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Notes from Underground

  And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment.  Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
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Hope

To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.-- Erich Fromm


FILM NOIR






FILM NOIR

"It was a dark night... the kind of night where the rain doesn't wash the scum off the streets, it just makes it glisten."







Source https://www.filmsite.org

What is Film Noir?


Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Nino Frank in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as  The Maltese Falcon (1941), Murder, My Sweet (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Laura (1944). A wide range of films reflected the resultant tensions and insecurities of the time period, and counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's musicals and comedies. Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evident in noir, reflecting the 'chilly' Cold War period when the threat of nuclear annihilation was ever-present. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict, purposelessness and sense of injustice. There were rarely happy or optimistic endings in noirs.
Classic film noir  developed during and after World War II, taking advantage of the postwar ambiance of anxiety, pessimism, and suspicion. It was a style of black and white
American films that first evolved in the 1940s, became prominent in the post-war era,
and lasted in a classic "Golden Age" period until about 1960 (marked by the 'last' film of
the classic film noir era, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) ).

Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film 
Noir: Themes and Styles

 The primary moods of classic film noir were melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia.
Heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains included down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, a lone wolf, socio-paths or killers, crooks, war veterans, politicians, petty criminals, murderers, or just plain Joes. These protagonists were often morally-ambiguous low-lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.

Storylines were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting. Narratives were frequently complex, maze-like and convoluted, and typically told with foreboding background music, flashbacks (or a series of flashbacks), witty, razor-sharp and acerbic dialogue, and/or reflective and confessional, first-person voice-over narration. Amnesia suffered by the protagonist was a common plot device, as was the downfall of an innocent Everyman who fell victim to temptation or was framed. Revelations regarding the hero were made to explain/justify the hero's own cynical perspective on life.

Film noir films (mostly shot in gloomy grays, blacks and whites) thematically showed the dark and inhumane side of human nature with cynicism and doomed love, and they emphasized the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience. An oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism, anxiety, suspicion that anything can go wrong, dingy realism, futility, fatalism, defeat and entrapment were stylized characteristics of film noir. The protagonists in film noir were normally driven by their past or by human weakness to repeat former mistakes.

Femmes Fatales in Film Noir

 The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable,
trustworthy and loving women; or femmes fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, doublecrossing,
gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible,
manipulative and desperate women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir wished to
elude his mysterious past, and had to choose what path to take (or have the fateful
choice made for him).





Cinematic Origins and Roots of Classic Film Noir
 
The themes of noir, derived from sources in Europe, were imported to Hollywood by emigre film-makers. Noirs were rooted in German Expressionism of the 1920s and 1930s, such as in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Germ.) or Fritz Lang's M (1931, Germ.), Fury(1936) andYou Only Live Once (1937). 
Another cinematic origin of film noir was from the plots and themes often taken from adaptations of American literary works - usually from best-selling, hard-boiled, pulp novels and crime fiction by Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, or Cornell Woolrich. As a result, the earliest film noirs were detective thrillers. 
Film noir was also derived from the crime/gangster and detective/mystery sagas from the 1930s (i.e., Little Caesar (1930), Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932)), but very different in tone and characterization. Notable film noir gangster films, such as They Drive By Night (1940), Key Largo (1948) and White Heat (1949) each featured noir elements within the traditional gangster framework. 

Orson Welles and Film Noir:
 
Orson Welles' films have significant noir features, such as in his expressionistically filmed Citizen Kane (1941), with subjective camera angles, dark shadowing and deep focus, and low-angled shots from talented cinematographer Gregg Toland.
The complex The Lady from Shanghai (1948) - with its plot (from Sherwood King's novel If I Should Die Before I Wake), told about a destructive love triangle between Irish seaman Michael O'Hara (Welles himself), a manipulative Rita Hayworth as the platinum  blonde-haired femme fatale Elsa (or Rosalie), and her husband Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane). Its final sequence in a San Francisco "hall of mirrors" fun-house was symbolic and reflective of the shattered relationships between the characters, exemplified by a wounded O'Hara's last words: "Maybe I'll live so long that I'll forget her. Maybe I'll die trying."

Welles' Mexican border-town B-movie classic Touch of Evil (1958) is generally
considered the last film in the classic cycle of film noirs. It starred Charlton Heston as Vargas - a naive Mexican-American narcotics cop, Janet Leigh as his imperiled, honeymooning wife Susan, and Welles' own corrupt and corpulent local cop Hank Quinlan. The film also featured a comeback appearance by cigar-smoking bordello madam Marlene Dietrich, and a breathtaking opening credits sequence filmed in a single-take. 

