Ida Lupino – Road House (1948)
Fox Home Entertainment has today released the DVD set of three restored and remastered “film noir” titles: Boomerang! (1947), Moontide (1942), and Road House (1948). Bomerang! directed by Elia Kazan, and Moontide starring Jean Gabin in his first US film, are peripheral noir titles, while Road House has stronger noir credentials.
NY Times film critic, Dave Kehr, has published a balanced review of the release: On the Margins of Noir.
Kehr’s review raises the issue of how you classify a movie as a film noir:
Film noir is a notoriously difficult concept to define, and after years of futile attempts I’ve come to rely on the time-honored method of the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: I know it when I see it, as he so succinctly observed in regard to pornography.
I would agree with Kehr here, but he seems to undercut his statement later in his article when he says: “all three titles… exist on the margins of noir, sharing some of its characteristics but not quite meeting all the requirements”.
My feeling is that it is sufficient to label a film as noir if it is informed by a ‘noir sensibility’. Again I suppose talking about a ‘noir sensibility’ opens yet another can of worms. In my essay, What is film noir?, I take a stab at a definition: ” a profoundly and deeply human response to the chaos and random contingency at the edge of existence“. I am sure not everyone will agree, and invite comment.
Oh!Tony D’Ambra,
I was just about to turn~off my computer and decided to check my website just one more time! (and checked out your widget in the process)…Maybe I am
not the “right” person to comment on your
article “What is Film Noir?”
First of all, I read and linked your article “What is Film Noir?” (almost immediately!… on my website in early April when I first created my website.)
(I basically, (basically?!?)… I do use your article as a reference tool… Whenever, people ask me “What is this “thing” called Film Noir?”
Secondly, I really don’t want to admit this, but I find myself now “lingering” on your “every words!”…When it comes to your views on this thing called…Film Noir. Now the question is….Will I ever be “unbiased” again?
Btw,… 2 great news articles that you linked and I plan to read both articles in the morning!…because “my eyelids’ are about to close! (Because it’s after midnight here in the Midwest…)
Thanks, TD’A for the links to the articles!…and the info(rmation) about the 1947 film “Boomerang.”
Thanks, dcd :)
If only all readers of FilmsNoir.net were so avid… ;)
I think any sensible definition of film noir has to limit the term, to a degree — has to exclude films which fit more logically into other categories for which we already have names. Your definition — ”a profoundly and deeply human response to the chaos and random contingency at the edge of existence“ — is certainly an apt description of films noirs, but it applies to Olivier’s “Hamlet” just as well as it applies to “Out Of the Past”. So why do we need a new category-name for “Out Of the Past”? Why not just call it a tragedy?
As you know, I’ve argued that there was a new sensibility at work in what I call “film noir” — in the atomic-era crime thriller — which was different from the sensibility of 30′s-era pulp fiction and gangster films. If there wasn’t a difference, then we don’t need the term “film noir” at all — we should just call the atomic-era crime thrillers pulp fiction movies or gangster films.
Thanks Lloyd. Your lucid commentary makes me even more unsatisfied with my conceptualization – back to the drawing board…
Good luck! I think you’re on to something when you talk about redemption, or the desire for redemption, as part of the classic noir. This is what separates the form from the purely cynical or nihilistic traditions that evolved out of it. Redemption might be out of reach in the classic noir, and often is, but the idea of it, or the memory of the idea of it, haunts the protagonists in these films.
At the same time, though, the idea of the redemption of the world, or of society, has been irrevocably lost — and this I think is what separates it from the pulp detective and gangster films of the 30s, where a kind of rough justice prevails. Hard as the world or society may be, the bad guy can be brought down, the corrupt government reformed, the murder mystery solved, and a kind of provisional moral balance restored. There is no such consolation in the true film noir.
Great stuff Lloyd! Your lucid contributions here are truly original.
A little FYI for fans of French actor Jean Gabin, you maybe interested in heading over to the Egyptian Theatre on September 06~07 2008.
Because they will be featuring 4 of his (Gabin) films including…the recently release 20th Century Fox Film…
…”Moontide” starring Jean Gabin in his first US film, which Tony D’Ambra, think is a peripheral noir title.”
