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Doomed. Everyone is Dooooomed!

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When I launched this current series of films back in January, I dubbed it Post-Depression Tragedy ; partly to compliment the series I had presented last year ( Depression/Comedy ). But beyond that, I personally feel that 1940s film noir is more than just "Dark Cinema". I chose the word Tragedy very deliberately. Scarlet Street , which I didn't screen last week, is about as dark as they come, but it's also cruel and sadistic; and it brutally punishes the main character chiefly because (in the judgement of the screenplay) he is the most pathetic order of life on the planet: a man who isn't a man . Noir can do better. At the very beginning of this series I quoted Jean Anouilh's discussion of Tragedy, which he describes as "restful". True tragedy is never sadistic or cruel because (in his reading) it is inevitable. There is no hope of escape because there is nowhere else for the story to go, and "that makes for tranquillity," as he puts it. ...
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Look... Don't Touch!

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About six months ago I presented a film series which I called Genre Fluid . Sometimes "noir" comes from the Kitchen Sink. I argued at the time that we can very easily fall into a trap when trying to label things. Does it really matter whether a film fits the dictionary definition of a "Western" or a "Rom-Com" (said I, at the time) and anyway who gets to decide what those definitions are in the first place? If a film is of merit (said I, at the time, said I) it should stand on its own. Why should we waste time and energy trying to stuff it into a box marked Sci-Fi or Chick-Flick ; especially if it doesn't fit exactly? Are we so obsessed with with putting labels on everything that we can't enjoy something for what it is unless we can establish what it isn't ? In a nutshell: Not everything is about pronouns . All of this is what I said six months ago. I then of course proceeded to devote a whole new series of films to exploring (and perhaps... de...
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You're in over your head, buddy!

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If you have been following the films that I have shown thus far in this season of noir , you will probably have noticed that a few faces tend to turn up again and again. Claire Trevor was a Femme Fatale in multiple films... …and Joan Bennett likewise has lent her talents to many a noir (with more to come before Easter!). But it's not just the top-billed actors who get repeat engagements. Hollywood of the 1930s and 40s often felt more like a repertory company, and it's not unusual to see a lot of familiar faces in various supporting roles. Elisha Cook Jr. has turned up in quite a few of these films, usually playing a nebbish on the fringes of respectable society. Esther Howard's cantankerous old lady has turned up in three of the films we have seen thus far this season... as I'm sure everyone has noticed! But there is one actor we have (astonishingly) yet to encounter in any of the films I have shown thus far. I say "astonishingly" because he was, for a while...
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