I'd take The Big Sleep.
Gunn ,'Power Play'
Buffista Movies 5: Development Hell
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Out of the Past for me.
Double Indemnity!
I'm in a rush so maybe I misunderstood... I don't understand why the creators have to be consciously thinking "I am working in this genre" in order for it to count. Was Poe not writing detective stories? I don't even know what it means to say it's a "real" genre or not. None of them are real. They're just categories.
And unrelated: I love the Coens… except for Raising Arizona.
And unrelated: I love the Coens… except for Raising Arizona.
Oh no! I have that saved on my DVR for eventual viewing.
But, of course, you often have weird tastes, and I like Nicolas Cage.
except for Raising Arizona.
DUDE! That movie is the best of the Coen's work! "Son, you've got a panty on your head."
I liked Nicolas Cage in Raising Arizona, and I think possibly never again after that.
Was Poe not writing detective stories?
I'd posit that, if you don't know you're part of a tradition -- in Poe's case, if there is no tradition until you've invented it -- then you interact differently with the elements that make up that tradition. Poe's mysteries are really very strange, to the eyes of a modern mystery reader, because the generic elements of mystery hadn't been formalized yet.
I think the point David is trying to make (hold on a second while I channel his brains) is that the films noirs are very hard to describe with a single set of formal descriptors or narrative descriptors, because they were all over the map both formally and narratively. The original noir grouping is a mood grouping, and the retroactive "well all films noirs have this element or that element" tends to simplify what was going on at the time.
I'd posit that, if you don't know you're part of a tradition -- in Poe's case, if there is no tradition until you've invented it -- then you interact differently with the elements that make up that tradition.That may be. I don't know why that matters. I mean, I'm not being snarky... Like I said, genre describes the product. What happens in the artist's head is irrelevant to that, as far as I'm concerned.
the retroactive "well all films noirs have this element or that element" tends to simplify what was going on at the time.Well, sure. All classifications simplify. That is what they're for.
But, of course, you often have weird tastes, and I like Nicolas Cage.I liked Cage fine then. The being contrary thing really does come naturally to me, though. I guess I was 14 when we saw it? My parents really liked it, and I was meh. Babies; whatever. But that led them to rent Blood Simple, which was something we could all enjoy.
My classic noir is "The Maltese Falcon." The book and the movie both completely revolutionized my perspective on media.
And unrelated: I love the Coens… except for Raising Arizona.
You rule. Seriously, it's so overrated.