J.D. Hansel

film noir

Murder, My Sweet Review

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There’s a lot to like about this movie – the characters, the dialogue, the visuals, and many of the scenes.  A lot of the story, from what I can tell, is good too … but I can’t tell.  And therein lies the problem.

Film noirs (or “films noir” for more proper writers than I) are known for their convoluted plots that some film scholars have noted can be almost unintelligible.  I view this as such a film.  This is a detective story, so more information is being revealed throughout the story, and while the protagonist is able to put it all together, the audience is left in the dust.  What’s frustrating is that the ending, in which everything explained, doesn’t help much.

Even though I was paying attention to the part of the movie that lays out what happened in this movie, I still don’t know what happened in this movie.  I think I know who killed whom, but I can’t figure out why the murder was committed, how the murder was committed, or how any of the several other characters factor into this.  I couldn’t explain this film’s story to anyone if my life depended on it – not even the gist of it.  This is strange and frustrating since I am often able to predict where mystery movies are going well in advance (or at least where Sherlock episodes are going) so this shouldn’t be a problem for me.

Fortunately, it’s really not that big a problem for the movie either.  The film is quite fun and engaging without the details of the murder mystery.  It’s entertaining just by being the kind of film that it is, and I can appreciate that.  Its ending is one of the best in the history of film.  But in my book, that’s just not quite enough to make it one of the greats.

Notorious (1946) Review

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It took me a while to recognize the fact that this film is great.  Part of that’s a side effect from the fact that this film is one of Hitchcock’s somewhat lesser-known works – it’s hard to get a good copy of it on DVD with good sound quality, so I had a hard time hearing the dialogue.  When you have to replay scenes over and over again like I did (just to hear them), you lose a lot of what makes a Hitchcock film work.  You need to let yourself become completely and effortlessly lost in the mood of the scene – to let each scene wash over you.  Once I finally moved my DVD to a player that let me turn the subtitles on, I was finally able to stop trying to tell what was going on and just experience it.  Once I did that, it made all the difference, and I could see clearly that this film is quite brilliant.

Since some of the earlier scenes in the film are a little boring (the story takes a while to build) the first thing I noticed about Notorious that really impressed me was the cinematography.  As one would expect from a film noir by Alfred Hitchcock, it’s excellent, but not just because it’s visually pleasing – although it certainly is that.  What’s great about it is the way Hitchock shows us different kinds of shots that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, thus creating moods and feelings I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before.  Hitchcock uses the camera to tell his story, carefully revealing only what he wants us to see when he wants us to see it and creating a level of subjectivity from the characters’ perspective that puts us in the shoes of the characters all the more.

That being said, the story is compelling enough without the camera’s help.  While I’ve only seen about three or four of Hitchcock’s films previously, it feels like more attention was paid to the script this time than in most of his films.  You don’t watch this movie for the scary silhouette with the knife coming at you or for the birds attacking the children.  It’s not horror.  The viewer is simply so wrapped up in the characters’ mission that he/she cannot help but be scared, purely from the suspense of knowing they may get caught.  Right up until the movie’s end, the intensity of the drama is turned up to ten, making it impossible to look away from the screen.  As if that wasn’t enough, the dialogue is exquisitely clever, and it doesn’t hurt that story is being performed by many of the greatest actors of Classical Hollywood, who present some of their finest work here.

And did I mention that I adore Ingrid Bergman?  Because I adore Ingrid Bergman.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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When I was a kid, I remember feeling torn about old movies – and by that I mean Classical Hollywood-era movies.  I liked a fair amount of the musicals and family films, but for the most part, I just found old movies to be too boring.  When I tried watching Casablanca, I wasn’t just bored – I was terribly confused.  I couldn’t keep track of the politics, I didn’t understand the history, and I struggled to discern what the characters were really communicating through all their ’40s slang and discreet language.  It took me many years of watching many films from different time periods before I got to the point that I could easily follow the story of the average classic movie, but by now I really feel like I speak the language . . . and then there’s The Maltese Falcon.

