Film Noir

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Wow, I'm a big fan of film noir, thanks for opening a topic. Has a filmmaker myself most of my works are inspired by film noir or neo noir.
But what is film noir?

James Ellroy said about it : " It's a righteous, generic american film movement that went from 1945 to 1958. And it exposed one great thing, and that thing is you are f****d. You have just met a woman, you are two inches away from the greatest sex of your life, but with in 6 week from meeting the woman you will be framed for a crime you did not commit and end up in the gas chamber, and has they strap you in has you are about to breath the cyanide fumes, you will be grateful for the few weeks you had with her and grateful for your own death".

Film Noir was also very controversial for it's time, and broke all the rules and codes, and censorship groups had problems with them, because criminals never where brought to justice, the leads where not heroes but bad bad guys, the women where pure Femme Fatales who where emancipated from men and acted in the most evil manners. Has for the style being inspired from German expressionism it's true, but we also think of Noir has having these very stylish lights, and blacks, and shadows, yes it also defines noir, but the reality is because they where B movies or second screening movies (back in the days theater would show the big film first and a cheaper one after) and where made with less money, resulting in less light, but allowing more creativity. Of course quickly A list directors and actors started making Noir to.
Anyway, here is my list of my favorite noir films.
Gilda
Double Indemnity
Laura
Gun Crazy
The Maltese Falcon
Touch of Evil
Out of the Past (my very favorite Film Noir)
Fallen Angel
This Gun for Hire
The Lady from Shanghai
The Big Sleep (the one that started the craze)
Kiss of Death

And how can we forget Neo Noir
Blade Runner (of course)
Bound (from the same directors who made The Matrix)
Basic Instinct
Blood Simple
Chinatown
Mulholland Dr
Dark City
Sin City (of course)
Body double

And for those who want to know a little more in a short video, check this out.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i2CsU2ldQA[/youtube]

ps : sorry for my long expose, but I just love the genre.

James Elroy is one of my very favorite writers, and his novel, American Tabloid, is one of my very favorite books. Now, that would make a kick ass movie!

I love James Ellroy, big fan of his work, sadly I live in a country that sees a successful author has "popular" and that is a bad word in France... Don' try to figure out the mentality, I can't either.

I don't mind the blood and gore and never complain, it's just that I complain when they don't show anything just to get a Pg-13 just to get more butts in the seats of the theater, I complain when they water everything down for the teenage audience. But if Pg-13 was made in an honest way, where the filmmaker just put his own vision on the screen and got that rating, I'm fine, it's just doing it voluntary that bothers me. Like they did for Dracula Untold.

Humphrey Bogart, Gangster films, and Hitchcock. Great classics.

I've seen several of them. I wonder how they would have turned out if they had today's technology available to those actors and crew?

i love Gattaca. saw it first in biology class, freshman year of high school and it has quite the nostalgia factor but i admit i did not pick up any noir undertones. is The Night Porter noir i wonder? i watched it recently.

while i do not see many noir style films i do have an interest in noir style urban photography!

Gattaca has all the hallmarks of noir. Its a very loose category so there are really no hard and fast rules but the main themes are:

+ Assumption of an another identity
+ The execution of a complex crime
+ Detective who is revealed to have conflicting inner motivations
+ The overall sense of style and space in the film
+ Story telling which isn't entirely linear making use of memory and recollected events

There are more and even though items from this list could appear in multiple films their presence in the *same film really suggests that the classic noir of 1940-59 was a major influence

Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity in my opinion was the greatest femme fatale.

^^
IMO, Rita Hayworth in Gilda was the greatest femme fatale.

Kitty from Scarlet Street. The painting of her is quite powerful. She was at once a femme fatale and a woman trapped in an abusive relationship.

As for neo noir, IMO, the best femme fatale so far has been Kathleen Turner in Body Heat.