Newer Podcast Episodes

I will no longer (and have not any longer for quite a few weeks) post any links to The Reel House (our podcast) to this blog. Mostly, it's just because I'm forgetful. However, you can find all of the episodes at thereelhouse.podomatic.com . Isn't that nifty?

Podcast Episode 3: The Snowtown Murders

DJ and Travis discuss the new film from the down under "The Snowtown Murders" as well as our usual segments. We introduce a new music segment where we talk about, well, music. Have a listen.

http://thereelhouse.podomatic.com/entry/2012-03-31T18_17_37-07_00

Podcast Episode 2: Submarine

DJ and I are back for our podcast "The Reel House." This week we discuss Submarine, as well as play a trivia game and talk about what we have been watching recently. Click the link below to stream the episode or subscribe for free on iTunes by searching for "The Reel House."

http://thereelhouse.podomatic.com/entry/2012-03-17T13_34_00-07_00

Podcast Episode 1: Detachment

You may recall that DJ and I had a podcast before. In true Men in Black fashion, I am currently deleting your memory of that, because we're starting over, and this will be the new episode one.

We discuss the Todd Kaye movie "Detachment" as well as John Carter, A Separation, and Hanna. You can take a listen at http://thereelhouse.podomatic.com/entry/2012-03-10T13_25_50-08_00

Travis' Top 10 Films of 2011

The best part of the new year is that I get to share my top ten movies from the year prior. Perhaps its a bad sign that I am more excited to look back than I am to plan for the future, but that's my dilemma, not yours. You just get to sit back and enjoy the results. So, without further ado, here is my top 10 list for the films of 2011.

(Note: I did not get to catch a screening of "Martha Marcy May Marlene," "Melancholia," or "Take Shelter," unfortunately, so I'll just let you know they probably would have made it into this list from what I hear about them.)

10. 50/50

One of the biggest surprise hits of the year, 50/50 is funny, sad, optimistic, and heartfelt in one glorious package.

9. Contagion

Perhaps seeing this flick while I had a cough was not comforting to the folks sitting in front of me.

8. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Take note, Hollywood; this is how action should be done.

7. Rango

Spanning between Chinatown homage scenes and bizarre fever dreams, Rango is a fascinating commentary on identity and archetype.

6. Another Earth

What if you could leave all consequences behind?

5. Foreign Parts
  

A documentary that finds beauty in a place the world has forsaken.

4. Hobo With A Shotgun

 

When the world has gone to the dogs, we need a different kind of hero.

3. Rubber

Rubber presents an exploration on the "no reason" that has implications for cinema and for the world around us, but will you pay attention, or will you give in and eat the turkey?

2. Drive

Don't trust a scorpion to be anything different.

1. Bellflower

Sometimes, when two people meet, the sum can be much more devastating than the parts.

Honorable mentions: Black Death, Meek's Cutoff, Moneyball

DJ's "The Films of 2011"

Winter is coming - and with it the cinematic horse-latitudes of January and February, that beloved season during which studios jettison all the Gerard Butler/Jennifer Anniston romcoms that have been moldering unwatched on some executive's shelf for the past twelve months. Before trudging out to the multiplex for the somewhat dubious enterprise of enjoying the latest Amanda Seyfried thriller, peruse my year-end revue of the films of 2011 (conveniently ranked from #40 [unwatchable] to #1 [pretty much essential viewing]) to find some flicks you may have missed.

40. The Beaver

Picking the year's worst movie wasn't particularly challenging, this time around.

39. Cowboys and Aliens

Could be it's time for Harrison to hang up them spurs.

38. The Adjustment Bureau

Take fate into your own hands. See a different film.

37. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Downey Jr. and Jude Law reunite to decipher the mystery of the missing script.

36. Water for Elephants

Unless Brendan Fraser's somehow involved, animal actors should never be allowed to steal the show.

35. Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's time-travelling adventure proves far less excellent than Bill and Ted's.

