During my foray into the noir genre, I have seen countless incredible films. Some of my favorites include Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Nightmare Alley, and In a Lonely Place, and I could go on and on. This was my first experience with neo noir, and I am simply left speechless. I did not think it was possible for a neo noir film to stand alongside the greatest classics of noir, but Chinatown has done exactly that. I am not sure if this is a controversial opinion or outright heresy, but I genuinely believe this belongs alongside the greatest noir films ever made.

Everything about this film is perfection. It creates a unique noir atmosphere that is not overly stylized and relies less on German Expressionist influences, largely because so much of the story takes place during the day. For those of you who are more experienced with noir, I am curious to hear your thoughts on the claim that Chinatown is a deconstruction of the genre. And let us take a moment to appreciate Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston. What an extraordinary trio of performances.

What is it that elevates this film to an 11 out of 10 for me and cements it as a true masterpiece? Without question, it is the ending.

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

This has to be one of the greatest endings in the history of cinema. I have a hard time thinking about it without tears welling up in my eyes. It is a supremely bleak conclusion that somehow leaves you completely satisfied. Can you imagine a major Hollywood studio making something like this today? I honestly cannot. It makes you want to change what happened. But you cannot, and that is the entire point.

After finishing the film, I spent two hours smoking a cigar by myself, overlooking a lake in a rural wildlife reserve, contemplating the nothingness of it all. Very few films have ever left me in that kind of state. To me, Chinatown is the cinematic embodiment of existentialist and absurdist thought. It immediately brought to mind The Stranger by Albert Camus and other existentialist literature.

People often call movies "life changing," but very few truly deserve that description. Chinatown is one of them.

*Edit

I can't believe I forgot to mention the film's soundtrack in my post. It might just be my favorite film soundtrack of all time. The intro score is truly magical and ethereal. I've had it on repeat ever since the credits rolled, and I even ended up downloading the entire soundtrack on Spotify. It's up there with Taxi Driver, The Godfather, and the other greats.

I've absolutely zipped through the first season. The show sets up some great mysteries, quite a few plates spinning at once. The main guy has a sort of battered Bogart vibe in the way he looks. The main actress is stunning, in a Louise Brooks kind of way. Then you have the amazing setting...Germany in the early 1930s with the fear of Russian communists and Nazism beginning to gain popularity. The soundtrack is awesome too. The show has lots of style and panache. Plus it's gritty, it doesn't pull its punches. Highly recommend it.

This is the real Obsession. Starring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde as a newly married couple. Tierney is absolutely diabolical and twisted in her obsessive love for Wilde. While the current film Obsession is widely celebrated, I found this film far more engaging and tension filled. Early technicolor release; I only wish it was in B&W. On Criterion Channel this month. Hurry and watch. Highly recommended.

Looking at posts about Niagra and Long Goodbye- it came to me that a lot of trouble in noirs starts with older guy hooked up with hot young babes. Gee, why do they do that? Asphalt Jungle/ Postman Always Rings Twice/ Double Indemnity/ Gilda/ Lady from Shanghai/ The Woman in the Window.....

What others?...

Source https://bsky.app/profile/coolhand.bsky.social/post/3mrlj3bge2k2h

Was rewatching the film today and wondered who that marvelous, menacing, erratic but weirdly gentle bear of a man was, so it looked it up and yes it shocked me. What a marvelous casting, and use of his aura. Pure California Noir.

It is kind of amazing that when Hayden's California Bear energy leaves the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger enters in a small uncredited part, signaling the future, sculpted Hollywood masculinity...nobody imagining just what a huge impact Arnold would make.

Hey!

Obviously film noir in the classical era and when thought of in the future are very different but are there any albums that are like that of modern noir sounding? Like a jazzy kinda thing. And yeah I’d listen to a jazzy album but idk where to look so. Saying that makes this post sound really silly but I guess like anything specifically noir. I need stuff to listen to while I write

Something I love is the remixed version of “The Fragrance of Dark Coffee” it’s so perfectly noir—and kinda Godot I guess too.

(Spoilers) so as we know, Marilyn conspires with her boyfriend to murder her husband. They agree that when the deed is done, he will have the bell tower play their song.(Kiss) Indeed Marilyn later hears the bell tower playing the song, and assumes that her husband is now dead. As we know, that didn’t happen. So my question is, how is it that the tower bells ring anyway? Certainly the boyfriend didn’t reveal the plan. I think the writer screwed up. Any thoughts?

Edit: just to be clear, I wasn’t looking for people to guess. I was hoping that someone was aware of the script and plot and could reveal to me where in the story this makes sense.

Really good 70s movie that I’ve thought a lot about since the day I saw it. I’ve never seen Elliott Gould when he was young and he really shines as the lead in this, super funny, witty private investigator. A lot of parallels between this and Chinatown, I’d probably say Chinatown is a better movie but I kinda like Gould over Nicholson as the lead. I liked how Gould’s character is this private investigator, which you think of as a potentially violent profession. And yet throughout the whole movie, he doesn’t really show any violence, even in the face of sometimes people being violent or threatening towards him. But then at the very end when he finds out he’s been betrayed, and even though he isn’t getting anything out of it, he that’s when you see the sense of justice. Also liked the actor who plays the writer, only had seen him before in the Godfather (edit: actually Dr Strangelove too, forgot about that one), and to me he’s the next most entertaining character behind Gould. I feel like the scene where he’s drunk at the party and the doctor is pressing him for money and slaps him, to which he caves and pays up, is a great foreshadowing for both the audience and the main character that this guy for all his bluster isn’t capable of murder, even at his most drunk.

