Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Film Noir



I thought this unit was very interesting since I had previously studied it in French cinema. It was fun to see more film noir's because in myFrench cinema class we compared the classic film noir's to Realism Poetique, that included Pepe le Moko and more Jean Gabin films. I enjoy film noir movie's a lot more not becuase they are american and i'm trying to be all patriotic or anything but because they seem to have more essence and body to the themes, characteres, and plot. I enjoyed watching Chinatown because it was interesting to see a film noir in color since traditionally the film noir "genre" was not typically in color. I liked all the detectives especially Jeff Bridges because they seemed to be very smooth talking and carried with them a boyish charm with the ladies. I also think it's hilarious to see the femme fetale's and how they just costantly seem to be screwing things up for everyone while still maintaining to be the most flirtacious beings to ever walk to earth. It makes me a little sympathetic for the women playing the "marrying girl" roles that are just generally confused and don't end up getting love and basically are suckers because the girl who's the screw up (femme fetale) seems to get the hunky detective. My favorite detective was Jeff Bridges (Out of the Past) because I thought it was hilarious and all around amazing that with one punch he was able to take out the guy talking on the phone. I think the most interesting part of film noir that changes in each film is the crime. I mean take Chinatown, I know we wern't all expecting such a twist at the end, and if you were...well then you're a filthy liar and I don't like you one bit. I used to think that just because these films were in black and white that they lacked some "umfph" to them but now that I've seen a good showing and preview of what the whole period was like I have a better understanding as to why it's layed out the way it is. It adds to the dark somber tone to the film and the society that was talking place at the time. I mean if we look at the three periods that film noir took place they wern't exactly America's happiest hours, but these films helped to take the current issues and put it into an entertaining form that would help relieve stress from reality. Take Kiss Me Deadly, the radioactive bomb at the end is plausible to the second world war that was going on while this movie was made. I think it makes this period of film making that much better to include real events and adding twists to them.