Friday, 5/9/97 ‘Dames & Dicks’ explores appeal of film noir
style
By Brandon Wilson Daily Bruin Staff It will be the duty of
future film historians, social critics, or perhaps psychologists to
explain why film noir has enjoyed such a resurgence in the 1990s.
Could it be this decade returns to paranoia, a maturation of the
lust for sex and violence from the action movie level of the 1980s?
Or is it a random piece of retro fad? Whatever the underpinnings,
the last few years have been good for lovers of noir and
hard-boiled crime yarns. And for the third year running, L.A.’s
premier art house will be holding a festival celebrating the best
in noir. Called "Dames & Dicks: Noir at the Nuart" the series
will show films ranging from the classics of Hollywood’s Golden Age
in the 1940s and ’50s, the revisionist noir of the ’60s and ’70s,
and the relatively successful attempts at neo-noir brought to us in
the ’90s. "Film noir" was the name given to a kind of thriller or
crime film by those French critics at Cahiers du Cinema in the late
’50s. They recognized in American crime films a certain recurrence
of themes and style: moral ambiguity, dark psyches colliding, the
inextricable link between sex and violence, and the pervading doom
that claims even the most virtuous of characters. Noir isn’t
technically a genre – it’s a style of mystery/crime film, resulting
in the fusion of 1930’s hard-boiled pulp lit and the influx of
German expressionism to Hollywood following a mass artistic exodus
from a Nazi-smudged Europe. The original cycle ran roughly from the
early ’40s to the mid ’50s, and films since then that seek to
retrace the erratic footsteps of noir are referred to as neo-noir,
so as not to be confused with the original works. Tonight, the
Nuart will feature one of the best double features of late-era noir
imaginable: John Boorman’s "Point Blank" (1967) and Robert
Aldrich’s "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955). Starring the late, great Lee
Marvin, the former is the story of a professional thief betrayed by
his best friend, his wife and his occasionally surreal odyssey to
get what’s due to him. Its gonzo visual style, experimental editing
and CinemaScope cinematography make this one a must-see. Aldrich’s
"Kiss Me Deadly" (oh-so loosely based on a Mike Hammer novel by
Mickey Spillane) is so esteemed that it’s considered by noir
experts to mark the end of the film noir era. Ralph Meeker plays
private Dick Hammer, and the film features a plot and visual style
as bizarre as anything the genre had seen at the time. Saturday
night features a pair of contemporary films influenced by noir: the
Coen Brother’s "Fargo" and John Dahl’s "The Last Seduction." Sunday
night features a pair of adaptations of work by the genre’s
literary twin titans, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Hammett’s "The Maltese Falcon" was directed by John Huston in one
of the genre’s best adaptations (featuring a fabulous cast with
Humphrey Bogart in the lead); Chandler’s "Farewell, My Lovely"
became Edward Dmytryk’s "Murder My Sweet," arguably the best movie
version of a Phillip Marlowe mystery. Monday night brings Jack
Smight’s "Harper" (1966) and Alan J. Pakula’s "Klute" (1971);
"Harper" stars Paul Newman as author Ross MacDonald’s private eye
(originally named Lew Archer) hired by Lauren Bacall to settle a
family matter, and "Klute" snagged Jane Fonda an Oscar for her turn
as a call girl/actress in jeopardy. Both show how subtly the genre
could be made to adapt to the times it was set in without losing
its link with the past. Noir is on hand Tuesday night with the
double bill of Carl Franklin’s "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995) and
Gordon Parks Sr.’s "Shaft" (1971). Rounding out the series is the
underrated "Night Moves" (1975), directed by Arthur Penn, with John
Huston’s "Key Largo" (1948) on next Wednesday. And the series
closes next Thursday with two classics from noir’s first cycle:
Jacques Tourneur’s "Out of The Past" (1947) and Otto Preminger’s
"Laura" (1944), two masterworks of the genre which have left their
respective marks on countless bits of neo-noir ever since. Noir,
like any genre, can get so caught up in the tropes and cliches of
its own lineage that it forgets that taut stories and fractured
characters made the genre great. If recent lackluster attempts at
neo-noir have soured you on the form, sample any of the above
evenings and see first hand why tough-guy cinema left a mark on the
movies. FILM: "Dames & Dicks" runs through next Thursday at the
Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd. Call 310-473-8530.