34. Unknown

Liam Neeson comes down with a pretty bad case of amnesia, but thankfully he still remembers how to deliver dour monologues and beat people up.

33. I Saw the Devil

Korean shock-cinema takes the revenge thriller to its definitive endpoint, and the result is about as enjoyable as that sounds.

32. Captain America

Marvel Studios continues to twiddle thumbs while waiting for the Avengers to show up.

31. Drive Angry 3D

Failing to deliver on the premise of an immortal Nicholas Cage driving like a (literal) bat out of hell with William Fichtner in hot pursuit is negligence of almost criminal proportions.

30. Thor

It seems Asgard is one of those concepts that's just better left to the four-color format.

29. The Tree of Life

Yes, this movie is worse than Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

28. Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Yes, this movie is better than The Tree of Life.

27. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

The cultural and international phenomenon culminates with a bunch of people waving sticks at each other.

26. Rise of the Planet of the Apes

James Franco continues his Kaufman-esque slide into Joaquin Phoenix territory by idly surrendering control of Earth to the primates.

25. Attack the Block

The Sean of the Dead crew add a little flavor to class warfare by way of an intercity alien invasion.

24. Fast Five

Testosterone flows like gasoline when Vin Diesel and The Rock throw down in this deliciously absurd action binge.

23. X-Men: First Class

Putting the "class" in their film's namesake, director Matthew Vaughn and stars Fassbender and McAvoy deliver what is sure to be one of the last watchable comic book adaptations.

22. Super 8

A split-screen presentation of E.T. and Cloverfield might be an affordable (and indistinguishable) alternative to JJ Abrams's lastest monsterfest.

21. Insidious

James Wan finally retires his Saw and directs a frigthtfully entertaining homage to the Poltergeist era.

20. Red State

Come for your morbid curiosity about Kevin Smith's attempt at horror; stay for Michael Parks's bone-chilling performance as a Fred Phelps stand-in.

19. Jane Eyre

Fukunaga goes goth (in the classical sense) to deliver this brooding adaptation of that book you had to read in high school.

18. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Stellar opening credits sequence notwithstanding, Fincher never truly rises above the stuck-on-an-island-whodunnit trappings of the source material.

17. Paranormal Activity 3

The fact that a camcorder attached to an oscillating fan is the greatest cinematic invention of the year should give us pause, I would think.

16. The Cave of Forgotten Dreams

"Quick. We need someone to wax philosophic while staring at ancient cave drawings for a few hours. Somebody get Herzog on the line."

15. 50/50

I pretty much defy any dude not to be in love with Anna Kendrick by the time the credits roll.

14. 13 Assassins

The final showdown between the titular baker's dozen and an endless army of raging samurai is brimming with enough underdog bravado to make King Leonidas blush.

13. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Brad Bird's mission - and let's all be thankful he chose to accept it - was to provide 133 minutes of sheer badassery. Mission accomplished.

12. Black Death

Put a sword in Sean Bean's leather-gloved hand and let him riff about doom and gloom, and you've earned yourself a spot in the top 15 of DJ's year-end list.

11. Another Earth

Maybe that second chance is looming just beyond the horizon.

10. Rango

How exactly did Nickelodeon produce one of the most thoughtful meditations on character and identity in recent memory?

9. Contagion

Panic isn't the only thing that spreads like the plague.

8. Drive

Cool. Almost terminally so.

7. Rubber

Like Andy Warhol before him, Quentin Dupieux explores the meaning of meaninglessness.

6. Hobo with a Shotgun

Rutger Hauer's performance of a lifetime unfurls amidst the insanity of this eye-popping technicolor dreamscape.

5. Martha Marcy May Marlene

Memories, though elusive, are also difficult to elude.

4. Take Shelter

Best not to scoff at the prophets.

3. Melancholia

Von Trier equates depression with the cosmic collision of two celestial bodies. No more happy endings.

2. Meek's Cutoff

Cast out of Eden, we toil aimlessly in the dust.

