Cinema Noir

[ratherastory]

Dear flist,

What are your favourite Noir films? Classics that everyone in their right minds should see? Hidden gems that I should know about?

I'm on a Noir kick & want to expand my repertoire.

Comments

[jesseofthenorth]

Easy answer for me : Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) Starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan. "A one handed stranger comes to a tiny town possessing a terrible past they want to keep secret, by violent means if necessary." According to IMDb

It crosses a couple of genres but is an undeniably great Noir film. My all time favourite and not to be missed.

Re-posted to elimnate bad mark-up (sorry)

[ratherastory]

Ooh, that sounds super, AND now I know where SPN got the reference! Whee! Thank you!

[cherry916.livejournal.com]

This can be considered the first slasher flim but it has a lot of noir like qualities.

1945 And Then There Were None

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Ooh. I think I saw that. I should rewatch it, I recall it being very good. Thanks!

[ash48.livejournal.com]

\o/ Noir! My fav genre. :DD

My favourite modern noir (neo noir) film is Blood Simple. It will feel rather dated now, but man, I remember it blowing me away the first time I watched it. It's by the Cohen Brothers. <3

Other favs of mine (mostly modern, usually crossover)

Blue Velvet
Blade Runner (sci-fi noir)
Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 & 1981)
Brazil
Dark City
Angel Heart

There are soooo many more.

Any particular era you are interested in? I'm a pyscho / sci fi / thriller noir lover. But there are the more classical detective noir and even experimental noir films.

:D

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

How the heck is Brazil a Noir film? o_O

I am particularly interested in detective noir, but I would love thriller and/or psycho noir. That sounds super interesting.

[ash48.livejournal.com]

Hee.. yes. Well. Rather loosely noir. For me I put it in the modern noir category, but I can see how others wouldn't. (And interestingly, just doing a bit of a search on this it is often listed as a noir film. I suppose it's essentially a black comedy but there are certainly noir elements).


Of the above Blue Velvet comes into psycho noir. If you haven't seen that I highly recommend it.

Thrillers (crime/mystery) I would rec:

Double Indemnity
Notorious
Strangers on a Train

For a detective noir you might like Laura

Then of course there's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid as a clever noir spoof. :D

edit... already mentioned Blade Runner.../o\. (I second Body Heat also).

[sjames-centre.livejournal.com]

Body Heat
Double Indemnity

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

Key Largo - any of the old Bogart/Bacall films, really, like The Big Sleep. The Maltese Falcon. L.A. Confidential and Blue Velvet for modern noir.

Some of the old pre-Code film are excellent in that genre, but some are utter crap...

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Pre-code? What's that?

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

It refers to the films made in Hollywood before they started enforcing the Hays Code, the "agreement" that there were certain things that couldn't be shown on screen and that eventually became the ratings system. Some of the pre-Code films dealt with really adult themes - women taking control of their sexuality, or at least not dying horribly if they had sex outside of marriage, gay characters, that sort of thing. (Some of them, of course, were the 1920s equivalent of Girls Gone Wild.) The narratives changed, or at least got way more subtextual, once Hollywood had to start taking it seriously in 1934.

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that. Thank you!

[http://users.livejournal.com/tesserae_/]

You're welcome! I did a talk last year & part of the research involved looking fairly closely at the ways the story was being told in a bunch of films from that era, and I was surprised, to say the least, to see how matter-of-factly some of those early storylines dealt with what we'd call feminist narratives. They took their modernity seriously, at least once in a while...

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Yum, noir! Is this for a theoretical future project, hmmmmm? *waggles brows*

Tesserae already touched on the Bogart/Becall films; those are my faves. L.A. Confidential is a great flic. Road to Perdition might supply some great insights into the period. I really liked Miller's Crossing and Mulholland Drive and Mulholland Falls. Oooh oooh, Chinatown!

If I think of any other period detective dramas, I'll jot them down.

[korowjew26.livejournal.com]

My favorites: Gilda (1946)
The big Heat (1953) and any film noir by Fritz Lang

[janie-tangerine.livejournal.com]

Seconding Double Indemnity, Body Heat and any of the Bogart/Bacall ones (The Big Sleep especially, but there's one where he's on the run and he has plastic surgery made to his face which is shot from his POV for the first forty minutes which is awesome, but the original title is totally escaping me). Theeen Laura, While the City Sleeps, pretty much everything Fritz Lang did while in the US, The Big Heat, Gilda, Notorius, Out of the Past. Chinatown qualifies for noir too, at least for me. Seconding also who said Blade Runner (which is incidentally my favorite movie, so I have to XD). Also there's this western with Robert Mitchum named Pursued which is a mash-up of western, psychological and film noir which I've seen ages ago and isn't exactly famous but which was great. Oh, and The Night of the Hunter is excellent as well. Aaaand it's probably sad that I can't think of any modern ones that I liked...

[primrose-1.livejournal.com]

The Thin Man!! It's my absolute favorite!

[akadougal.livejournal.com]

The Third Man plays on a lot of film noir elements but is British and slightly quirky. And the music may drive you insane. I do adore it.

Do you mind foreign language films?

[marchia43.livejournal.com]

my absolute fav non English Language Film Noir has to be "Les Visiteurs Du Soir"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035521/

If I had to choose an English language one it would be the Original D.O.A
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042369/

Re: Do you mind foreign language films?

[ratherastory.livejournal.com]

Not at all! My mother tongue is French, as it happens. Thank you!

[baileytc.livejournal.com]

I'd add The Last Seduction to the modern noir list. When that movie was over, I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut--in a good way.