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.
I love the Coens… except for Raising Arizona.
I recognize all the words, but this sentence makes no sense.
I want to vote for Murder My Sweet, but that's more because it completely remade Dick Powell's image than because it's noir. So I'll vote for the surprisingly un-urban The Postman Always Rings Twice.
It now appears that Adrienne Shelly was murdered. Over a goddamn noise dispute, of all senseless bullshit.
Shit. That's awful. It's so bizarre to read about things like that happening in real life.
My favorite noir are the overripe ones like Sunset Boulevard and Touch of Evil. They're a little too baroque and mannered to qualify as a benchmark. My Ur-Noir would come from a pool of Criss Cross (Burt Lancaster and Yvonne Decarlo), The Killing (Sterling Hayden rules!), Nightmare Alley, The Big Heat, Gun Crazy or Detour.
Maybe The Killing. It's got the fatalism, the downer ending, a great femme fatale (Marie Windsor as the ultimate in castrating bitches), a fascinating plot and great, twisted minor characters like Timothy Carey. Also it's been very influential.