1. Bellflower

By casting himself in the lead role of the film he also wrote, first-time director Evan Glodell ran the risk of stumbling into The Room. And indeed, Bellflower is deeply, perhaps irrevocably flawed, yet striving for redemption. Sounds a little like you and me.

/salute 2011.

The Most Illusive Genre

tl;dr: Noir is weird.               
Most film genres are easily identified by their subject matter. Horror films contain monsters, serial killers, or ghouls. Action flicks are filled with thrilling set pieces, and usually contain a charming, handsome protagonist. However, not all genres are so cut and dry. Film noir, which came onto the scene in the early 1940’s (Naremore, 12), is not as clearly definable. Those who are familiar with it might mention The Big Sleep or Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole as examples, but rarely is it ever made clear what a film noir really is. That is what I set out to do, to create a clear definition of film noir, whether that be by defining it as a genre or as something completely different.

Before we move into the actual process of defining film noir, we should first look into its history, so that we know what we are defining. In the mid 40’s many French critics realized that a growing trend in Hollywood was to create increasingly cynical films, which these critics would begin to call “film noir” (literally “black film.”) (Schrader, pg. 1-2).

Where this starts to seem strange is that while the term “film noir” technically originated in 1946, it was not until the 70’s that the term saw more use, and even though noir is an American movement, it was first discussed by French critics (Naremore 14). This is largely due to the fact that, when noir films were being made, in particular the earliest ones, the goal was not to make a “noir.” Noirs did not exist yet. The filmmakers were just trying to make successful melodramas and detective stories. This is what is at the heart of the lack of agreement on the definition of noir, as even those making it might not know they are making an entry into the genre.

The impact of noir films, although the majority of them were released between 1941 and 1958 (Naremore, pg. 12), their impact is still seen today in the form of modern dramas like 2010’s Winter’s Bone and stylized action films such as 2008’s smash hit The Dark Knight. In order to understand the influences and evolution of films like these and others, we must understand where they come from. Unfortunately, the influences, namely noir films, upon which they draw are nebulous. We know that they are noir inspired, but what does that mean? Does it mean that they borrow from melodramas like The Maltese Falcon or dark, crime films like Double Indemnity? Or does it mean that they pull from earlier films that would become the influences of noir itself, like 1938’s Scarface?

Genre films can best be understood by how they relate to the genre to which they belong. Alone, Silence of the Lambs just seems like well-executed storytelling, but when we look at it in terms of the horror genre as a whole we realize that its real importance is in revolutionizing the genre. We do not have that luxury with noir, or, as modern noir-inspired films are called, neo-noirs. There is so much debate about what is and is not noir that it seems impossible to discuss these films on a general level.

With the “why” of our endeavor explained, I will move into the “how.” In order to do this we must understand how anything is defined before we can move into how film noir should be. A definition, obviously, serves to communicate the meaning of a word or term. In doing so the definers attempt to narrow the focus to just those things, ideas, or actions are indeed captured by the meaning of the term.

In other words, the definition acts as a spotlight. Our definition, then, must clearly show what the boundaries of that spotlight are. It is simple to describe what is in the center of the spotlight, as that just entails giving examples. We do not want to do solely this for our purposes, as it would not show us what noir is, but simply a list of films that have noir elements. If one were defining a chair, he would not do it by explaining that it can be an Eames, IKEA, or a Lazyboy. He would say that a chair is an object build to be sat on, and generally has a base that is held up by four legs. All of these things do not tell the audience examples of a chair, but the boundaries of what a chair can be, and still be a chair. By this definition we know that something with three legs is not a chair, but a stool. By learning what can be a chair we learn what a chair is.

So for our purposes we must do something similar. We must ascertain the boundaries of noir. To do so, it would be logical to look at the films that are the farthest away from the center of our spotlight, but are still illuminated by it. That way we can trace those boundaries and create our definition. To do so we will look at the earliest noirs to the most modern. We will go from melodrama noirs to sci-fi noirs.

