Noir, baby, noir

Myself, a rather sleepy Mike and my girlfriend Lisa met up at ACMI last night to catch a screening of the 1941 classic The Maltese Falcon. If you haven't seen the film before I highly recommend it: Humphrey Bogart (shown left) at his tough-guy best, matched only by his performance in Casablanca, and a startling cinematic debut for director John Huston.

It's the film that gave birth to film noir, a cinematic style that refuses to be confined to a single genre, and of which I am utterly enamoured.

For many people noir is synonymous with detective films and crime stories, but there is also western noir and melodrama noir, to name but two other genres that embraced the noir style in its heyday from 1941 - 1958.

Film noir is a bubbling cauldron of influences, from the shadow-heavy images of German expressionist cinema to Italian neo-realism. Then-contemporary, post-war fears about the roles of women emerged in noir as such iconic femme fatales as Phyllis Dietrichson, Babara Stanwyck's character in Double Indemnity, and in The Maltese Falcon, Mary Astor's duplicitous Brigid O'Shaughnessy.

I won't bang on about it here at length, because there are a multitude of sites on the web that can tell you all you need to know, and more, about noir style and motifs. Instead, feast your eyes upon these darkly seductive images...



Now, go and watch some noir, baby!

Comments

fastdump said…
Night Of The Hunter (second still from the bottom) with Robert Mitchum is perhaps the most unique example of noir to come out of Hollywood - with more than a nod to German Expressionist films of the 1920's...
15/1/07 18:52
Paul said…
The statue of the Maltese Falcon is the classic example of a "Macguffin" - an otherwise incosequential object which propels the narrative in a story. Macguffins and films noir are fellow travellers...
16/1/07 12:42
rhymes with pony said…
you've inspired me to watch this.
We have had a copy of this sitting round the house for yonks.
Though it doesn't seem right watching something like this during the day time.
16/1/07 15:16
richardwatts said…
fastdump - you're so right - Night of the Hunter is such a superbly crafted, stunningly lyrical film, visually. I had the pleasure of seeing a brand new print a year or two ago, which made it simply luminous - the night-time boat trip along the river especially so.

paul - too true - and congratulations on your correct use of the term 'films noir', oh literate one!

rhymes with pony - watch it, watch it! noir conjures night from the brightest day...
16/1/07 17:00
On Stage And Walls said…
spooky! I've just finished watching my copy of The Maltese Falcon. I've lost count of how many times I've seen it.
I've always found that scene in Night of the Hunter, where the children are in the boat and there are all those shots of rabbits and cutesy animals, a but daft.
16/1/07 17:42
richardwatts said…
bardassa - a bit daft it may be, and certainly as a contrast between the innocence of the world and the evil of man it's a little heavy handed, but it's so beautifully shot!
16/1/07 19:54
On Stage And Walls said…
Yes for sure. That film has an almost unique style among 'noir' or any other cinema fach for that matter.
17/1/07 13:39
Anonymous said…
woot WOO!!!!

I have to admit, right now, that at this particular screening the deeper shades of noir and cinematic devices (apart from Huston's "shooting from the hip" technique maybe first discovered here with the fat man?) - quite passed me by, so happy I was to spend a little time with Mr Bogart (with whom I am utterly enamoured!)

Sigh..... it's been too long....
; )
Lisa
23/1/07 14:41
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