Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
4/20/2021 9:57:20 AM
Subject:
RE: Identifying film noir
Oooooh, Point Blank. Excellent, excellent example.
I don't know. For me, the noir label works when you talk about the old movies. I agree about the Hays Code and all that, but don't you think the old films had a certain look and feel that classified them? Well, besides style, I mean. It's just the whole deal. Movies like Asphalt Jungle and D.O.A. -- maybe it was the Hays code that made them compensate with that look and feel, but they can't be anything other than noir. Okay, crime dramas, but there was that extra edge or whatever -- something almost gothic. Two Richard Widmark movies as examples:
Pickup on South Street
. They're very shadowy and desperate, etc. Crime dramas, for sure, but they had a kind of texture that set them apart.
I have no answer for the 21st century film industry. It's a bunch of self-indulgence and adolescent flailing. They've lost all interest in entertaining an audience, so they're all over the place. They're really impossible to categorize anymore.
