Good Film Noir

m.norton

I have been tryin to write a screenplay with a Film Noir feel and would like some suggestions for films to watch that may help me get the vibe i'm looking for

Footoo

Well classics such as Sunset Blvd and Double Indemnity would be the obvious place to start but considering your writing a screenplay, I presume you've seen them.

If you're looking for something more leftfield and modern I would suggest Suzhou River from 2000

The Big Lebowski.

There is only one scene in which The Dude doesn't appear, we basically follow him through the whole film from start to finish in his head and outside as the story unfolds. True film noir stlye, or so I've led myself to believe...

Karl Hungus

Chinatown, The Long Goodbye and for something a bit more quirky, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

rednik

Body Heat with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner.

paulanthony

I like The Good Thief

krudler

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and yes I'm being serious

johnny_ultimate

The 1941 version of the Maltese Falcon is still a brilliant example of the genre - full of femme fatales, McGuffins and hard-boiled detectives.

A more contemporary favourite would be Brick, but it is very much a love/hate film with its blend of clever/pretentious (delete as appropriate) dialogue and stylised take on the genre. Gets a lot of flak on occasion, but I for one thoroughly enjoyed its twist on an old fashioned detective noir.

dave13

Blade Runner.

tunguska

Altmans The long Goodbye. Elliot gould used to be cool before he became Ross' dad on friends.......

randomchild

Another coen classic is the man who wasn't there if not that then I highly recommend Memento and The Third Man as well.

MiloYossarian

[QUOTE=Karl Hungus Kiss Kiss Bang Bang[/url].[/QUOTE]

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang isn't film noir. It's not even close. Why didn't you just say 'Scary Movie is an excellent example of modernist film noir.'?-Forget it Milo. It's boards.ie town.

Valmont

MiloYossarian wrote: »

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang isn't film noir. It's not even close. Why didn't you just say 'Scary Movie is an excellent example of modernist film noir.'?-Forget it Milo. It's boards.ie town.

?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to buying some of these films. I've seen the Maltese falcon, Brick, and a few other Noir films that I've really liked so I think this genre is for me.

Magic Eight Ball

MiloYossarian wrote: »

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang isn't film noir. It's not even close. Why didn't you just say 'Scary Movie is an excellent example of modernist film noir.'?-Forget it Milo. It's boards.ie town.

OP, a few titles for ya to check out..
Shadow of a Doubt
The Lost Weekend
Spellbound
The Big Sleep
Rope
Touch of Evil
The Killing
Kiss Me Deadly
Red Rock West

Wacker

Double Indemnity is my favourite. In terms of Neo-Noir, nothing beats LA Confidential.

nix

Brick

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393109/

Payback

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120784/

I enjoyed all of the above and dont think they were mentioned, Neo Noir but meh could be what your after ;P

ginoginelli

"The missing man" is the best recent one I have seen. It has some really cool shots and scenes in it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1105512/

MiloYossarian

Trevor Coulaghan

How dare you manipulate Picard in to saying that to me, but I take your point, I was a bit smart with Karl Hangus (to whom I now offer my apologies). It is twice as bad because I hate when people do that to me. I've read a few of your posts and noticed that your grammar is fairly poor. Maybe as you're squatting you could lay a grammar book on the floor and read it when you dip. That way you could improve yourself in two ways at once.

As to the person that originally started this thread, I found that some books I read really helped me define and work within the structure of noir, so it would benefit you to read more as well. That way you can apply what you learn to the films you watch. Some of the books give you so many details of what the genre needs to have to be considered that genre that it nearly takes the work out of writing it. (Film: a critical introduction by Tom Wallis was a big help to me but I'm sure you could find better ones)

krudler

MiloYossarian wrote: »

Trevor Coulaghan

How dare you manipulate Picard in to saying that to me, but I take your point, I was a bit smart with Karl Hangus (to whom I now offer my apologies). It is twice as bad because I hate when people do that to me. I've read a few of your posts and noticed that your grammar is fairly poor. Maybe as you're squatting you could lay a grammar book on the floor and read it when you dip. That way you could improve yourself in two ways at once.

post of the year so far

Corkfeen

Won't mention the ones already said but heres a few...
La Confidential
Lucky Number Slevin. (some may disagree):p

Magic Eight Ball

MiloYossarian wrote: »

Trevor Coulaghan..

