Ron Williams on Film Noir:

What is Film Noir? Is it fedoras, trench coats, and high-contrast black and white film? Is it seedy bars filled with chain smoking private eyes and ex-cons looking for a big score? Is it star-crossed lovers with an inconvenient husband who needs to disappear? Yes, it is. Film Noir is all of that and much more.

The term “Film Noir” was first used in post-war France by cineastes in Paris who were just catching up on the Hollywood pictures they had missed during the war. The French critic, Nino Frank, is credited with coining the term ‘film noir’ to describe the bleak crime pictures of the time. Hollywood hadn’t recognized this new genre while they were making these films, but Frank and other critics picked up on the dark themes of insecurity, nihilism, and existentialism at the heart of many of the films, as well as the expressionist inspired, low-key, black and white cinematography which defined most noir films during its classic period in the 1940s and 1950s.

While the cinematic style of film noir has changed over the years, the term is still used to describe crime films with characters who blur the lines between hero and villain. Here are a handful of Film Noirs which perfectly encapsulate the genre. You can find them on Kanopy!

The Classic Period:

• Kansas City Confidential (1952)
  Directed by: Phil Karlson
  Written by: George Bruce and Harry Essex
  Produced by: Edward Small
  Fans of Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) will see clear inspiration for those films here. This classic caper features an intricately planned heist which is to be pulled off by a crew of cons who are strangers to each other. No one knows each other, so no one can betray each other…but they can’t trust each other, either.
• Detour (1945)
  Directed by: Edgar G. Ulmer
  Written by: Martin Goldsmith
  Produced by: Leon Fromkess
  Things go from bad to worse to catastrophic for a down-on-his-luck piano player hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles. Detour is one of the most widely-known noir films of all time and perfectly embodies the bleak fatalism of the genre.
• Too Late For Tears (1949)
  Directed by: Byron Haskin
  Written by: Roy Huggins
  Produced by: Hunt Stromberg
  What would you do if a big bag of money fell into your lap? Would you keep it or turn it over to the police? That’s the quandary at the heart of Too Late For Tears. If you’re not familiar with the works of the actor Dan Duryea, get ready to meet one of cinema’s greatest heels.

French Noir:

• Symphony for a Massacre (1963)
  Directed by: Jacques Deray
  Written by: Alain Reynaud-Fourton, José Giovanni, Claude Sautet, Jacques Deray
  Produced by: Julien Derode
  Inspired by The Asphalt Jungle, this French noir classic is full of backstabbers, two-timers, schemers, and total degenerates…a perfect noir cocktail, especially in the hands of a skilled filmmaker like Jacques Deray. Deray became so famous for making noirs, thrillers, crime films, and spy movies the Jacques Deray Prize was created in 2006 to honor him. It is awarded annually to the best French crime-thriller film of the year.
• Le Samouraï (1967)
  Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville
  Written by: Jean-Pierre Melville and Georges Pellegrin
  Produced by: Raymond Borderie and Eugène Lépicier
  Alain Delon plays a methodical, perfectionist assassin who hits an unexpected snag on a job and must elude both the authorities and the people who hired him in Jean-Pierre Melville’s stylish neo-noir. This is one of the coolest films of all time. I challenge anyone to watch this and not feel compelled to buy a trenchcoat.

Neo Noir:

• The Long Goodbye (1973)
  Directed by: Robert Altman
  Written by: Leigh Brackett
  Produced by: Jerry Bick
  Elliot Gould made some great films with Robert Altman over the years, and I would put this one towards the top of the list. Here he perfectly embodies Raymond Chandler’s legendary private detective, Phillip Marlowe. Gould made a career playing moral men who are constantly butting heads with a world that seems to be turning more cynical and selfish all the time. In The Long Goodbye, his principles are tested by the weirdos, gangsters, and sleazebags of seventies Los Angeles.
• Point Blank (1967)
  Directed by: John Boorman
  Written by: Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse, and Rafe Newhouse
  Produced by: Judd Bernard and Robert Chartoff
  Based on the Robert Stark novel, The Hunter, this 1967 neo-noir is your prototypical revenge film. There are no “good guys” here. Lee Marvin plays a crook who was double-crossed and now he’s looking to bury the people who did him dirty.

