Film Noir Documentary

[poetman]

I'm looking for recommendations on film noir documentaries. Has anyone seen anything good? I'm interested in not only the films, but also the pulp novels that informed them. I'd appreciate thoughts from the lounge before turning to google at large. Thanks.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Actually, I just Googled this up and it looks good.

https://durnmoosemovies.wordpress.c...a-watch-these-two-documentaries-and-find-out/

I know I saw the PBS one at the link years ago. Not sure about the BBC one.

 

[MikeKardec]

Few people in the film world, meaning documentary makers, seem to recognize that many of the qualities of Film Noir had the sort of literary corollary that I believe you are referring to. It is true, however, that it took the French to slap a label on it and they probably weren't as familiar with the literary traditions that sparked the films that the French later appreciated and copied. Not that they didn't have an existentially dark literature, they just didn't tie it into the films they were seeing.

And, basically, few in Hollywood read if they don't have to.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Film Noir is one of those terms that is used so broadly it is almost meaningless although there are absolute canonical examples of the genre. The novels (I've read a number of them) don't really interest me much but I guess you could even include some Victorian proto-noir literature in there. James M Cain, Hammett and Chandler are the obvious 20th century sources. But so is Charles Dickens.

Regarding the films I remember in the early 1980's debating people about whether Blade Runner qualified as noir - it is essentially a rip off of a PI style movie, complete with hokey voice over (which I actually liked despite the director's cut). Are films which "borrow" from noir actually noir, or are they just pastiche no matter how good they turn out? What of Angel Heart - an almost perfect noir? Or Altman's Long Goodbye which takes the source material and subverts it delightfully in a dystopic 1970's way? Or the laborious period remake but fun Farewell My Lovely with Robert Mitchum from 1975?

Best classic era film noirs for me are Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil. I'm not overly keen on the Bogart noirs to be honest although I recognize their cult status. I prefer Dick Powell in 1944's Murder My Sweet/Farewell my Lovely. If I had to include a modern non-canonical work it would be Taxi Driver which is noir right down to its evocative Bernard Herrmann score.

At some point in the 1980's noirs or pseudo-noirs ended up as lugubrious exercises in style over substance (neon lights on a wet pavement - you know the kind of thing) and they all seemed to be made by cocaine addled MTV directors.