We should, however, analyze at least one film that is dead center of our spotlight, in order to make sure that we are indeed tracing the boundaries of film noir, instead of circumscribing an unrelated spotlight. For this, we will look at Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity lies within that 1941-1958 timeline we mentioned, since it was released in 1944. However, it is far enough into that period to have had a pattern to follow of noirs that came before it. In the film, Walter Neff is an average insurance salesman who is seduced by the wife of a client. Walter and the seductress, Phyllis Dietrichson, decide to buy Mr. Dietrichson the most expensive insurance without his knowledge, and then murder him to take advantage of it. The rest of the film follows Walter’s struggle to avoid the consequences of his actions (Wilder).

Many noteworthy film noir archetypes can be gathered from Double Indemnity. Firstly, we see the pattern that is found in virtually all noirs of an “Average Joe” who falls into a downward spiral of amorality and crime. Walter, along with most noir protagonists, finds himself caught up in the consequences of his actions to the point where he no longer has control of them. He becomes a victim of his own avarice and lust.

Secondly we see many of the stereotypical noir characters in Double Indemnity. The slick protagonist, the nosy wisecracker, and the femme fatale (literally “fatal woman”) are all present. The latter is so ubiquitous within noir that rarely does one mention film noir without the femme fatale archetype being brought up in the same breath. It seems that these archetypes are more important to noir than they are to most other genres, as one can have an action movie without a burly gentlemen, but a film noir without a femme fatale is like a square with only three sides, a contradiction. In order to make sure that these elements are not just addendums that are commonly placed on top of a noir, we must now analyze film noir in its earliest stages.

This brings us to The Maltese Falcon (1941). Considered by most as the first noir (Blasser), The Maltese Falcon follows Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade, a private eye who finds himself caught up in the search for a statue of great worth. Spade ends up finding the statue, and is offered $10,000 for it. In the end however, the statue ends up being a fake. When a detective sees the falcon and asks Spade what it is, he replies that it is the “stuff that dreams are made of” (Huston).

While The Maltese Falcon shares many characteristics of later noirs, such as a smart, jaded male protagonist and a femme fatale, it lacks many things found later in the genre. Even the femme fatale character plays a smaller role in The Maltese Falcon than future characters of this archetype will serve, as when comparing her to Mrs. Dietrichson from Double Indemnity. Also, while it does have a very dark tone, it is not to the degree that noirs down the line would adopt, and while the camera does play with shadow, most of the shots are objective, in contrast to the vague, subjective camera angles that are seen down the road. We can look at The Maltese Falcon as a sort of “Patient Zero” for our definition. While it is certainly a noir, it seems that it is not a fully developed one. In these nascent stages we can see some of the base elements of noir. The Maltese Falcon, along with virtually every other noir, features a jaded protagonist and an equally jaded tonality. The film seems to brood more than progress, and Sam Spade is presented as a normal guy who is brought into this dark world against his own volition.

That last concept is also present in Double Indemnity. While the situations are different, both Sam Spade and Walter Neff find themselves in a downward spiral. Spade is one of the “good guys” as a private eye, but as events that he cannot control happen all around him he looks less like a “good guy” and more of an antihero, as he tells the thieves that are looking for the falcon that he will sell the falcon for $10,000 dollars and one of them to put in jail. In this instance Spade does not seem to care about justice, but about appearances. Virtually every noir has a similar scenario.

Another element that The Maltese Falcon lends us in our search for a definition of noir is the aforementioned brooding. While the tonality varies in its intensity from film to film, all noirs have at least some semblance of a jaded outlook. It seems that while complete fatalism is not needed to make a movie a noir, some sort of bleakness is required. We can consider this to be one of the “boundaries” of our definition.

Rian Johnson’s Brick (2006) is a further example of this tendency. This neo-noir follows high schooler Brendan as he investigates the death of his ex-girlfriend, Emily. Brendan finds himself caught up in the top tiers of the local heroin distribution system, and inadvertently creates a power struggle that climaxes in an-all out feud.

