora and lipped his everpresent cigarette (nobody could force political correctness on Bill Watterson) and started calling girls dames and narrated everything with wry wit. The funny thing about it is that I never saw any film noir movies - not until this class.
The film noir style is so ingrained in our cultural consciousness that I could see a screenshot of a man in a fedora and trench coat and a woman in high heels, a tailored dress, and rolled hair, in harsh shadows, maybe the silhouette of some venetian blinds behind them, and instantly label it as film noir. Give me a quote with a lot of witty dialogue and 40's slang, and I would know in a second what kind of movie it came from. The men were ultra-masculine, stoic, rough around the edges and knuckles, usually ready to help the dame in distress but not averse to playing rough with her either. The women are, well, dames. Venomous and ultra-feminine, dangerous but beautiful - with perfect hair, perfect makeup, and a taste for slinky dresses. It's only to be expected, in a film genre based off of pulp fiction - which was written almost exclusively by men.
It is really parodied with affection, rather than satire. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with Eddie Valiant (private eye, of course) and Jessica Rabbit (modeled after Veronica Lake), is a direct parody that wears its noir like an old suit, not mocking it but allowing it to enhance the absurdity of the toons. A favorite movie of mine, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, follows the noir plotline and it even hinges on the dame's obsession with pulp fiction novels.
Think of the style of Sin City and Pulp Fiction, the stories of Basic Instinct and Memento.
As a break from reading Serious Literature, I have a fondness for reading cheap novels - the kind you find in the Sci-fi and Fantasy section of the bookstore. At the moment I'm going through a series called the Dresden Files, which are modern pulp fiction books featuring Harry Dresden, wizard (slash private eye). They're better than they sound - you could take the style of the books straight out of the chapter on film noir in Belton. Convoluted mystery plots, dry wit, thugs with brass knuckles, femmes fatales - and if they happen to be vampires, all the better, right?
The point that I'm getting at is that film noir is more than just a type of movie that was popular in the 40's and 50's. It is something that is known and loved everywhere - any place that is familiar with film will understand the silhouettes and harsh shadows, the sleek women and rough men, the backstabbing and the quick dialogue. It is just plain cool. That's all.
Good points, Fawn. Film noir has been endlessly parodied, and you've identified the characteristic look and sound of it exactly.
ReplyDeleteJudging by what people have written on their blogs, _Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_ is a favorite of a few people in the class (me included). When you see the titles from Chandler's works and plotlines drawn from him (especially _The Little Sister_), the debt becomes apparent immediately.
Another outlet in the same vein of "cool film noir" is the somewhat faded radio dramas. My father is probably the sole audience of radio detective stories these days -- Yours Truly Johnny Dollar, The Shadow, Nero Wolfe, just to name a few -- who all follow the same principles of Film Noir. Monologues, quick dialogue, devious women, dark corners, lonely alleys, an urban jungle, etc are ever present in the life of any detective from the radio era. An excellent modern day homage/satirical equivalent -- like Calvin and Hobbes but for the radio -- is the Prairie Home Companion's fictional character "Guy Noir: Private Eye." I'd recommend checking it out if you've never heard a radio drama, they're pretty great!
ReplyDelete