i'm in the process of writing a comic book noir story. i've done a metric fuckton of research, including alot of films. what i found suprised me: most of the best noir movies, are actually quite recent, and noir isn't a sense of style, it's a singular, definable genre, a myriad of shattered dreams and broken dreamers. a uniquely american story.

here is a list of my top ten favorite noir films, i watched as process for writing the comic book i'm currently working on. no particular order.


Eastern Promises
a new kind of story for someone like David Cronnenberg, a gripping and powerful tale that unfolds patiently and relies on it's tight screenplay and powerful preformances, and demands patience from it's viewer, and rewards the audience with a brilliant ending that fluidly wraps up every loose end and rights every wrong turn. special kudos to Steve Knight to his extremely compitent screenplay.

Michael Clayton
another patient masterpiece, but unlike Eastern Promises, which rides on it's payoff, Clayton's strength lies in it's delecate structure, and grabbing scenes.

Old Boy
a more traditional comic book style noir mystery, builds layer upon layer of character and plot, as the two protaganists fight and scratch and bleed to best eachother, leading to easily one of the most well crafted, well executed endings i've ever seen in a film. absolutely brilliant not for the events of the ending, but the implications of them. it leaves chills in your spine that remain there for days.

Collateral
Tom Cruise last great film, directed by the impeccable Michael Mann, this is truly his masterpiece, as two broken down characters from two entirely different walks of life intersect for a night of violence and compromise. sly and stylish in it's execution and tight and focused in it's screenplay, not a line of dialogue is wasted, not a point of plot is irrelevant. the devil is in the details, and this film is the god damn devil of all details.

Leon The Professional
a favorite among filmies, Luc Besson's unrivaled masterpiece is a sweet and powerful love story, with just about everything going for it, and a big, bleeding heart at it's core.

Narc
Not nearly enough can be said in favor of NARC. Ray Liotta puts on his best preformance ever. better than Goodfellas, better than Copland, better than anything the man's ever done in his considerable career. Jason Patrick is heartfelt and brilliant as a hapless cop on the edge of hell. the only thing more gritty and brutal than NARC's horrifying opening, is it's poetic and heartstomping end.

Taxi Driver
The Golden Standard of post-Baron noir. gritty and real and tragic and poetic, brutal and horrible and funny and intensely clever, Travis Bickle's lonely parabol about a man on the edge of sanity is a nihilistic masterpiece. it encompasses just about everything Noir as a genre is and should be.

The Road To Perdition
Passionate, Beautiful, and poetically simple, Sam Mendes follow-up to the much acclaimed American Beauty, was under recieved, but remains a staple of my film collection. this film is where you come to unlearn everything you know about how great stories are told, and what complexity and implication really stand for. probably the greatest scene in cinematic history takes place in this film, it involves a rain storm, a tommygun, and 4 words uttered by one of history's greatest actors - Paul Newman: "I'm Glad It's You." if you want an action movie, look elsewhere, if you want every nuance and meaning handed to you, go elsewhere. this is above that, this is better than that. this is the story of a man and his boy, and the tragic inevitabilities of life and violence, and a life of violence.

No Country For Old Men
"...i'd have to say, 'okay, i'll be part of this world.' i dont reckon i can do that."
The Cohen Brothers are masters of thier craft, they create layered and intrinsic stories that weave around themselves like threads in a golden rope. they pepper thier work with humor, history, drama, and grit, and want only the most authentic preformances from thier actors. they believe in thier stories. No Country for Old Men doesn't hand you all the answers, infact, it simply lays them on the floor for you, and assumes you're clever enough to figure out which one to take. it's character evolution is like sweet molases, slow, hard, on it's own time, but oh so sweet in the end. steeped in subtle metaphor and pure noir badass sensibilities, No Country is not only one of the best noir films ever made, it's just one of the best films ever made period.

Blast Of Silence
"Remembering, out of the black silence... you were born in pain, you wer born with the hate and anger built in... took a slap on the backside to blast out a scream, and then you knew you were alive. eight pounds, five ounces, baby boy Frankie Bono. Father doing well. Later you learned to hold back the scream, and let out the hate and anger another way..."
Martin Scorsese's favorite movie. what else do you need to know?

good list, especially Road to Perdition. planning on seeing The Spirit? ive never read it but it looks pretty tight.

