Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
Coming together from a number of influences, film noir is a revered style of filmmaking that dominated the 1940s and 1950s, taking audiences inside a gritty cityscape where the lines between good and evil were blurred. Employing lighting techniques dominant in German Expressionism and taking influence from hardboiled detective fiction made popular in the 1930s, the style is typified by numerous identifying features that are more or less dominant in each of the films and which have been retroactively applied to several films of the period. This weekend, Guillermo del Toro adapts the noir feature Nightmare Alley for a newer generation. Considered now neo noir, del Toro’s dark, colorful setting is the latest in his modernization of classic cinema through a modernist eye.
While the term for film noir wasn’t coined until 1946 by French film critic Nino Frank, many films have been hotly debated as whether they really are part of the stylistic movement or if they were significantly more than that. In my selection of the five films for this week, I toiled over whether to include Alfred Hitchcock’s myriad films, from Rebecca to Stranger on a Train and beyond, all of which employ the various lighting techniques and thematic elements of film noir, or to strike out and select other films, some of which have become quintessential examples of the technique while others continue to be debated.
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Among the debatable titles I chose, 1945’s Best Picture winner The Lost Weekend probably sits on the periphery of inclusion on such a list. Billy Wilder’s film employs a number of cinematographic styles that evoke the genre, but the narrative feels at odds with the crime-centric nature of most other noir films. Regardless, The Lost Weekend remains one of the best films of the whole of the 1940s as it honestly depicts the perils of alcoholism and its deleterious effect on human relationships.
Ray Milland won a richly deserved Oscar for his role as Don Birnam, a New York writer whose dependence on alcohol to get him through his day becomes more intense over the course of the film as he at first tries to lay off the sauce, but ultimately gives in to temptation, potentially destroying the life he had carefully built. Jane Wyman provides able support, but this film succeeds almost entirely on Milland’s performance alongside Wilder’s expert direction and his and Charles Brackett’s astute script.
A Place in the Sun (1951)
Based on the novel and play An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, A Place in the Sun is director George Stevens’ entry into the debate over what should be considered film noir. The film tells the story of the poor nephew (Montgomery Clift) to a wealthy industrialist (Herbert Heyes) who attempts to climb the ladder at his uncle’s company. There he meets the poor, inexperienced girl (Shelley Winters) who would soon become the mother of his child. By then, Clift has begun working his way up the corporate ladder and his social climbing escalates when he begins seeing a socialite (Elizabeth Taylor) who inadvertently puts the idea of a boating accident into her paramour’s head, which becomes the catalyst for later events.
With modest similarities in the plot between this film and F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, it’s little surprise that the film takes some influence from Murnau’s German Expressionist tendencies. Throw in a femme fatale and an impending crime and you have a film that feels like it fits within the noir genre, but which also has the gloss of a big Hollywood production. Stevens won the Oscar for Best Director while the film lost out on Best Picture to An American in Paris. Clift and Winters were both nominated for their roles and Winters would have been a deserving winner. The film won the remaining five Oscars for which it was nominated.
No existing review available.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
There should be little debate as to whether Charles Laughton’s sole directing effort should be called film noir. It’s a dark, intense, and moody piece starring Robert Mitchum as a self-appointed reverend who is also a serial killer, once convicted of a less serious offence. As he attempts to locate a cell mate’s hidden treasure, he stalks the man’s widow (Shelley Winters) in hopes that she and her two young children will lead him to her late husband’s bank robbery bounty.
Laughton crafted one of the all-time great crime thrillers, a tense and frightening experience that gave Mitchum his greatest role ever and Winters one of hers. The employment of atmospheric lighting and chilling musical selections help make the film all the more terrifying. Based on a novel by Davis Grubb, the film is an unqualified masterpiece for which appreciation has only increased over the years. The Academy never recognized the film as it should have, but in 2008, Cahiers du cinéma, named it the second greatest film of all time behind Citizen Kane.
The Killing (1956)
Nearly everything Stanley Kubrick touched turned to gold, most notably after he left the studio system that he felt constrained him. Before that, he managed to make some great films, including this one. The Killing is based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White and stars Sterling Hayden as a longtime criminal planning one last heist before settling down with his girlfriend (Coleen Gray). His plan to steal bundles of cash from a racetrack during a featured race will face several of hurdles as one would expect.
Hayden is pitch perfect in a role he had played several times, the hardboiled criminal looking for his next score. In Kubrick’s intense crime thriller, his mastery of tension make the film a fascinating watch. Kubrick’s films were always atmospheric in their use of lighting and composition and even though he didn’t have all of the artistic control he would have wanted, he still managed to turn out a fine example of genre filmmaking. That Kubrick could redefine any genre he touched was evident in his later work and while some of what’s here certainly mimicked others, flashes of greatness are still to be found and that alone makes it one of the best of his studio efforts.
Touch of Evil (1958)
You can’t talk about master directors who influenced countless filmmakers of future generations without mentioning Orson Welles. While he began his career writing, producing, and acting in popular radio productions, it was his storied career as a Hollywood artisan that had an impact on all who came after him. Following the historic success of his magnum opus Citizens Kane, Welles’ output varied greatly with The Magnificent Ambersons being one of his greatest films prior to this one.
Touch of Evil, while not elevated to the same level of critical acclaim as Kane, still stands as a major achievement for the filmmaker giving Charlton Heston one of his best roles as a Mexican prosecutor attempting to stave off conflict at the U.S.-Mexico border by investigating a heinous murder. The opening tracking shot is legendary and the rest of the film is tautly composed. Apart from Heston’s performance, Welles himself co-starred alongside Janet Leigh, both of whom excel in theirs. The film marks one of the last pictures to employ the film noir style as the genre began to fade in popularity at the end of the 1950s and into its final throes in the 1960s, but films like this and myriad others were a supreme influence on later pictures from directors like del Toro, the Coen Brothers, and others. And while later films now fall into the category of neo noir, there’s no doubting their connection and obeisance to the rules of the style from so many years ago.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.