This month’s film, Wendy and Lucy (2008) continues our Spring 2020 series “Living on the Edge: Themes of Poverty in Recent American Independent Film.” Superbly acted by Michelle Williams and featuring director Kelly Reichardt’s trademark minimalist style, the film focuses on the small but significant challenges that many people face every day in America – challenges that often lead to devastating choices.

For Roger Ebert’s review of the film go here.
For an excellent look at the underlying themes in Reichardt’s work, visit this site.

Read this year’s Oscar winner for director Bong Joon-ho’s thoughts on Reichardt’s films here.

Feel free to comment on and discuss the film on social media! Any comments or questions about the film series can also be directed to Matthew Rothfuss – mrothfuss@bapl.org

You can directly access the Kanopy catalog, including Wendy and Lucy here: https://bapl.kanopy.com or through the Kanopy app on streaming devices. All you will need is your library card number and pin. For more information on how to setup your Kanopy account, please email info@bapl.org

Next Month – The Florida Project (2017)

Illustration by John Newcomer

Local film buff, Bethlehem resident, writer, and illustrator John Newcomer happens to be a huge fan of the film. We asked him to write a guest post about it and he not only did so but he also did the fantastic drawing you see here. It depicts the main character of Playtime, the iconic Monsieur Tati. Thank you, John! We love it!

Visit him online at @thejohnisjohn to check out more of his work.

“You have to see it to believe it.”

That’s a phrase that’s thrown around a lot, especially where it concerns art. It’s also why lots of people leave the Louvre commenting to their friends “the Mona Lisa is a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be…” But I’m not here to recommend you fly to France to check out Da Vinci’s work (but if you have the means and lack my fear of flying, I say go for it!)

I, however, will not be flying to Paris anytime soon. It’s a shame, because I love the culture—especially their films—and few French films delight me more than Jacques Tati’s 1967 masterpiece Playtime. By the time Playtime’s release date rolled around, Monsieur Tati had been portraying his famed Monsieur Hulot character for nearly 15 years. With his large overcoat draped over his exceedingly tall frame, and his signature hat and pipe, M. Hulot is as easily recognizable as many of early film’s comedic greats (specifically Chaplin’s “Tramp”).

Yet where most protagonists propel a film’s narrative, it always feels as though the action in Tati’s films is happening around Hulot, and he can only stand back (or lean forward, as he often does) and observe the antics. It makes sense that a gifted director would choose to portray a character that is little more than the eyes of the audience. In the films leading up to Playtime, Tati’s Hulot had some low stakes adventures—rife with political and societal commentary to be sure, but none of these films can prepare the audience for the otherworldly Playtime.

Tati built an entire city to shoot Playtime in, spending over 15 million francs (and remember, we are talking 1967 francs here), on the production. The set itself is the star of this film, which is a dreamy, dreary, delirious look at the approaching modern world through the eyes of a man from a much simpler time. There isn’t a typical story, per se, but rather a series of vignettes that blend seamlessly together in a fashion that can sometimes leave the viewer wondering how they arrived at the current scene—much like a too-familiar car trip can leave you forgetting the specifics of your route. The film is simultaneously bold and understated. It is also a color film, yet with muted costumes and sets that almost mimic the delights of black & white. Often compared to Looney Tunes shorts of the time as it’s nearly wordless and filled with broad physical comedy, Playtime really is unlike any other film.

Truly, it needs to be seen to be believed.

-John Newcomer
@thejohnisjohn

Visit bapl.kanopystreaming.com to access our collection of excellent streaming films.