Are half of these even noir?

Oh, and Collateral was GARBAGE. I used to have a list of about 50 reasons, but I doubt I'll be able to find that...

and how are:
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Se7en
and LA Confidential all missing from your list?

Are half of these even noir?

Yes. all of them are.

Oh, and Collateral was GARBAGE. I used to have a list of about 50 reasons, but I doubt I'll be able to find that...
I'd like to see that list, and tell you why each reason is wrong.


and how are:
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Noir for Noir's sake. it's like asking why Sin City isn't on here. for the same reason Batman: Dead End isn't considered a proper comic book movie, it's just homage, it's not the real deal.

Se7en would have been had it been a top 20 list, but Se7en is pretty overrated all things considered. to be honest the only movies i wanted to put in this list and didn't, are Zodiac and Fargo.

LA Confidential all missing from your list? see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

planning on seeing The Spirit? ive never read it but it looks pretty tight.

No. Kill Yourself.

see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.I can see your argument working for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (though I do not feel it nullifies the movie's glory in any way)
However, LA Confidential, I just don't get. It was adapted from a James Elroy novel, one of the king's of literary noir. And even if it was noir for noir's sake. The movie is the absolute standard for modern noir film's.
That would be like Star Wars not being on a list of the best sci fi in the last 40 years.

Have you ever seen The Ice Harvest?
Pretty neat little movie, prolly John Cusack's best in years

As far as Collateral, the movie was littered with stereotypes and generic plot devices from any bestselling crime novel. The movie had boring characters, and was way too predictable. The action I found to be stylishly done, but not very thrilling, and there were numerous errors, whether factual or otherwise. (I seem to remember something with a bulletproof window that really bothered me, but not in exact detail)
It was one of my best friend at the times' favorite movies when it came out, and I was absolutely and completely puzzled as to why.

As far as Collateral, the movie was littered with stereotypes and generic plot devices from any bestselling crime novel. The movie had boring characters, and was way too predictable. The action I found to be stylishly done, but not very thrilling, and there were numerous errors, whether factual or otherwise. (I seem to remember something with a bulletproof window that really bothered me, but not in exact detail)
It was one of my best friend at the times' favorite movies when it came out, and I was absolutely and completely puzzled as to why.

if your problem is realism, or the fact that it follows archetypes, you're in the wrong genre. Noir is steeped in archetypal character. the movie isn't meant to be unpredictable, infact quite the opposite. it's meant to be a natural progression of conclusions. i dont know where "boring charactes" came from, so you'll have to fill me in, because i thought Vincent and Sam's characters were brilliantly put together. Stereotypes? examples would be nice, i didn't see Almea eating tacos or Sam swilling grape juice, but i could be missing something.


SPOILERS



The movie is about chance occurance, and the order of seemingly chaotic things. Vincent almost doesn't get into Sam's cab, Sam's girl is Vincent's last victim, Vincent's first victim lands ontop of Sam's Cab, ect. these two people, from entirely different walks of life, one who reacts to the world's unbreakable order by becoming a part of it despite himself (sam) and one who reacts to the world's unbreakable order by accepting it consentually (vincent.) where Sam is bewildered for much of the film, because all he can do is react to the world instead of acting upon it, Vincent is the direct opposite, he creates chaos in an orderly world. he accepts the lack of morality, or fairness the world presents, and plays it's game by being something the world fears: a killer. that is the signifigance of the crash sequence. Sam becomes fed up, and decides to, for a moment, make Vincent feel like he feels, reactionary. he decides to fight against the order of chaos, and take what many people always fear to take, because like him, they've become complaicant in the order of the world: a risk.

think about the Coyote scene, that whole scene brings to point the film. it's about two completely different people, one a willing villian, the other a generic everyman, both thrust into this amazing and strange situation, but both taking it the only way they know how, one with cold roteness, the other with the complaicancy he's used too, and gives them something completely random, in a night that has been filled with inevitabilities. it's a point at which the entire film's basis becomes, for a single moment, moot, and these two characters find a commonality, and react in the same way.