I stopped reading. :rolleyes:

MiloYossarian

Trevor Coulahan wrote: »

I stopped reading. :rolleyes:

Maybe that's why your grammar is so bad. Reading improves grammar. What you should have said in your reply was 'I have stopped reading.' What you said means that reading was going somewhere and you halted its progress.

artielange

Enjoyed this...you might


Zero Effect

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120906/

+1 for Brick, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, La Confidential

Karl Hungus

Milo, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a huge pastiche of the film noir genre, the narrative structure is very noir indeed. It's clever, witty, and steeped in film noir conventions. I think it's a perfectly suitable recommendation.

pwd

brick is crap

The Asphalt Jungle is good. Don't be put off by its age. I usually don't bother with films made before the 70s, but I liked this one a lot.

Chinatown was already mentioned - it's superb.

loveissucide

Miller's Crossing, although it is a bit clever-clever
LA Confidential
Pretty much all Billy Wilder's work in the genre.
Force Of Evil

AnonoBoy

pwd wrote: »

The Asphalt Jungle is good. Don't be put off by its age. I usually don't bother with films made before the 70s, but I liked this one a lot.

If you're put off by when a film was made then you're missing out on some brilliant movies. It's your loss though.

loveissucide wrote: »

Miller's Crossing, although it is a bit clever-clever

I'd put it as more a gangster flick than a noir myself, but it's probably got bits of both really. And since it's a Coen Brothers film, I expect nothing less than clever-clever for my buck!

MiloYossarian

Karl Hungus wrote: »

Milo, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a huge pastiche of the film noir genre, the narrative structure is very noir indeed. It's clever, witty, and steeped in film noir conventions. I think it's a perfectly suitable recommendation.

It has noirish elements yes, but really has more in common with pulp fiction (books not the movie). It's not strictly a noir. I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Plus there is a good chance I'm wrong.

p.s I hope you saw the post where I said sorry to you for that smart reply earlier. I feel like a bit of a ****.

Nervous Wreck

pwd wrote: »

brick is crap

QFT.

loveissucide

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I'd put it as more a gangster flick than a noir myself, but it's probably got bits of both realy. And since it's a Coen Brothers film, I expect nothing less than clever-clever for my buck!

I loved it, but I'd have it down as noir as much for the period trappings, being taken from a Hammet novel and having most of the conventions of the genre.

AnonoBoy

loveissucide wrote: »

I loved it, but I'd have it down as noir as much for the period trappings, being taken from a Hammet novel and having most of the conventions of the genre.

But it's about gangsters???

Ah - I'm not as cine-literate as some in here so I'm not going to pretend I know - I just always figured it as a gangster flick first.

Either way it's fuppin' fantastic!

bogmanfan

The Last Seduction?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110308/

pwd

AnonoBoy wrote: »

If you're put off by when a film was made then you're missing out on some brilliant movies. It's your loss though.



I'd put it as more a gangster flick than a noir myself, but it's probably got bits of both really. And since it's a Coen Brothers film, I expect nothing less than clever-clever for my buck!

Well there are plenty of old films that probably are excellent, but the pacing is usually too slow for plenty of people these days. Humour in them is often a bit too gentle for a lot of people too.

Oh someone mentioned Miller's Crossing - that's a brilliant film. Blood Simple is another good one by the Coen brothers

randomchild

Cannot believe I forgot to mention brick, its exactly like what the op is looking for and while I can see why some do not like it, I think its a really great film.

Galvasean

MiloYossarian and Trevor Coulaghan, drop the bickering. First and ONLY warning.

pwd

krudler wrote: »

post of the year so far

Post a says something funny, gets 0 thanks.
Post b says post a is funny, gets 3 thanks.

[Nice clear demonstration of the bias against posters with low postcount, and vice-versa.]

fitz0

That... thats what I was supposed to do, right?

Hank_Jones

The one I would say to definitely have a look at is Double Indemnity.

And then some other noir films that I love personally are:

The Maltese Falcon
Touch of Evil
Miller's Crossing
Sunset Blvd.

All well worth a watch if you are interested in the genre.