This plot has a few notable similarities to The Maltese Falcon and to noir in general. The jaded protagonist and bleak tonality returns, as does the motif of an average person being drawn into dark places by circumstances that may or may not be under the character’s control. It is also notable that both films feature a textbook femme fatale. However, all of these things are at the “center” of our spotlight metaphor. They are things that are quintessentially noir, and therefore do not show us its limits. What we do see in Brick is that much of what makes a film a noir is in its dialogue. When Brendan is confronting several football players who are much larger than him, Brendan says, “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night. That puts me up six on the lot of you.” This sort of quick, witty dialogue seems to be a required element of noir, as the lack of it would prevent something from being noir. Even in 2006, over 40 years from the heyday of film noir, this dialogue still sticks. If noir has had this long to evolve and still retains that element, then it certainly is one of our boundaries.

Another noteworthy aspect of Brick is its setting. A full color modern day high school is certainly far from the black and white city streets of 1940’s noir, but Brick is decidedly a film noir. This would mean that the setting is not integral to our definition of noir, and neither is the black and white color scheme. Apparently the specific content of a film is not what demarcates it as a noir, but the overall feeling and style that the filmmakers attempt to generate.

Alphaville is another example, like Brick, that takes noir to a place that it does not usually go. While for Brick that means a modern day high school, Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville takes noir a step further, combining it with dystopian science fiction. Alphaville: Un étrange Aventure de Lemmy Caution follows agent Lemmy Caution as he enters Alphaville, a dystopia where society is controlled by a calculating, logical computer and public executions of citizens who act “illogically” are a regular occurrence, in order to find and capture Doctor Von Braun, the creator of Alphaville, and apprehend him (Godard).

Alphaville is a strange beast. It seems to take out every element of noir, but any audience would acknowledge its noir status. For instance, the femme fatale character changes her ways, the world-weary protagonist ends up showing compassion, and the ending is overall a happy one. It still maintains the boundaries that we have acknowledged thus far, as it indeed contains a dark tonality; a downward spiral;  and quick, witty dialogue. However, besides those elements listed and a few character archetypes, it seems to contain elements that are  decidedly non-noir while still being, undeniably, a noir film.

At first this seems to throw a wrench into the works. If something can be a noir, but fit very few characteristics of a noir, how can we define it as a genre?  After all, if we define film noir as something so nebulous we have strayed from our initial goal. Going back, it seems that this is true of all of our examples. Even The Maltese Falcon, which inspired the entire movement, does not seem to have all of the elements one would think would be “required” in creating a noir. After all, we discussed that it is not as dark as the “stereotypical” noir. Brick, as well, has more in common with gangster films than noirs. Perhaps if these had been our only examples that showed this ambiguity then we would conclude that they are not, in fact, noirs. However, even our quintessential noir, Double Indemnity is short a few noir conventions. Double Indemnity lacks a detective character, which is a staple of film noir.

If even our perfect example does not fit what our intuition would tell us is a noir, we must accept that our conclusion will be different than we have hoped. That is why I propose that film noir is not a genre at all. A genre is clearly defined by its tropes and content, and if film noir can exist independently from them it must not be a genre.

But if not a genre, what is a film noir? An easy compromise would be to say that noir is simply a tonality, a dark feeling that filmmakers can choose to apply to their films. The problem with this conclusion is that noir encompasses more than just this. Tonality does not have character archetypes or plot restrictions. When we include these things we are talking about something larger, more all-encompassing.

Additionally, to say that film noir is simply a dark tone makes the definition too inclusive. This view would cause us to believe that most horror films are film noir, as they are indeed dark. From this illustration we can see that film noir is something more than just a tonality.

I propose, then, that film noir, to use a metaphor, is more of a grocery list than a recipe. A recipe, like a genre, must be followed verbatim. If I were following a cake recipe and decided to omit one ingredient, I am no longer following that specific cake recipe. Similarly, if I am making a science fiction film and decide to exclude any form of fantastic or futuristic element, I am no longer making a science fiction film.

