--- "Mark R. Harris" <
brokerharris@gmail.com> wrote:
> Debates over quality are never
satisfactorily
> resolved, and those are
> all fine films. Nonetheless, I will say that to
my
> taste, which runs
> to modernist complexity more than to
classicism,
> Kiss Me Deadly is the
> most brilliant film in the list (with Out of
the
> Past running it very,
> very close).
At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I agree. While I do have
a more "arcane" and narrow definition of noir than most on
this list, I appreciate those films that break the very
constrictions that should define them. The Long Goodbye is
one as is Chinatown, Breathless, Kiss Me, Deadly and numerous
others. (Frankly, I can't see Casablanca on the list but
that's another discussion.) Out of the Past is a noir in my
book but one that acknowledges the cards in the genre deck
and plays the game well. Every negative criticism of Kiss Me,
Deadly recently on this list is true. Even so, the film lives
in a place that makes those elements part of why it is so
good. It never slips into camp and yet it is very
self-conscious of its roots in masculine hard-boiled
detective fiction. The truth of the film is that sinewy
mentality, that gun-in-a-fist solution is no match for
radiation and the future. Kiss Me, Deadly is the futile
resistance of the apocalyptic future and The Long Goodbye is
the surrendering to a disordered immoral future. Two faces on
the sides of a rusty slug. That's why they're really good
films. Not because they're noir but because they're
not.
William
Essays and Ramblings
<http://www.williamahearn.com>
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