When I watched this movie, I had to repeat certain parts of it (particularly in the early scenes) in order to make sure I was picking up on everything.  That’s unusual for me.  I can stay ahead of most other viewers when I watch an episode of Sherlock, but this movie is, for the first third or so, quite difficult to follow.  Even once it gets going, it’s a little bit boring, and it doesn’t help that the ending can be predicted from a mile away, taking away the dramatic suspense.  What makes up for all this is the characters.  Not only does Maltese Falcon offer a classic Bogart performance, but it features Peter Lorre in one of his funniest roles and Sydney Greenstreet as one of the most fun (and best written) antagonists I’ve seen in film.  Because none of the characters are all that likable or relatable in the sense one would expect from Hollywood, I’m not too inclined to root for anyone to “win,” which hurts this particular story, but there’s still plenty of intrigue to keep the viewer interested.  It’s not entirely my kind of thing, but I can always appreciate a movie that’s simply good at being film noir, and this film is just that.

Sunset Boulevard Review

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Every now and again, I’m quite surprised which members of my family decide to sit down by the TV and join me in watching a movie that I wouldn’t think is his/her kind of thing.  This happened most recently when I was spending a weekend at my parents’ house and I put Sunset Boulevard on the big screen.  This is a dark, dramatic satire of Hollywood mixed with Gothic chills and romantic comedy from 1950, yet my 12-year-old sister decided to watch it with me.  What made this so special is that Sunset Boulevard happens to be not only a great film by one of my favorite directors, but also a very useful teaching tool.

The first reason why this film is helpful for learning about film history is that it concerns icons of silent cinema, so it re-introduces its viewers to the era with a focus on Cecil B. DeMille, cameos by actors from the time, and an impression of Charlie Chaplin (a very good one, I might add).  Oddly, this actually makes it a very good example of 1950s cinema as well.  The films of the 1950s generally seem to show an awareness of the fact that Hollywood was in a state of crisis as its studio system was falling apart and its Code was weakening, and this film, much like 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, parallels this with the crisis actors from the silent era faced when they had to learn how to succeed in the sound era.  This film, then, offers the flip side to Singin’ in the Rain, showing how tragic it was for the stars (like Lena) who couldn’t keep shining through the 1930s.  The one thing that makes this a poor example of 1950s film is that it can be seen as a film noir (a relatively small genre) due to its uncommon traits and tropes – voice-over narration explaining the story of how a man died, chilling exploration of the psychology of madness, a narrative about choosing between the good girl and the intimidating woman, deep, jagged shadows and wild chiaroscuro lighting, and general sense that everything is spiraling down towards a gloomy, unsettling end.

Best of all, Sunset Boulevard is a good example of a great film.  This is Billy Wilder at his best, bringing together a great cast and working through serious psychological subjects with a a healthy dose of comedy.  The script is smart, carefully setting up its rather forced story in a way that somehow still feels natural and giving nearly every significant character some wonderful, clever dialogue.  Gloria Swanson, of course, steals the show as Norma Desmond – I could taste the scenery she was chewing – and the performance she gives is surely one of the finest (and one of the most over-the-top) in all of cinema’s history.  The film is made that much better by its stunning visuals, which could have simply been there for the heck of it, but Wilder puts them to good use aiding the story, defining the characters, and saturating the drama.  The film that results may be rather slow and boring at times, but it is still one of the best introductions to Classical Hollywood cinema I know, and I hope to watch it with the rest of my family someday.  If Norma Desmond ever needed proof that the pictures didn’t get small, this is it.

Laura Review

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MINOR SPOILER WARNING

While the exact list of what constitutes a “film noir” is always up for debate, I argue that one of the most under-recognized criteria is that weird and seemingly random moment that has the audience asking, “Where the heck did that come from?”  This film clearly checks that box.

