Noir

What's your favorite noir?

Re: What's your favorite noir?

Re: What's your favorite noir?

Re: What's your favorite noir?

Because I am a film noir fan, I looked forward to The Good German (2006). Shot in black and white in classic film noir style, Steven Soderbergh’s film is disappointing, and the problem is the script. If I came to you with this pitch, would you go for it? 

Pitch: An American reporter returns to Berlin in the summer of 1945 to cover the Potsdam conference, although he never does. His assigned military driver is a sleazy American serviceman making money on the black market and pimping his German woman. The driver soon shows up dead, and the reporter goes after the woman, who used to be his secretary/”stringer” and lover. Unfortunately, the woman is essentially dead, soul-less, her eyes never once flickering with life. Was it because she was raped by a Russian? Apparently not. And why is everyone after her husband who is supposed to be dead but is apparently not? Because he was the personal secretary for a Nazi scientist who made rockets in a brutal concentration camp factory, and the Americans are trying to make the brilliant scientist a fine, upstanding American. As the soul-less woman finally wangles her pass to freedom and walks toward the airplane, she tells the reporter that her crime was turning in a dozen fellow Jews to the Gestapo so that she could survive. The end. 

Such a script has major problems. There is no one the viewer can identify with. The reporter is so vague he floats through the movie. We never see him report anything. This is in stark contrast to old film noir-style movies that would have had a bustling newspaper office with noisy typewriters. Worse, he wears a military uniform because the US Army insisted, but instead of acting military, he usually just gets beaten up and told to watch his step. Nor does he have any of the a) righteousness or b) conflicted morality of traditional film noir characters. He wants desperately to find out what is going on with the woman and with her mysterious husband, but she is clearly a burned out wreck not worth the dogged effort. We wonder what is motivating this man. We don’t identify with the broken woman because we never see her any other way—she is just a heartless prostitute looking out for number one—and because we have no idea what happened to her until the last two minutes of the movie. This points to the other major problem besides the characters: the plot. The major plot concerns the woman’s husband and the brilliant scientist, but we hardly see them and have no reason to care. The other plot is the reporter’s attempt to re-establish a connection with his old lover, and this includes finding out what happened to her. But we are given no clues whatsoever that she betrayed fellow Jews until she announces the sordid fact in the last two minutes of the movie.

Re: What's your favorite noir?

*SPOILER alert for The Good German* 

I agree with almost everything you say. I, too, was left underwhelmed by The Good German. Some part of me was impressed with it as a pure exercise in style, but it left me cold, I never got into it, and you're right in pointing out that much of it has to do with the weak plot.

Many other incoherent noirs have succeeded just fine though. Can you, for example, tell me right now what the Big Sleep was about? The contrast is that a) while in films like the Big Sleep you don't always remember what happened before, you're always interested in what will happen just afterwards and b) the interaction between the characters was always interesting. In The Good German, not only was there no suspense, but the actors were so concentrated on getting the style right that they were barely playing off each other.

You mention the lack of someone to identity with, and I think it's an interesting point. Most noirs have a singular focus, so much so that often we see only scenes the main character is in (take, for instance, the Maltese Falcon: when Sam Spade blacks out, the film does too). I think Soderbergh is deliberately subverting this conversion by having Maguire's character narrating until....he dies. And the movie goes on without him. 

It's an interesting conceit, and I think the movie is an interesting experiment. Too bad it's a (largely) failed one. 

Re: What's your favorite noir?

I'm looking forward to The Good German, failed or not.

I remember going to see The Big Sleep with a bunch of friends back in the day, and coming back and trying to figure out the plot afterwards. We just assumed that it must make sense.

I've just been listening to a podcast discussing SunSet Blvd. as noir. Two professors who take a scholarly approach. They're on Itunes and at http://outofthepast.libsyn.com/.  

Re: What's your favorite noir?

sarcastig:

Many other incoherent noirs have succeeded just fine though. Can you, for example, tell me right now what the Big Sleep was about? The contrast is that a) while in films like the Big Sleep you don't always remember what happened before, you're always interested in what will happen just afterwards and b) the interaction between the characters was always interesting.

That seems to be a staple of the film noir mystery genre doesn't it?  It's really not about the plot.  The plot is just there to provide occasions for unusual characters to get together in heightened circumstances.  It doesn't really matter if the plot is resolved or makes any sense.  I think the Coen Brothers knew this when they made The Big Lewbowski which is really  a slight remake of The Big Sleep.  And try to name me a movie that has a better plethora of interesting characters.

Re: What's your favorite noir?

Thanks very much, Sar, for your comments. I never realized until you said it that the characters in The Good German appeared flatter than they need have because they were so concerned about style that they "weren't playing off each other." Excellent observation.

I don't have an answer, but it is tantilizing to ask why modern directors have such a tough time capturing classic film noir.  That's a topic for another time, perhaps, but it reminds me of the ah-ha! moment I had a few years ago when I heard the Barney Kessel jazz quartet from 1957 and I realized that no one--and I mean no one--can duplicate that feel today. There was something about being a white, male, American, with a certian musical heritage in the mid-50s that resulted in something that we cannot duplicated today. BUT I hear very close approximations occasionally. Just watch the movie Good Night, and Good Luck and listen to Dianne Reeves and her group in the background. They've got the feel. But it is rare.

 I was really surprised that a director of S. Soderbergh's talent could not pull off a good film noir. Last night, when I watched Crossfire (1947), I might have got an idea why. Crossfire was shot in 20 days on a budget of $250,000. Although Robert Mitchem is flat, all the other actors do a wonderful job. You can actually feel Paul kelley in a minor role and Jacqueline White in a minor role playing off the other actors. There was so little footage shot that some of those scenes must have be one takes.

Re: What's your favorite noir?

I can see your point about film noir being an opportunity for interesting characters to get together. But I disagree. I think plot is crucial to most noirs. The Big Sleep is the classic counter example, as several people involved with it have said they had no idea what the it was about, no idea what the plot was.

But put yourself back in 1947. Your are out of the service. You have a girl who you think you might marry and have four children and a house in the suburbs. You get off your job at the factory at 4:30 every Friday and you pick her up at 6:00 for a meal at the diner before the movie of the week. You had better see some of your favourite actors and the story had better be good! (With no television, the studios were churning out movies at a great pace.)

That's why when you look at the hit films of the time, the plot was huge and the characters were gripping. For example, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It has a great plot which keeps you guessing--it moves at 1/4 the speed you assume it might, and it takes a few twists which are surprising but reasonable. And the three main guys are wonderfully delineated characters--the old prospecting geezer, the paranoid no good (Humphrey Bogart), and the honourable sidekick. The movie went on to be nominated for several Academy Awards.

Shifting to noir, surprise hits like Crossfire (1947) had a very stong and complex plot as well as some interesting characters.

Back in 1947 people had two names for this type of film, and I forget both, but they were something like "murder mystery" and "crime story." Heavy on plot!

Re: What's your favorite noir?

JimBell:

I can see your point about film noir being an opportunity for interesting characters to get together. But I disagree. I think plot is crucial to most noirs.

But are they the best ones?  The one's that have lasted and are still considered the favorites today?