The idea of Noir From Modernism to Hammett

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The idea of Noir (From Modernism to Hammett
The Maltese Falcon)
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Quiz 1

• Naremore points out that the French critics who
  described Film Noir drew many of their ideas from
  what artistic movement?
• What philosophical movement, often associated
  with Jean-Paul Sartre, is often linked to film
  noir?
• Naremore compares Dashiell Hammett not to other
  pulp fiction writers, but instead to what sort of
  writers?
• Name the Hammett novel that become a highly
  successful film (and series of films), starring a
  martini-drinking detective, his high-society
  wife, and their dog.

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A Tale of Two Falcons1931 1941

• Compare two versions of Maltese Falcon
• In terms of "Noir style" cinematography,
  lighting, etc.
• In terms of "Noir-ness" of characters, story.

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The Maltese Falcon (1941)Dir John Huston

• Often viewed as the first "film noir."
• What's "noir" about The Maltese Falcon?
• Bogart's Sam Spade.
• Low camera angles, deep focus, some low-key
  scenes, shadows on Brigid's face at end.

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The Ambiguity of Noir

• Naremore "It has always been easier to
  recognize a film noir than to define the term.
• "There is in fact no completely satisfactory way
  to organize the category. . ."
• It is "one of the most amorphous categories in
  film history."

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The Noir "Perspective"

• Film Noir is not just a set of qualities found in
  certain films the term (and the idea) was coined
  by critics looking back at earlier films.
• Thus, Noir is also a way of looking at,
  categorizing, and even interpreting films.
• As much a critical perspective on films (and how
  to judge films) as a product of the films.
• Thus, Naremore argues, Noir can be seen as "a
  discourse" "a loose, evolving system of
  arguments and readings"

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Noir Pulp and Art

• Noir "discourse" borrows ideas not only from
  cinematic sources and pulp fiction, but also from
  literary, artistic, and philosophical sources.
• Coming together of popular/mass culture and
  artistic ideas.
• Among the artistic/philosophical sources are
  Surrealism Existentialism--and "Modernism" more
  generally.

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Hey, There's a Surrealist in my Noir!

• French critics see, in U.S. film noir, surrealist
  tendencies
• Borde Chaumeton "In this incoherent
  brutality, there is the feeling of a dream."
• Describe noir as "oneiric (dream-like), bizarre,
  erotic, ambivalent, and cruel." Typical of
  Surrealism.
• Noir (like surrealist art) attacks conventions of
  "logical action, an evident distinction between
  good and evil, well-defined characters with clear
  motives," etc.
• Admire the disruptive, disorienting tendencies of
  Noir, which inverts "capitalist and puritan
  values" of American society.

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Noir as Critique

• Read Noir as a critique of U.S. society, of
  bourgeois culture and values.
• Naremore For the French critics, "noir is not
  merely a descriptive term, but a name for a
  critical tendency within the popular cinema--an
  antigenre that reveals the dark side of savage
  capitalism."
• And, as Naremore points out, Noir (and Dashiell
  Hammett's "hard-boiled" fiction) does share many
  similarities with modernist art and literature.
• "Urban landscapes, subjective narration,
  nonlinear plots, hard-boiled poetry, and
  misogynistic eroticism"

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This Gun for Hire (1942)

• Directed Frank Tuttle
• From Graham Greene novel.
• Starring Alan Ladd (as Raven, the cool hit-man)
  Veronica Lake.
• Later, Melville's Le Samourai draws from This Gun
  for Hire.