by Jason Suzuki
Essentially amounting to a Hallmark holiday for those needing a reason for themed viewing sessions, “Noirvember” is the cutesy follow up to Spooptober. The perfect time of the year for the Film Noir Foundation to show off new restorations virtually (positive) and for distribution companies to move some of their crime thriller stock (indifferent). Just another dose of internet birthed inanity injected into the month that claims such things as the social media friendly Movember along with the No Nutting challenges. Still, I bought into it hard. Move over Native American Heritage Month.
After fifty or so films eventually thoughts would form:
In a couple of films I took notice of instances of the “Weegee shot.” One aspect to Weege’s genius is finding the humor in a moment, sometimes with the use of signage. A tragedy in the foreground but pockets of information in the frame that point to the absurd. My go to example of this is not a pavement kissing stiff but of a building on fire with an advertisement on the top for all beef frankfurters. Further down the building the ad continues on banners, one of which reads, “Simply add boiling water.” Still visible as firefighters blast into the windows. There’s a directness to the irony and an economy to the style that lends itself to a “noir” vibe.
Here are two examples of a Weegee shot. Both feature a man shot down. Out of context it’s rather hard to tell who it is. The unnamed corpse is an image more associated with Weegee’s work, where he’d sometimes get to a scene of a crime before the cops.
But looking at the signage near the bodies might elicit a chuckle at how it deflates the situation of its dramatic impact. These characters could not beat the system whether by breaking its laws or fighting against corruption, and even in their dying moments they are surrounded by it.
Shield for Murder (1954)
The Phenix City Story (1955)
As far as noir ladies go, no one is more cartoon wolf, red-carpet-tongue-inducing than Ella Raines. She looks dangerous but from what I’ve seen - The Web, Phantom Lady, The Walking Hills, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry - she plays wholesome. Phantom Lady makes the best use of this vibe of mystery.
I’ve found in a collection of items written anonymously in a French newspaper in 1906 a spiritual precursor to the hard-boiled school. Novels in Three Lines collects the work of Félix Fénéon, an anarchist and art critic who wrote these headlines blurbs for newspaper Le Matin. Local stories of crime, social and political mayhem, and other mishaps with both a detached brevity - so brusque when it comes to tragedy it elicits humor - and a sly commentary that speaks to a view that the world is absurd, unfair, and brutal.
Some read like brief synopses:
Eugene Perichot, of Pailles, near Saint-Maixent, entertained at his home Mme Lemartier. Eugene Dupois came to fetch her. They killed him. Love.
The sinister prowler seen by the mechanic Gicquel near Herblay train station has been identified: Jules Menard, snail collector.
Poor man Urien was alone in the home of rich man Jacq, in Saint-Pol-de-Leon. Burglars broke in and knocked him out.
Or beginnings to a story:
A corpse floated downstream. A sailor fished it out at Boulogne. No identification; a pearl-gray suit; about 65 years old.
Or endings:
“I could have done worse!” exultantly cried the murderer Lebrat, sentenced at Rouen to hard labor for life.
Others embody the “too late” mentality:
A dishwasher from Nancy, Vital Frerotte, who had just come back from Lourdes cured forever of tuberculosis, died Sunday by mistake.
The same dry lens could be applied to the plot of a film noir. My attempt:
The Sniper (1952): Young Eddie Miller, a delivery man in San Francisco, lacked skill with women, so he took to shooting them.
Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise, 1959) is a standout title in this canon. An atypical heist picture. How many other films show its characters just waiting for hours in pre-heist ennui? What’s really different is how there is a sense that these men could have pulled the thing off if it weren’t for their prejudices against each other. It’s common enough to see the plans go awry whether through bad luck or maybe some personality defect like one of the crooks is trigger happy, but here the botched heist is explicit as a metaphor for society. There’s no moralizing about the bank robbery. We see the commonalities between Belafonte and Ryan, where each has been backed into a corner (mostly of their own making). It should beget comradery but no. The finale of the film has an angry energy as two of them keep racing towards the dead end of hate.
The film does toy with expectations by planting seeds of doom and bad luck: When Belafonte is pulled aside by a cop to act as witness to a car accident in the town where they’re pulling the heist; when the gearhead kid at the gas station sees the souped-up engine Robert Ryan has in what was supposed to be his inconspicuous getaway car. That same kid is hanging out at the diner around the corner from the bank later that night. All are out of their control but it’s a twist that these aren’t what spoil the plan. Possibly they are there to show how stacked the deck is against these men, suggesting that even if they pull it off with getting the cash out of town, it will still catch up to them. It’s human nature to think in terms of us vs. them but these men have been tricked into thinking that the them is their brother and hence no endeavor can be accomplished.
When it comes to defining a noir one essential building block to me is that there needs to be an element of crime. It’s other thematic concerns and the stylistic choices that reflect those concerns which differentiate a gangster picture (i.e. another type of crime picture) from a “film noir.” As a starting point of noir justification, crime seems like a good base, but something about this seems weak. Examples that contradict this remain on the tip of the tongue but I’m at a loss. Existential horror, alienation, and guilt - strongly associated with noir - are not exclusive to criminals. The law abiding population is welcome to them as well. But where is the starting point if not a crime or the path to commit a crime? Where does the hard-boiled, fatalistic spirit of noir spring from in a character if there was no moral forfeiture on their part? And on the other end, what do these feelings culminate in if not crime/violence? Omitting crime you have slice of life noir, of which there must be examples, I’m just drawing a blank.