Post by klep on Dec 19, 2016 7:51:36 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/19: Brick
OH SHIT WE FORGOT ABOUT NOIRVEMBER EDITION!
The archetypal noir is set in a city. It's shot in black and white. It stars a private investigator of some sort getting a client he should refuse, and police telling him to stay out of it. But we've all seen enough noirs to know that much is just setting; there's much to noir that makes it noir and there's a million variations that can be made on it.
Rian Johnson understands this, and apparently wanted to make everyone else understand it as well. How better to explain Brick, which takes a classic hard-boiled detective noir, lifts it out of the grimy city streets, and plops it down in the middle of a suburban high school. What Johnson gets is that the drama of high school is as heightened to those living it as the drama of a classic noir. It's all life or death and good and evil and those not your friends are either your enemies or don't matter.
All of the tropes are there. Our protagonist Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is motivated by a girl who is simultaneously The One That Got Away and The Good Girl In Over Her Head. There's his Informant Brain (Matt O'Leary) who in another setting might be a newsie or a barkeep. There's Femme Fatale Laura (Nora Zehetner) with unclear motives. There's a crime ring and stooges and dope fiends and so on. As the story progresses we see Brendan take more and more of a beating as he bullheadedly refuses to take the easy path, in classic noir protagonist macho style.
And of course there's the wonderfully stylized dialog. Johnson takes the style of noir and tweaks it just enough to be appropriate coming out of a teenager's mouth. Bogart would have been comfortable with every word that comes out of Brendan's mouth. Only in noir will you find a character saying things like "The ape blows or I clam," or "I've got knives in my eyes, I'm going home sick," and only being a noir excuses it. Because noir is as much an exercise in style as it is in genre, and the two are really inseparable. The brilliance of Brick is in recognizing that, and showing us that true noir can be found anywhere.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/26: The Thin Man
MERRY CHRISTMAS EDITION!
Next week as many of us are celebrating the holiday we'll take a look at a favorite Christmas film, the detective comedy classic The Thin Man. The Thin Man is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/15: Moana
Last week's podcast spends its part two talking about Disney's newest film and how it builds on the legacy of Mulan before it. We'll have a thread to discuss this latest Disney effort on Wednesday. Moana is still in theaters and if you're a parent of young children, you've probably already seen it twice.
OH SHIT WE FORGOT ABOUT NOIRVEMBER EDITION!
The archetypal noir is set in a city. It's shot in black and white. It stars a private investigator of some sort getting a client he should refuse, and police telling him to stay out of it. But we've all seen enough noirs to know that much is just setting; there's much to noir that makes it noir and there's a million variations that can be made on it.
Rian Johnson understands this, and apparently wanted to make everyone else understand it as well. How better to explain Brick, which takes a classic hard-boiled detective noir, lifts it out of the grimy city streets, and plops it down in the middle of a suburban high school. What Johnson gets is that the drama of high school is as heightened to those living it as the drama of a classic noir. It's all life or death and good and evil and those not your friends are either your enemies or don't matter.
All of the tropes are there. Our protagonist Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is motivated by a girl who is simultaneously The One That Got Away and The Good Girl In Over Her Head. There's his Informant Brain (Matt O'Leary) who in another setting might be a newsie or a barkeep. There's Femme Fatale Laura (Nora Zehetner) with unclear motives. There's a crime ring and stooges and dope fiends and so on. As the story progresses we see Brendan take more and more of a beating as he bullheadedly refuses to take the easy path, in classic noir protagonist macho style.
And of course there's the wonderfully stylized dialog. Johnson takes the style of noir and tweaks it just enough to be appropriate coming out of a teenager's mouth. Bogart would have been comfortable with every word that comes out of Brendan's mouth. Only in noir will you find a character saying things like "The ape blows or I clam," or "I've got knives in my eyes, I'm going home sick," and only being a noir excuses it. Because noir is as much an exercise in style as it is in genre, and the two are really inseparable. The brilliance of Brick is in recognizing that, and showing us that true noir can be found anywhere.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/26: The Thin Man
MERRY CHRISTMAS EDITION!
Next week as many of us are celebrating the holiday we'll take a look at a favorite Christmas film, the detective comedy classic The Thin Man. The Thin Man is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/15: Moana
Last week's podcast spends its part two talking about Disney's newest film and how it builds on the legacy of Mulan before it. We'll have a thread to discuss this latest Disney effort on Wednesday. Moana is still in theaters and if you're a parent of young children, you've probably already seen it twice.