Structurally, Laura is not too unconventional, essentially relying on the three-act structure of most films, but to me it feels like two acts.  This is because one twist in the story (which comes in around the 45-minute, placing it at the very middle of the film) is such a big game changer that it seems to suddenly turn the film in a totally different direction.  It almost becomes a different kind of film, because the way I think about what the point of this movie is is determined by this twist.  Perhaps more significantly, the first half of the film is just plain boring, whereas the second half is entirely captivating.  I almost didn’t finish the film because, in spite of some great performances from this great cast, it wasn’t grabbing me after a half hour.  Seeing as how this is now one of my favorite films in the mystery genre, I think it goes without saying that I’m awfully glad I stuck it out.  (It’s also great to have one of the most famous films in the genre checked off my list, and to know the origins of the great  David Raksin jazz song of the same name.)

What makes it an interesting movie, in my opinion, is the question of subjectivity.  At this aforementioned turning point in the movie, the film grammar suggests that we’ve gone into a dream sequence.  The problem is that we, the audience, don’t know for sure, so we’re spending the second half of the two movies trying to solve two mysteries at once: the murder mystery, and the question of whether or not the protagonist is dreaming.  This makes the film an absolute joy from then on, with more twists and turns to up the hype, and an ending that offers great satisfaction for anyone with the patience to make it this far.  Since this is one of the few famous films noir to have an almost permanent residence on Netflix (streaming), I highly suggest devoting 50 minutes to watching this movie – just 50 minutes – and anyone who isn’t hooked at that point can stop.  On the other hand, anyone who does stick through the whole film gets to experience a great example of what one of the bigger-budget Hollywood films noir looks like, and that alone is worth the wait.

The Third Man Review

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Have you ever seen one of those movies that pulls such a clever trick on you with its slick, surprising writing that you just sit back, swallow your pride, and give it a nice, slow clap?

This is The Third Man, which is one of those odd films known as a “British Noir.”  It’s within the cinematic territory of film noir, most certainly, yet it comes from another country, which goes against some definitions of what can be counted as real film noir.  It’s really a shame, too – I want to count it as film noir because I think it’s the best film noir.  I’ve written before about how film noir is my kind of genre, with over-the-top drama, cynical representations of humanity, and an atmosphere of extreme, theatrical darkness, but there are very few films in the genre that I really enjoy as movies.  Sure, nearly each and every one I’ve seen has looked great, but the stories, characters, and general logical structures have often been severely lacking, so I can really only think of two or three films noir that I can say I love.  Of course, with the addition of The Third Man, it’s three or four, because this is almost certainly my favorite thus far.

It may seem like I’ve been so disappointed by films noir in the past (see Detour) that I could very easily be pleased by a film in the genre that just had a decent story, good plot twists, smart dialogue, and enjoyable characters, but I actually came into this film with high expectations.  The cinematographer on the short film I’m working on at the moment told me it’s her favorite movie of all time, which is an odd thing to hear about a 1940s British drama from a millennial college student.  I was ready to heavily scrutinize this film, but there’s really so little here to hate.  The characters are stronger here than they are in nearly any noir I’ve seen since Double Indemnity, which is probably my favorite American noir, and the visuals here (including atmosphere, camera angles, lighting, editing, location choices – all of it) may be the best I’ve seen in any noir since Key Largo, which is possibly my second-favorite.  I love the writing of this movie particularly because it’s so intelligent in the way it delivers information and transitions to new scenarios, consistently throwing the viewers off guard while keeping them engaged.

The one hinderence to this sense of engagement, however, is the pacing.  Some of the film has excellent pacing, but much of it seems to lag, making for several scenes that are just plain boring.  Even the ending, which I think is fairly difficult to get wrong when it’s been set up so perfectly such that any almost any imaginable ending after the climax’s conclusion would have provided satisfactory closure, is remarkably boring.  I imagine that the slow pacing is largely for deliberate, artistic reasons, but it’s still a major fault on the movie’s part for me because it pulls me out of the story – just as I get sucked into the emotions of the characters, a tedious moment arises that makes me zone out and miss information.  This is very frustrating, and what makes it so strange and disappointing is the film’s regular use of rapid, quick-cutting montage to add intensity to the scene, which should pick up the pace, but actually seems to hold it back.  I think with just a little more focus on the plot, this film would have gotten a higher rating out of me.

All that being said, I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed by a movie in this style/genre before, and I tip my hat to Carol Reed and Graham Greene for telling one of the far best mystery stories I’ve ever heard.