On the other hand, one can certainly obtain groceries without buying each individual item on a grocery list and still call the products “groceries.” This person might find themselves short on toothpaste, but that has no bearing on whether or not a group of items are considered groceries. In the same way, one can make a movie without a traditional femme fatale and still call it a noir. The boundaries that we have discovered can be considered individual items on the grocery list that is film noir, but they are not rigid requirements, as we see from our examples, particularly Alphaville.

This interpretation allows us to not only understand the example films we have discussed so far, but also the modern films that are influenced by noir. For the former we can say that they are all films that contain enough film noir elements to be considered a noir, but are independently also part of defined genres. Brick, for example, is a crime drama that acts as a noir, Alphaville is a science fiction noir, The Maltese Falcon is a melodrama noir, and Double Indemnity is a thriller noir.

To give further understanding, we can compare this interpretation of film noir to the outline of a speech. The speaker creates an outline in order with the intention of following it, but he can venture off from the outline to an extent and still call what he is doing a “speech.” If the speaker were to decide to simply walk up to the podium and glare at his audience instead, it ceases to be a speech. Similarly, a noir is a flexible category, but one can flex it far enough that it loses the form of film noir.

A good example of this is The Dark Knight, which I mentioned earlier. It contains a few noir elements, as Bruce Wayne is similar to the film noir protagonist, and both noir and The Dark Knight share a bleak outlook of the word. This, however, is where the similarities cease. There is no femme fatale, no downward spiral, and not nearly as much quick or witty dialogue.

While this may be a disappointing conclusion, it is the only one we can make. The reason film noir is not definable as a genre is because it is not a genre. We can still, however, apply a definition. We can say that film noir is a tradition of filmmaking that involve creating films that take from, but are not required to contain all of, a number of tropes, including, but not limited to, jaded protagonists; femme fatales; downward spirals into crime and amorality; bleak outlooks; and fast paced, witty dialogue.  Any film that takes heavily from this list could be considered a “film noir,” although no certain number of these tropes is required.

This definition leaves open the possibility that one film can be more noir than another. For example, Double Indemnity is more of a noir than Brick, as it pulls from more of the tropes of the tradition of noir. In turn, Brick is more of a noir than Alphaville for the same reason, and Alphaville is more of a noir than The Dark Knight again for the same reason.

 This knowledge allows us better determine which noirs are noteworthy due to their actions within noir, going back to our Silence of the Lambs example with the genre of horror, because, for instance, we can evaluate the Double Indemnity’s and Maltese Falcon’s of the world by how well story and themes are executed within a structure rich with noir elements. However, the fringe examples like Brick and Alphaville should have their noir-success judged based on how much the noir sensibilities add to the film. These judgments would be more important to the “traditional” noirs as these elements comprise more of the entire film than in our fringe examples. Noir, then, should be seen as a gradient whose extremes are tradition and experimentation.

Even if film noir cannot be considered a genre, it is still an integral part of film history that lives on today, and will influence the world of movies for decades to come.

Bibliography

Blasser, John J. "The Outer Limits of Film Noir." (2008). Web. 26 Sept. 2011.

Godard, Jean-Luc, dir. Alphaville. Perf. Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina. 1965. Athos Films. Web. 26 Sept. 2011.

Huston, John, dir. The Maltese Falcon. Perf. Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor. 1941. Warner Bros. Web. 26 Sept. 2011.

Johnson, Rian, dir. Brick. Perf. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 2006. Focus Features. Web. 26 Sept. 2011.

Naremore, James. "American Film Noir: The History of an Idea." Film Quarterly 49.2 (1995-1996): 12-28. Web. 6 Nov. 2011.

Schrader, Paul. "Note on Film Noir." Film Comment (1972). Web. 26 Sept. 2011.

Wilder, Billy, dir. Double Indemnity. Perf. Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson. 1944. Universal Studios. Web. 26 Sept. 2011.