Film Noir

[petergunn]

I find some of the old film noirs hard to follow -- I am amashed to say, I had to watch Crossfire with subtitles.

nah, i mean, i used to always miss the plot when i watched noirs b/c i was always watching them for the VIBE and not the story...

and to be honest some of those films are pretty conveluted... ok, i am gonna go watch Out Of The Past and see if i can get it...

 

[craner]

This is why I like gialli -- I don't have to worry about following the plots too closely as the each "plot device" is usually an absurd or nonsensical red herring, curveball, arresting image or elaborate setpiece. I sometimes wonder if it's a case of "alright, my brain can cope with that" or that the Italians have fatally softened my neocortal tissue.

 

[JohnCalvert]

have we had Le Samurai? Meta as mofo!

 

[petergunn]

have we had Le Samurai? Meta as mofo!

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?11663-Neo-Noir-Films/page2

 

[william kent]

This blog's fun. The site itself's dead, but it's archived.

Film Noir of the Week

web.archive.org

 

[DLaurent]

It's pretty much all I watch these days. I think my current favourite is Somewhere in the Night. By the time Richard Conte turns up you know you've watched a great one.

 

[DLaurent]

Another good one is Too Late For Tears.

 

[IdleRich]

DLaurent by now you must be one of the world's leading experts on film noir. One thing that particularly impresses me is your ability to remember and differentiate between them, i mean I've really watched a lot of them snd dug into the genre more than most but i really struggle to remember which was which and for films i watched years ago i truly struggle to know which I've seen and which i haven't and of the ones I have seen i find it hard to know what happened in each one and ultimately which was which - and that's normally something I'm pretty good at... or at least so i thought.

What I've come to realise lately is that maybe my favourite genre is neo-noir - or at least some of them, the term seems do vaguely used that a lot of films I see with that description are nothing like what I'm after. I wish someone could drop similar deep knowledge about those films. And when I say someone it's gonna have to be @DLaurent or @william_kent I'm thinking.

 

[DLaurent]

Cheers. I suffer the same problem of remembering which is which though. I'm forever rewatching films by accident, and reached the point after about 3 or so years of getting increasingly diminishing returns on most films I watch, having watched most of the well known ones. I'll try and do a more detailed post with what I've learned in the 5 or so years I've been almost exclusively watching old film noir when I get chance, but suffering from the same memory problems, it might be inconclusive.

 

[DLaurent]

There's some like City of Fear for example. I think it's brilliant in the context I watch it for the first time, in bed often just soaking in the atmosphere before I go to sleep. Then I watch it with my sister and find it slightly less impressive other than what must have caught my attention first time round, the powerful Goldsmith and Williams score. It does have one of those simple but catchy plots though.

 

[DLaurent]

Anyone seen The Strange Love of Martha Ivers? A bit longer, half an hour longer, than many noirs and I've watched it as I'm nodding off last night. All I can remember was Lizabeth Scott's wonderful sunken and sullen performance, so one I'm going to get my sister to watch properly with me.

 

[william kent]

There's some like City of Fear for example. I think it's brilliant in the context I watch it for the first time, in bed often just soaking in the atmosphere before I go to sleep. Then I watch it with my sister and find it slightly less impressive other than what must have caught my attention first time round, the powerful Goldsmith and Williams score. It does have one of those simple but catchy plots though.

That down to the film or watching it with someone who doesn't appreciate it as much as you though? I know there's stuff I like I can imagine being diminished by watching with people who aren't into it.

 

[DLaurent]

That down to the film or watching it with someone who doesn't appreciate it as much as you though? I know there's stuff I like I can imagine being diminished by watching with people who aren't into it.

My sister tells me she enjoys them. She says they're easy watching. It's more that when I watch them it's usually as part of my 'night cap' and I'm not concentrating the same as when we're sat in my sisters lounge. Brother in law doesn't seem so into them though, he prefers Westerns and War Films.