(When or if I ever watch this film, I am quite sure that I will agree with D’Ambra.)…There will also be a book signing by author Charles Zigman who wrote 2 massive books about actor Jean Gabin aptly, titled “The World’s Coolest Movie Star.”
http://www.egyptiantheatre.com/sched.htm
dcd ;)
I wish I was there DCD! All I can do in Sydney is watch late-nite TV or DVD’s – the baroque cinemas of the 20s and 30s with the encore screening of old Hollywood movies where I mis-spent my youth are all gone now…
Apropos Jean Gabin – my favorite French tough guy – he starred in most of the poetic-realist French movies of the 30s, which were really the pre-cursors of Hollywood noir. As Geoff Mayer and Brian McDonnell say in their book, Encyclopedia of Film Noir (Greenwood Press 2007):
“in these movies an ironical poetry was found in the everyday: hence the term poetic realism. The iconography of the cycle included the shiny cobblestones of nighttime Parisian streets (the faubourgs), the shadowy interiors of neon-lit nightclubs, and the moody, haunted, doom-laden faces of actors such as Jean Gabin. As well as inspiring Hollywood film-makers, who viewed them admiringly, some of these French films were actually remade as American noirs, for example, Le Chienne (1931) was remade as Scarlet Street (1945), La bête humaine (1938) as Human Desire (1954), Pépé Le Moko (1937) as Algiers (1938), Le Jour se lève as The Long Night (1947), and Le Corbeau (1943) as The Thirteenth Letter (1951).”
I saw La bête humaine a few years back and it is everything we would expect in a film noir of the 40s with a really downbeat ending.
Tony D’Ambra said,”All I can do in Sydney is watch late-nite TV or DVD’s – the baroque cinemas of the 20s and 30s with the encore screening of old Hollywood movies where I mis-spent my youth are all gone now…”
D’Ambra, one of my friend(s), who post on another message board live in Australia, and she also mentioned to me the “lack” of variety on television in Australia. Therefore, my question(s) to you are…
…I wonder why so few offering on Australia television? especially, when it comes to a variety of programs to watch on television. and What about cable channels in the “land down under?”
Tony said, “As well as inspiring Hollywood film-makers, who viewed them admiringly, some of these French films were actually remade as American noirs, for example, Le Chienne (1931) was remade as Scarlet Street (1945), La bête humaine (1938) as Human Desire (1954), Pépé Le Moko (1937) as Algiers (1938), Le Jour se lève as The Long Night (1947), and Le Corbeau (1943) as The Thirteenth Letter (1951).”
Thank~you! D’Ambra, for the information about the French titles and their American “counterpart”
Of the 9 titles that you mentioned, I have only watched…the 1954 film “Human Desire” and the 1951 film “The Thirteenth Letter.” Therefore, I must seek the other 7 titles that you mentioned out and watch them immediately!…I must admit I am somewhat “lacking” when it comes to watching current films, French films, and British films.
Btw, I was just explaining to Rick Olsen (who is the host of the blog CoosaCreek and a frequent poster over there on Moviezeal…the latter, is a website that I just discovered this month.)that if I want to participate in the “lively” online conversation on other eBlogger website that I must at least be more “well rounded” on current film topics too!…Because I am an artist first and foremost,(painting have taken over my life and when I am not “posting” on the message board, you can find me painting!) but I think now is the time for me put down my “paintbrushes” and “jump” back into the “game” of watching current films too!…there is a “lesson” to be “learned”…
darkcitydame
Hi DCD.
There is a degree of choice in Australian TV, with TCM, Fox, and a world movie channel available on cable, but I don’t subscribe. Public free-to-air TV stations show RKO movies late at night, and there is a foreign language service which shows international movies, but as the film noir following is marginal here, there is no outlet for the kind of older movies we are interested in. Though this may change as more specialist HD digital channels come on stream.
To be honest, I have lost interest in contemporary cinema – I prefer old movies and still have so many to see. I love the aesthetic of black and white, and the films of the 30s, 40s, and 50s have an indefinable aura that keeps me intrigued. Perhaps it is a nostalgic retreat into the past, and has a deeper psychological basis I don’t quite comprehend.
TV is more interesting these days: Mad Men, Prison Break, and The 4400 are my favorites.
I would not give up the painting if I were you – if you are blessed with this gift, you should pursue it.
This blog is an outlet for my desire to write something meaningful, and that I usually fail is an incentive to keep trying.
The quality of an idea or vision is more a function of stripping away the “roof chatter” that alienates each of us from our deeply creative unconscious and a true understanding of ‘reality’. Everything we can be, or know, or create already exists within us.