IdleRich
IdleRich
Inspired by something that I happened to say in the detectives thread, not that it was particularly incisive or anything, but it made me suddenly realise that there are some genres that I subconsciously think of as dead. I just lazily have that idea in my head although I have never really thought about what I mean by this and whether other people would agree with me. And I want to interrogate that... or better still, I want you lot to do it for me.
The obvious one for me is Noir. Despite its popularity for decades, it is now completely dead - apart that is from the odd zombie that manages to somehow climb out of the film graveyard and stagger around for a bit before being shot in the head and put out of its misery.
Chinatown was described as a neo-noir as early as 1974. I'm not necessarily saying that the existence of neo-noirs automatically means that the noir itself is dead. But there must be some reason that everyone called it a neo-noir rather than a straight up noir. My guess would be that the genre died through - no mystery here - lack of popularity; it was simply played out, too many films that were too similar with all but interchangeable names and plots and so on. The tropes such as femme fatales had become tedious cliches and there was nothing left to say so the genre went away for a few years.
And then someone (someone indeed) makes a noir type film after a significant gap. So a revival not a continuation - also, some (this is not universally agreed I understand) say that part of the reason that they were called Noirs was cos of how dark they were, in terms of plot, but also quite literally, not just black and white but with a lot more black than white, often taking place at night in dark alleyways or candlelit rooms. But Chinatown is in colour and a lot of the time you see bright Cali sun. So neo-noir works for me.
And although Chinatown was popular and everyone seemed to agree it was great, there was no revival of the genre as a result (as far as I know). Since then we have had parody-noir (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), post-modern noir (The Singing Detective), more neo-noir (The Last Seduction), pseudo-noir (Brick), more neo-noir (Miller's Crossing), pastiche noir (LA Confidential) and so on and so forth... but have there been any noir-noirs? Can there ever be? Could the genre live again?
Brief aside on parody-noir - as a child I remember often seeing clips in sketch shows or adverts that were totally noir - hard-bitten guy in a trenchcoat talking about broads while downing tumblers of whisky in his office which was only lit by the streetlamp coming through the blinds. In other words I saw noirs parodied countless times before I ever had the chance to see any of the originals. Clear evidence to me of a dead genre.
And I could write something similar for westerns, we all could. But I can't go on forever so just pretend I have done that.
But action films - arguably born with the 39 Steps, will they ever perish? Slasher films, born out of giallos but already dead enough for Scream to ironically revive them in 95... and then I Know What You Did Last Summer, Halloween redux remix... maybe it hangs on by its fingernails (screaming desperately as the killer in the form of a bespectacled Hollywood accountant draws inexorably closer). Horror overall though is quite possibly immortal, along with romance/rom com...
I can say more here but I don't wanna just bang on forever. Maybe it's really boring. If not get involved and I'll join back in when I wake up tomorrow afternoon.
The obvious one for me is Noir. Despite its popularity for decades, it is now completely dead - apart that is from the odd zombie that manages to somehow climb out of the film graveyard and stagger around for a bit before being shot in the head and put out of its misery.
Chinatown was described as a neo-noir as early as 1974. I'm not necessarily saying that the existence of neo-noirs automatically means that the noir itself is dead. But there must be some reason that everyone called it a neo-noir rather than a straight up noir. My guess would be that the genre died through - no mystery here - lack of popularity; it was simply played out, too many films that were too similar with all but interchangeable names and plots and so on. The tropes such as femme fatales had become tedious cliches and there was nothing left to say so the genre went away for a few years.
And then someone (someone indeed) makes a noir type film after a significant gap. So a revival not a continuation - also, some (this is not universally agreed I understand) say that part of the reason that they were called Noirs was cos of how dark they were, in terms of plot, but also quite literally, not just black and white but with a lot more black than white, often taking place at night in dark alleyways or candlelit rooms. But Chinatown is in colour and a lot of the time you see bright Cali sun. So neo-noir works for me.
And although Chinatown was popular and everyone seemed to agree it was great, there was no revival of the genre as a result (as far as I know). Since then we have had parody-noir (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), post-modern noir (The Singing Detective), more neo-noir (The Last Seduction), pseudo-noir (Brick), more neo-noir (Miller's Crossing), pastiche noir (LA Confidential) and so on and so forth... but have there been any noir-noirs? Can there ever be? Could the genre live again?
Brief aside on parody-noir - as a child I remember often seeing clips in sketch shows or adverts that were totally noir - hard-bitten guy in a trenchcoat talking about broads while downing tumblers of whisky in his office which was only lit by the streetlamp coming through the blinds. In other words I saw noirs parodied countless times before I ever had the chance to see any of the originals. Clear evidence to me of a dead genre.
And I could write something similar for westerns, we all could. But I can't go on forever so just pretend I have done that.
But action films - arguably born with the 39 Steps, will they ever perish? Slasher films, born out of giallos but already dead enough for Scream to ironically revive them in 95... and then I Know What You Did Last Summer, Halloween redux remix... maybe it hangs on by its fingernails (screaming desperately as the killer in the form of a bespectacled Hollywood accountant draws inexorably closer). Horror overall though is quite possibly immortal, along with romance/rom com...
I can say more here but I don't wanna just bang on forever. Maybe it's really boring. If not get involved and I'll join back in when I wake up tomorrow afternoon.
