Rene,
Re your comments below:
> Yes, of course film is a visual medium - you
don't
> need a Jesuit
> education to know that. However, it is
not
> exclusively a visual medium.
> Why do you feel that script, acting, etc has
nothing
> to do with film?
I'm not sure what my Jesuit education has to do with
anything, but, I never said that script, acting, etc., had
nothing to do with film. I said it had nothing to do with
whether or not a film was a film noir. That's exclusively a
function of the visual stylistics.
Film noir is what it is, and it's nothing else EXCEPT what it
is, and what it is is a crime/suspense film made during a
particular era with a partiucalr kind of visual style. If a
film isn't that then it isn't a film noir. Period. The same
script and performance could exist in a film made either with
or without those visual stylistics. In the former case, it
would be a film noir; in the latter case it wouldn't.
Consequently script and performance wouldn't have any bearing
on the question of whether or not a film was or wasn't a film
noir.
> Film noir is not exclusively defined by
visual
> stylistics . . .
Yes it is.
> . . . - how could it
> be when there is no one look common to ALL
films
> noirs.
Yes there is.
> I presume (going
> from the one example given) that you are
referring
> to things such as
> chiascuro lighting, odd angles, certain
recurring
> images such as
> venetian blinds, wet streets, urban landscapes,
etc.
> However, these
> stylistic flourishes are not universal.
Yes they are.
> The term
> "film noir" was coined
> in 1946 (not 1960) by French critic Nino Frank
after
> seeing 6 recent
> Hollywood melodramas in one week: The
Maltese
> Falcon, Laura, Double
> Indemnity, Murder My Sweet & The Woman in
the
> Window. By your
> definition, the first two films aren't
noir.
As for who coined the term film noir, and when it was coined,
I'll bow to you there. I've always heard it was in an article
published in the early '60s. In any case, the term didn't
begin to creep into common use until the early '60s.
As for the films you mention, except for THE WOMAN IN THE
WINDOW, which I've never seen and so can't comment on,
they're all noirs, because they all share common visual
characteristics. They're not all visually IDENTICAL, but,
after all, Huston and Wilder and Dmytrik are all different
filmmakers, and obviously their different styles will come
through. But they all make use of dark, sinister, shadowy
images, high-lighted lights, darkened darks, and mostly
night-time scenes. So they're all noir because they all set
mood (what I might call a "dark and sinister mood") by their
use of visual imagery.
> Other
> "Non-noirs" would
> include The Killing . . .
Haven't seen it; can't comment.
> The Asphalt Jungle . . .
Noir because of its use of visual imagery.
> High Sierra . . .
Not noir because it's too brightly lit.
> . . .colour films such as I Died a Thousand
Times,
> Desert Fury, Leave Her
> to Heaven, Slightly Scarlet & A Kiss Before
Dying.
Absolutely correct. They're NOT noir. Color is close to an
absolutely disqualifying factor.
> All these films are
> listed in both Film Noir: An Encyclopedic
Reference
> to the American
> Style ed. Silver & Ward and Paul Duncan's The
Pocket
> Essentials Film
> Noir.
Which is precisely why both those books are so seriously
flawed. They betray a complete misunderstanding of what a
film noir is. They include too many films that aren't noir
and exclude too many films that are.
> On the other hand, your definition, based
> solely on visual style
> would include Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr
Caligari,
> the Universal
> horror movies of the 1930's and Citizen
Kane.
Well, film noir is generally understood to refer to a crime
movie. While it is broad enough to embrace private eye
stories (MURDER MY SWEET), police procedurals (HE WALKED BY
NIGHT), gangster films (THE ASPHALT JUNGLE), and even
romantic suspense (THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE), I've never heard
horror movies included under the noir umbrella.
However, you are certainly correct in pointing out that the
visual stylistics in those films are the same as those in the
crime films generally labeled as noir.
So is Welles's classic newspaper drama, which is, after
all, built around the question of the solution to a mystery,
if not a crime ("What did 'Rosebud' mean?"). If you want to
call them film noir, I'll certainly raise fewer objections
then if you include films that DON'T use the defining visual
stylistics.
> In short, noir is a mood . . .
It's a mood set by a visual style. Period.
> not a colour (or absence
> of it). Mood can be
> achieved with visual effects but it's not the
only
> way.
It's the only way in a film noir. If it's set by something
else, it may be a great film. It may even be better than
anything that IS a film noir. But it's NOT a film noir.
> I have read pretty widely in the critical
literature
> regarding film noir
> and although no two critics agree on exactly
which
> films make up the
> noir canon none have defined noir in purely
visual
> terms. I'm also aware
> of many "crime films" which have a noir look but
are
> labelled as
> "gangster" films by critics because they are
not
> thematically noir,
> e.g.Dillinger, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
-
> although being about
> gangsters does not mean it can't be a noir
(White
> Heat, Kiss Tomorrow
> Goodbye, High Sierra).
Whether or not a gangster film is or isn't noir isn't
dependent on its thematic qualities but on its visual
qualities. If it has the defining visual qualities, it's
noir. If it doesn't, it's not. The critics who look for
"thematic meaning" are missing the point. The point is the
look.
> I haven't even touched on the films that have
been
> labelled neo-noir . . .
And it's a good thing you haven't because none of them are
noir either. There hasn't been a real noir since probably
around 1962. Which brings me to the other salient point about
noir. Its lack of self-consciousness.
Once the term "film noir" began to creep into common usage
and filmmakers began TRYING to make film noirs, they set
themselves up for failure, because none of the makers of the
classic noirs realized what they were doing.
My favorite story about a bunch film buffs missing the point
about noir is the one in which Dmytrik is guest lecturing at
a film class. One of the sutdents asks him a question about
film noir. "Film noir?" asks the director of MURDER MY SWEET,
CROSSFIRE, CORNERED, and THE SNIPER. "What's film noir?" He'd
never heard the term before, though he was credited as one of
its inventors. But all he, or any of the other noir makers
were trying to do was use visual imagery in a way that, first
of all, they thought suited the story, and second of all,
allowed them to make "A" features on "B" budgets because they
visual imagery allowed them to get by on cheaper sets,
etc.
Once filmmakers began to self-consciously set out to make a
film noir, they set themselves up for failure because part of
the essence of film noir was its utter lack of
self-consciousness. This doesn't mean than many of the films
you label "neo-noir" aren't great mmovies. Many of them are
better than some movies that ARE legitimate film noirs.
They're just not film noirs because, first of all, they
USUALLY lack the right visual stylistics, and, secondly,
because they are too self-consciously TRYING to be
noir.
> . . .which are almost exclusively in
colour.
One of the things that keeps them from being film
noirs.
> How could
> you possibly come up
> with a definition of neo-noir that is
exclusively
> based on visual
> stylistics?
It's really quite simple. I did it by finding the common,
defining element in film noir, the visual stylistics, and
using that common defining element to come up with the
correct definition.
Happy you asked.
JIM DOHERTY
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