Wacker

What did you all think of The Big Sleep? I'm no dullard, and I love quite a lot of Film Noir, but I'll admit that I turned it off after an hour because I had not an iota as to what was going on! Quite a while ago now; maybe it's time for another shot at it...

artielange

Another one that is highly underrated that I enjoyed.
The Heist


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252503/plotsummary

loveissucide

Wacker wrote: »

What did you all think of The Big Sleep? I'm no dullard, and I love quite a lot of Film Noir, but I'll admit that I turned it off after an hour because I had not an iota as to what was going on! Quite a while ago now; maybe it's time for another shot at it...

You might wanna read the book first.

m.norton

pwd wrote: »

Well there are plenty of old films that probably are excellent, but the pacing is usually too slow for plenty of people these days. Humour in them is often a bit too gentle for a lot of people too.

Oh someone mentioned Miller's Crossing - that's a brilliant film. Blood Simple is another good one by the Coen brothers

The reason that the pacing was slower was that it typically lended to the overall feel of the film and some of these "older films" ared actually funnier than 99% of the dirge that passes for comedy these days i.e The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts and Corronets, St. Trinians etc. (and not the diabolical attempts at remakes.)

I do agree with Millers Crossing though, awesome

pwd

m.norton wrote: »

The reason that the pacing was slower was that it typically lended to the overall feel of the film and some of these "older films" ared actually funnier than 99% of the dirge that passes for comedy these days i.e The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts and Corronets, St. Trinians etc. (and not the diabolical attempts at remakes.)

I do agree with Millers Crossing though, awesome

Just a matter of taste.
I never said older films were inferior, just that they weren't to my taste.
Plenty of people don't like older films. I mentioned it because I was recommending a very old film, so I was making the point that, even if you don't usually like old films, you might still like this one. So it was relevant to the thread.
Arguing about the quality of older films in general isn't relevant to the thread, and it's not relevant to what I said.

mike65

Fritz Langs Ministry of Fear is on Channel 4 4:00am to 5:25am in the small hours Thursday morning.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037075/

jeffreylebowski

I don't know if I'm thread-necroing my own thread by doing this, but I started a thread a while ago about film noir and people had some cool suggestions:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2055774035

geekychick

Kiss Me Deadly
Laura
The Maltese Falcon
The Big Sleep
Killers
Double Indemnity


Neo-noir:

Chinatown
Frantic
Body Heat
Prizzi's Honor
LA Confidential
The Last Seduction
Miller's Crossing
The Big Lebowski

jeffreylebowski

geekychick wrote: »

Kiss Me Deadly
Laura
The Maltese Falcon
The Big Sleep
Killers
Double Indemnity


Neo-noir:

Chinatown
Frantic
Body Heat
Prizzi's Honor
LA Confidential
The Last Seduction
Miller's Crossing
The Big Lebowski

Good list. Some of my favourite noirs in there.

jeffreylebowski

Some good noir I don't think I'd seen the last time I posted on another thread about it:

Body And Soul (1947)
The Set-Up (1949)
Both of the above are actually examples of boxing noir, kind of a tiny mini-genre. They're incredible films though, great noirs and The Set-Up in particular is to me one of the greatest boxing movies of all time.

Someone on here recommended Where The Sidewalk Ends[/URL (1950) which is just blindingly brilliant. Geekychick - you listed Laura on here, you might like Where The Sidewalk Ends, it's also directed by Otto Preminger and has the same leads in Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney.

I can't remember if I ever recommended it anywhere before or not, but probably my current favourite noir is The Big Combo (1955). It and Where The Sidewalk Ends are both of the ultra hard-boiled style of noir. The Big Combo in particular has some of the most arresting visuals in all of noir, it's full of great use of silhouette, and it really captures that nightmare city dreamscape that makes noir so memorable.


Above is a still from The Big Combo, they were so short on funds that the cinematographer draped sheets of black velvet around the edges of sets to make it look like the night sky.

geekychick

Thanks for recommendations!

Will keep them in mind.

I love film noir, that was just off the top of my head, but just the words "film noir" are enough to remind me that Hollywood once upon a time was quite a different place than it is nowadays... (big noirish sigh...) :cool: