Film Noir

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Im in love with the genre. Any other noir fans around?

I'm not a big fan of film noir, but my favorites for classic film noir are:

The Maltese Falcon
Double Indemnity
Sunset BLVD
The Big Heat
The Third Man
Shadow Of A Doubt

My favorites for neo-noir are:

Brick
Memento
Sin City
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Body Heat
Dark City
Cape Fear {1991 version}
Zodiac

Dark City? Is that neo noir? Ive seen strangers on a train white heat touch of evil double indemnity and theoretically I suppose Charade might count. They all have

the femme fatale
Hardened detective
Betrayal
Lust
The psychotic criminal

I suppose Dark City has all of those things but it seems a little bit of a stretch to call it neo noir. The director did say that film noir was an influence but he drew more on films like Metropolis.

I first discovered film noir in university. It's remained one of my favourites.

Hey androbot good to see youve got an avatar now! Took me a while to work out what I wanted too

Funny im at university too and ive just discovered the genre. It was actually portishead cinematic orchestra and bonobo which first led me to noir. They all use the scores in their music. Lovely film scores! Henry Mancini did charade and it has one of my favourite openings. The opening for touch of evil is awesome too.

Always loved this song:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMAFDeVErxs[/youtube]

Wonderful song


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8ZKgJLSoYI[/youtube]


More noir-esque orchestral songcraft

This is a still from Nosferatu, an example of German expressionism (from which film noir drew inspiration.) One of my favourite films. I am trying to save up my pennies to see the new Dracula flick. I just hope it's not too gory. That was the thing about noir - build up and anticipation. No need for the graphic shots of today's media.

It's PG-13, so I wouldn't expect too much gore.

It's funny, people used to complain about horror movies being too gory and showing too much and never leaving anything to the imagination, but these days everyone complains when a movie is PG-13 and not as bloody and gory as possible. Go figure.

Metropolis is of course German Expressionism too. The cinematography is heartbreakingly beautiful. The current crop of CGI films are obsessed with detail and realism but there is no abstraction. Directors like Ingmar Bergman Hitchcock and Lang layer meaning and metaphor in their films. Ingmar Bergman's films are poetry just poetry. The final scenes of white heat are amazing. Those huge looming silver spheres are so potent.... theyre just waiting to go up in flames.

There's actually a term to place neo-noir movies that have sci-fi undertones to them in. It's called "tech-noir", or even better "sci-fi noir."

Ahhhh ive heard of tech noir. There seems to be some cyberpunk overlap. There's another major film/series in the tech noir category which might be cowboy bebop
Iain M Banks culture novels have film noir ideas tossed about throughout.

Films today in Hollywood are being made by bean counters and technicians. The film directors are graduates of MTV, hence flashiness and overt sexuality and appeal to people, mostly adolescents with a short attention span. The really good screen writers have been killed off by the writers strike of a few years ago and reality TV. CGI and overt violence and sexuality has replaced plot and story development.
Still a few good films being made out the US and Canada, mostly on small budgets and good films being made in Europe and the rest of the world by dedicated film makers who don't try to copy Hollywood style pictures.

I used to eat up Noir crime films, such as...

The Usual Suspects
Blue Velvet
Fargo
L.A. Confidential

among others.
Don't get me wrong, I still love that kind of movie, but I'm just not obsessive about them these days.

I used to eat up Noir crime films, such as...

The Usual Suspects
Blue Velvet
Fargo
L.A. Confidential

among others.
Don't get me wrong, I still love that kind of movie, but I'm just not obsessive about them these days.

Gattaca is another great sci-fi movie that has noir undertones to it.
Same with Minority Report and Blade Runner.