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Rerunning Film Noir
by possibly noteworthy at 11:02 pm EDT, Aug 8, 2007

This article is being called an instant classic.

What it was addressing was not our promising future but our dark and anxious past. It was simplistically suggesting that the inflationary 1920s had so overheated our economy and our expectations that we had stupidly “bought” the inevitable retribution of the Depression. In other words, the parade, like film noir, was directing our attention backward, not forward. After the war, we were not so much disillusioned by our prospects as giddily illusioned by them, and the message of film noir was curiously at odds with the national mood.

RE: Rerunning Film Noir
by Stefanie at 1:47 pm EDT, Aug 9, 2007

Good article, overall.

Richard Schickel wrote:
The spirit of noir has never fully died. Indeed, the greatest noir of all, Chinatown, did not appear until 1974.

Great film, but "greatest noir of all"? I wouldn't go that far.

Tony D'Ambra wrote:
The dismissal of the influence of the European directors is defensive and does not help readers to understand the influence that these expatriates had. Existentialism is not even mentioned: the noir anti-hero is more of an outsider than a an urban refugee. And of course the French recognised the genre and provided an analytical framework.

I wouldn't say Schickel is being defensive, just because he's primarily focusing on the American cultural aspects involved, but I think he does gloss over the European influence. He mentions Fritz Lang and a few other European-born directors in passing, but at the very least, he should've tipped his hat to Lang's M.

Richard Schickel wrote:
There’s some dispute about what the first noir film was, but in my opinion the first truly great one was 1944’s Double Indemnity, which displayed most of the genre’s stylistic tics and narrative tricks.

In my opinion, The Maltese Falcon (the Bogart remake) is also "truly great," from three years earlier. I don't see how he can overlook that one. Double Indemnity is one of my favorites, though. If you're into Venetian blinds, it's a tough one to top. I consider it Fred MacMurray's best performance.