Alot of people seem to like to complain about the ending, and i guess i can understand why, but you really have to look at Collateral as a Noir, not a mystery, not a thriller, not an action movie, to get WHY the ending works so well. Vincent tells the story about the dead man on the M.T.A, as if to say that people are so complacant in the way the world works, that they cant even see what's right infront of them, this is the basis for why he dresses like he does, a shade of grey, another face in the crowd, a nothing, because he understands that if he can achieve that, he can do whatever he needs to do to achieve his ends, and nobody's going to notice. the poetry of the ending is that now that he's dead, sitting on this train, he will simply become part of that order again, while Sam has become someone who takes risks, who has faught for what he wants, and is no longer simply a reactor to the order of the world, but aware of it. the ending is about a reversal of roles.

I can see your argument working for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (though I do not feel it nullifies the movie's glory in any way)
i liked the movie, i just dont think it deserves a spot in a list about Noir.

However, LA Confidential, I just don't get. It was adapted from a James Elroy novel, one of the king's of literary noir. And even if it was noir for noir's sake. The movie is the absolute standard for modern noir film's.
That would be like Star Wars not being on a list of the best sci fi in the last 40 years.
eh, i guess i can see what you're saying, but really, James Elroy is kind of a cockbag, and has only ever tried and failed to be Raymond Chandler. L.A Confidential was a fine movie, but i'd put it more in the league of "period crime" than anything else. Noir isn't about procedural cop drama, which is what L.A Confidential is in spades, it's about character, and i found the characters in L.A Confidential just didn't have that noir sensibility, and if they did, they only did in the way that, say, Marv from Sin City does. it's contrived, it's done with a platitude in mind, and not a point or a character.

Have you ever seen The Ice Harvest?
Pretty neat little movie, prolly John Cusack's best in years

Yes, it was okay.

I haven't seen the movie since it first came out, if I happen to see it again, I'll keep your analysis in mind: but until then, I will keep up my opinion of it being shitty =P

I haven't seen the movie since it first came out, if I happen to see it again, I'll keep your analysis in mind: but until then, I will keep up my opinion of it being shitty =P

:rolleyes:

eh, i guess i can see what you're saying, but really, James Elroy is kind of a cockbag, and has only ever tried and failed to be Raymond Chandler. L.A Confidential was a fine movie, but i'd put it more in the league of "period crime" than anything else. Noir isn't about procedural cop drama, which is what L.A Confidential is in spades, it's about character, and i found the characters in L.A Confidential just didn't have that noir sensibility, and if they did, they only did in the way that, say, Marv from Sin City does. it's contrived, it's done with a platitude in mind, and not a point or a character.
I would have to disagree. I think the two main characters' personalities are fleshed out extremely well. And I feel they were extremely noir characters as well. Only after each character broke their moral code did they find their happy ending. One of them broke their moral code on the way to that happy ending; the other's happiness was a direct result of their moral submission - moral conflict is about as noir as it gets.

Yes, it was okay.I loved the humor in it. But, you are right, it's not a very amazing movie. The ending was extremely dull. Still Cusack's best in years though.

:rolleyes:
Well, I'm not going to rewatch a movie I remember as being quite shitty just to make sure I still dislike it. And I really don't feel that my new found enlightenment will make me enjoy the movie too much more.

I would have to disagree. I think the two main characters' personalities are fleshed out extremely well. And I feel they were extremely noir characters as well. Only after each character broke their moral code did they find their happy ending. One of them broke their moral code on the way to that happy ending; the other's happiness was a direct result of their moral submission
Again, this is Cop Procedural, not necessarily Noir. Se7en is in the same boat, now that i think about it, and it would have been a bad idea to include it in a "Noir" list because it follows the format of a Cop Procedural even more than L.A.C.

moral conflict is about as noir as it gets.
Not really... Noir is rarely about moral conflict perse, and more about a lack of morality entirely. Noir heroes are rarely completely good, infact more often than not they've crossed the line way before the story even starts. NARC is a great example of this, NARC is a Noir film disguised as a Cop procedural, but it works as it is because we know that the characters in the film are already part of the world they're in. it's a blending of genres on the same canon as Syndey Pollack's Yakuza, which was a noir disguised as a mystery. to be honest "moral conflict" is one of the most generic storytelling tools ever, it doesn't really define any genre, especially not Noir.