NOTES ON FILM NOIR(PAUL SCHRADER)>>>


FULL GUIDE TO FILM NOIR>>>


FILM NOIR FOUNDATION>>>


FILM NOIR IMDB>>>


1940
The Maltese Falcon 

To many, The Maltese Falcon is considered to be the first true film noir. A number of gangster films and detective films exist before and Dashiell Hammett's great hard-boiled novel was filmed previously as Satan Met A Lady but writer-director John Huston captured just the right aesthetic for classic film noir. Add to that the fact that the film made a star out of Humphrey Bogart, the quintessential noir leading man, and you can see why this film is considered the template for the genre as it developed over the next two decades.
The plot follows closely Hammett's novel with a few omissions for the sake of the censors. In the book, Bogart's Sam Spade is a truly nasty character and we root for him only because he is smarter and tougher than the other characters, all of whom are seeking the title bird. With Bogart as the star Huston knew he had an actor who could make a character as unlikeable as Spade engaging and even charming at times. It is no wonder that this film graduated Bogart to leading man status from character roles. Even when he is stabbing people in the back Bogart's Sam Spade is an irresistible antihero.





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‘The Maltese Falcon’ was a perfect directorial debut for John Huston >>>








1944
Double Indemnity 


For his third film as director, Billy Wilder chose to adapt a nasty little novel by James M. Cain. His regular writing partner, Charles Brackett, was so horrified by the choice of material that he didn't want anything to do with it. Wilder tapped crime writer Raymond Chandler instead to help him write the screenplay. The novel by Cain was so dark and morally ambivalent that getting around the censors was a real challenge. Wilder and Chandler gave the film a much tighter and more traditional structure than the novel had and invented the device that the protagonist was narrating the film into a dictaphone while he had a bullet in his belly.
The result is one of the great classics of film noir. An insurance salesman (Fred Macmurray) conspires with a client (Barbara Stanwyck) to kill her husband and collect the insurance payout. On their tail is his boss (Edward G. Robinson) who smells a rat but has no idea that the scam is so close to home. Stanwyck's performance defined the "femme fatale" for decades to come. She seems sexy, dangerous and a bit trashy all at the same time. Both Wilder and Chandler were known as wizards with dialogue and here they have created a screenplay that is one of the most quotable ever written for the silver screen.






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Roger Ebert Great Movies : Double Indemnity >>>

‘Double Indemnity’: A Mesmerizing Film Noir  Conceived Out of a Troubled Relationship of Two Greats >>>






1944
Laura 

Going into this one you want to know as little as possible. I knew nothing about the film when I first saw it on television as a teenager and its plot twists are truly remarkable when you know almost nothing about the plot going in. Coming out the same year as Double indemnity, Laura was a totally different kind of film while at the same time being a perfect example of classic noir style. Director Otto Preminger had a much better grasp of visual aesthetics than Billy Wilder and the film seems engrossing and dreamlike from start to finish, thanks to both his excellent visuals and the haunting title song that is perhaps even more famous than the movie itself. (see video.)
The premise concerns itself with a detective (Dana Andrews) investigating a murder of a socialite (Gene Tierney) and slowly finding himself falling in love with the victim. To tell you anything else about the film would be criminal. You owe it to yourself to experience this one without all the marketing hype.






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1946
The Postman Always Rings Twice

Once again based on a book by James M. Cain, this film was much more faithful to its source. A drifter (John Garfield) gets work at a diner and starts an affair with the owner's wife (Lana Turner) before hatching a plot to kill her husband off for his money. Turner was dressed in white by the studio because she was considered so sexy that an angelic color was needed to mute the effect. (or so legend goes.) While director Tay Garnett was not the auteur that the directors of other films on this list are now considered, he still crafted an excellent adaptation of Cain's work.
It is worth noting that this may be the most "existential" of the films gathered on this list. Cain's work was an influence on French philosopher Albert Camus and his novel The Stranger was in part an homage to Cain. If you find yourself pondering the meaning of it all while watching this film don't say I didn't warn you.





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1946
The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler was one of the most celebrated writers of the “hard-boiled” detective genre and his books were adapted to the screen many times, sometimes more than once. Still, none of them are as good as director Howard Hawks take on the first of Chandler’s novels to feature private detective Philip Marlowe. Hawks simply wanted a good vehicle for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall after he directed them in To Have and to Have Not and at first glance Chandler’s novel didn’t seem like the best fit but by turning Marlowe from a loner PI, into more of a ladies man and modifying the ending a bit it ended up being one of the most famous teamings of the real life couple.
The Big Sleep is also famous for its convoluted plot. When Hawks couldn’t figure out who committed one murder he asked his three screenwriters (including novelists William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett) who had done the deed. When he called Chandler himself he was shocked to find out that the author didn’t know the answer. He finally decided it didn’t matter and audiences have been so engrossed in this film ever since that they have never complained.






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1947
Out of the Past

One of the themes of film noir is the seedy hidden underbelly that lurks just below the surface. This film capitalizes on that theme exploring the life of a seemingly ordinary gas station owner (Robert Mitchum) who has his dark past come back to haunt him. Kirk Douglas gives a memorable performance as the man with a grudge against Mitchum and part of the appeal of this film is watching those two intense actors square off against each other.
Director Jacques Tourneur was a genius with atmosphere and he made the usually B-grade scripts that he was given to work with shine with his superior craft. This is his finest hour. When asked what he expected his contribution to film history to be Tourneur replied, “none.” He was definitely wrong about that.





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Roger Ebert Great Movies : Out of the Past >>>
1949
The Third Man  

There are a number of reasons that this film is great. Brilliant cinematography and a classic score, a twisting plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat, Orson Welles giving the famous “cuckoo clock” speech are among them. It is rare to see so many outstanding elements blend together in such an intoxicating whole. We have director Carol Reed to thank for bringing those elements together so brilliantly from a novel by Graham Greene.
Joseph Cotton stars as a writer of Westerns who has come to Vienna in search of his old friend Harry Lime but finds he has seemingly been killed in an accident. Things don’t quite add up though and he finds himself pulled into the dealings his friend had set in motion long before he arrived.



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Roger Ebert Great Movies : The Third Man >>>

THE THIRD MAN (1949) >>>
1950
In a Lonely Place

While I chose to limit this list to one film per director Bogart still manages to slip onto this list three times with three different directors at the helm. This time it is Nicolas Ray best known for Rebel Without a Cause. Bogie plays a Hollywood screenwriter with a drinking problem and predisposition for violence. He ends up suspected of the murder of a hatcheck girl but gets an alibi from his mysterious neighbor. (Gloria Graham) The two start a romantic relationship but he remains under suspicion for the murder and as time goes by it becomes less clear whether he really is innocent.
In a Lonely Place isn’t just one of the great noirs but a great tragic love story. Also interesting is what was going on behind the scenes. Bogart and Ray made the film as friends but by the end of production were not speaking and Graham, who was married to Ray, would soon divorce him and marry his son. Who knows how such a great film got made with everybody at each other’s throats.








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1955
Kiss Me Deadly

Hollywood had been churning out noir films for over a decade before director Robert Aldrich got the chance to adapt this Mickey Spillane novel. Aldrich didn’t think much of Spillane’s novel and he thought that his detective Mike Hammer was a fascist, so his film has a definite satirical bent, portraying Hammer as an arrogant and amoral cretin that gets into a tough case by accident and realizes too late that he is in over his head.
Aldrich wants to go against the grain almost immediately. The credits scroll down toward us as we watch Hammer and a woman he has picked up speed away in his car and the backwards, top down movement already puts us on edge. This film is an absolute triumph of style but it has something to say too. Aldrich sees Hammer as the absolute worst parts of the American psyche and he used him to give the culture a scathing critique.







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1958
Touch Of Evil 

By the late 50s Orson Welles career as a director was in real trouble. He had been a wunderkind in 1941, pushing the boundaries of what cinema could be with Citizen Kane but film after film had failed at the box office and getting financing for each new project just kept getting harder. Welles had no choice but to do a commercial project and when Charlton Heston wanted him to direct him in a movie based on a lurid pulp novel, where Heston would play a character that was Mexican he had to take it.
Welles threw himself into the project. He opened the film with one of the most stunning long takes in cinema history. (see video) He played the film’s villain, a corrupt border town sheriff who “never framed anybody who wasn’t guilty” and shot some of the strangest and haunting images a film noir had ever included. Despite this, the film still turned out to be too weird to be a hit but continues to be watched and studied by generations of movie buffs today.

Roger Ebert Great Movies : Touch of Evil  >>>

‘Touch of Evil’: Orson Welles’ Grandiose Film Noir that Took Four Decades to Shine In Its Intended Form >>>







The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The movie went from failure to classicwithout passing through success.
George Axelrod, screenwriter

The film is based on the 1959 novel by Richard Condon, who must have been astonished that it became a film with big stars like Sinatra, Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey -- and still more astonished that Frankenheimer and Axelrod did not soften its wicked satire. It was made in what’s considered to be the last year of American innocence; it’s no coincidence that American Graffiti is also set in 1962 Within a year of the film’s release, the country would begin to explode with assassinations, race riots, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations. “The Manchurian Candidate” was sort of a preview of what was just around the corner.



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