I loved the humor in it. But, you are right, it's not a very amazing movie. The ending was extremely dull. Still Cusack's best in years though. Cusack kind of bores me. if you want a great Noir preformance, watch Zodiac, Robert Downy Jr. and Jake Gylenhaal fucking owned that shit. one of my very favorite movies, genre bending and brilliant in it's complexity. it got kind of a bum wrap because people were just expecting "Se7en" again, but it's not quite a mystery, it's not quite a biography of Robert Greysmith, it's not quite a historical piece about The Zodiac Killings, it's not quite a Noir, it's all of those things and more.

Cusack kind of bores me. if you want a great Noir preformance, watch Zodiac, Robert Downy Jr. and Jake Gylenhaal fucking owned that shit. one of my very favorite movies, genre bending and brilliant in it's complexity. it got kind of a bum wrap because people were just expecting "Se7en" again, but it's not quite a mystery, it's not quite a biography of Robert Greysmith, it's not quite a historical piece about The Zodiac Killings, it's not quite a Noir, it's all of those things and more.
The real Zodiac killings interest me quite a bit, but something gave me the feeling this movie was gonna blow it pretty bad, made me stay away from it, but I'll definitely check it out =)



And as for the lack of morals shiznit - I'm gonna have to say not really to that. Noir tend to either have morally ambiguous characters or morally confused ones. Either way, morality is in some peril. The bad guys win; the bad guy is unidentifiable; every one's a bad guy Moral conflict. Maybe not within a character, but moral conflict within the environment or within the viewer; who is usually rooting for someone less than perfect.

And as for the lack of morals shiznit - I'm gonna have to say not really to that. Noir tend to either have morally ambiguous characters or morally confused ones. Either way, morality is in some peril. The bad guys win; the bad guy is unidentifiable; every one's a bad guy Moral conflict. Maybe not within a character, but moral conflict within the environment or within the viewer; who is usually rooting for someone less than perfect.

but those traits dont define the genre, the same things can be said of Horror, drama, sci fi, westerns, fantasy, most good storytelling involves some kind of moral conflict, from Star Wars to The Silence Of The Lambs. it's a product of storytelling in general, not Noir specifically.

Without the moral aspects of it. noir is simply stylish and sexy crime flicks.
The darkness of the morals/lack there of is what noir is all about.

Without the moral aspects of it. noir is simply stylish and sexy crime flicks.
The darkness of the morals/lack there of is what noir is all about.

that's something different, "Moral conflict" is an extremely general term, and can pertain to almost anything, without the moral aspects of any story from any genre, it becomes moot. and "style" has very little do do with noir. if there is a "Style" it's simply a product of the material, not the aesthetic. No Country for Old Men is a near-perfect noir story, but doesn't follow any of the so called "Stylistic conventions of noir."

Yeah, I guess I should concede here. I misspoke. But you know what I meant I think.

As far as style; that's just generally what I hear every time a show or whatever is talking about noir. They always bring up that noir is 'stylized crime drama' or something of the equivalent. Whereas, I personally feel that, any good movie is stylized; and noir just tend to be good.
If you think about it; all the olden noir did have similar style. But it was the same style as all other gangster movies back then...
I think usually what they mean when they talk about the style of noir - the fancy dialogue, the voice over narration; the darkness (whether physically or dramatically)

Ed Brubaker, easily the best Noir and Crime writer working today, put it best: "Noir can be summed up quite simply as, character driven crime fiction." in a crime story, our characters comes into the story to fix it, in Noir, our characters are already part of the horrid mess we're introduced too, we the reader, react too it on our own terms, rather than us reacting through the protaganist.