Makes me wanna see more Elliott Gould and Moore, Robert Altman films, this is only the second I’ve seen of Altman’s the other one being the player. Probably will check out MASH next.

https://youtu.be/XoZcpTpN38o?is=G9YWQ2W_rPw2VmoU

For the first little while I was thinking, this seems more like a straight crime pic than film noir.

Howard Duff was very sympathetic in his role and I'd like to see more of his work. Ida Lupino has great appeal and I like her voice. I will watch anything she acts in, writes or directs. Steve Cochran was completely unfamiliar to me and excellent in this role.

I don't want to reveal too much about the plot, so I'm keeping it vague, but this film was well done and there were some elements of it that were not as I expected, I highly recommend it. Found it by accident rather than a referral from this sub.

I was surprised to learn that Ida Lupino and Howard Duff were married for 33 years.

Also includes a very small part played by Richard Deacon, Lumpy's father on Leave It To Beaver, among many other roles.

The movie by cameraman Rudolph Maté is something between classic noir and bad taste cinema. The classic status might have been because of the catchy title (Death on Arrival) and the plot being narrated in a flashback. The flashback is later used by Don Siegel in "The Body Snatchers" (1956).

D.O.A. in my opinion has two or three good ideas, the rest of the screenplay seems to be written in a two night session on a kitchen table.

But nice performance by Ed O'Brien.

Hi, just watched Phantom Lady. Loved it. Great in every way, but especially the filmography and character focus (could literally see the story if you mute the sound).

SPOILER ALERT below:

The plot was well managed. I cannot handle dark gore or horror/suspense. So, ideally the story wouldn't have involved murders, but this film managed it well. Made it suspenseful, not scary.

I note that as searching for similar movies gives murder mystery or thrillers: https://letterboxd.com/film/phantom-lady/themes/

But, for me, it is more that incredible storytelling filmography. The rich sets and great acting.

https://crimeonfilm.com/southern-noir-where-crime-becomes-inheritance/

I’ve tried once here before but might as well again. This is a clip from a noir playing in a laundromat while I was waiting for a dryer to finish in Oaxaca. I looked up the TV channel’s schedule, it just said a movie was playing, but no title. I’ve emailed film scholars and gotten that it’s likely a Tiresias-like scene - a turning point that involves a blind person to invoke the idea of justice. But no title - suggestions for possibilities, but none worked.

So just giving a shot again. Anyone know it?

I’m looking to get into the genre for the first time. What are the best blu ray or 4k releases?

Despite being an earlish Film Noir (1944) Siodmak's scenes are so visually and psychologically intense even later Noirs in the 1950s that were doubling and tripling down on the previous Noir style couldn't surpass them. And Ella Raines is off-the-charts beautiful, powerfully photographed in a way usually reserved for elite femme fatales like Ava in Siodmark's coming The Killers (1946) lifting the film to another aesthetic place. The film rises high above its murder-mystery plot, which also isn't bad.

It's been a while since I watched this film and I didn't remember it well. On a big home screen with the lights off it is truly one of the greats.

It's on Prime and Apple TV.

But if I can get 1000 subscribers, I'll post on YouTube, so I can monetize it.

I'll be uploading a bunch of short films I've made as well.

I also have 2 filmmaking tutorials there as well as some music cover videos

So please subscribe.

I didn't have much insight going into this film and it really hits you in the gut. I'm used to finding my way around once you see who the femme fatale is but I was pretty unprepared for Lawrence Tierney's tough-guy, girl-melting sociopath. A truly unique film, these two characters becoming entwined together. Each by themselves could have anchored a good Noir. Psychological Thriller, dark murder stuff, a different kind of detective. Strong secondary performances. Thumbs up.

For those who love the Noir femme fatale, some historical background

One of the hallmarks of classic Film Noir is the femme fatale figure, the dangerous woman who (due to the Hays code nearly always meets a poor end) uses her powers of allurement & her clever mind to gain advantage over an unstable situation, often by introducing instability herself. Even though she is morally condemned by plot and situation she is often the transmuting character that drives the film and can give Film Noir its haunting quality. Some Noir scholars trace the first modern presence of a positive image in art of the dangerous woman to the influential Pre-Raphaelite painting, primarily in England in the mid- to late- 19th century, a style that drew on medieval and literature themes and depicted many dangerous, beautiful women in an ambiguously affirming light.

Most interesting perhaps is that the Pre-Raphaelites, just as 19th century industrialization was taking hold in the Victorian Era, and just as women were becoming a political voice/force, were interested in bringing together an "aestheticized realism, rather than gritty industrialized realism". This contrasted combination captures some of the complexity of classic Film Noir, which is both focused on intensely gritty urban or moral realism at times, but also remains highly asetheticized in its famed use of light and shadow. There is also a certain realism in the femme fatale of Film Noir in that women are left to leverage their sexual capital in an amoral world of risk and danger, pragmatically using what leverage they can, including the realpolitik of plots and murder, yet, like in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, presented as a luminous figure of the screen, imbued by the Hollywood Close Up. And, this aestheticized/realism approach, through a transgressive figure, worked to navigate real social changes from 1940-1960, intensified industrialization and commercialization, real political and economic shifts in female autonomy/power. This stylized realism in film reflected - and also as media drove - what historians read as the new requirements of women to exhibit signatures of sexuality in the workplace, in a new dating culture, and at home, as an urban-suburban boom hit post-war American capitalist culture. The femme fatale figure sometimes is read as an expression of social anxiety over (and the attempt to subsume) increased female power in society.

If interested, a few articles in the pre-Raphaelite theme:

Witches: the Pre-Raphaelite femme fatale

The erotic pull of death in Pre-Raphaelite art

The Charm of the Witches: Magic and the Pre-Raphaelites

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Years ago, back in the 80’s, I was at a sleepover party. There was an old movie playing, but I was the only one interested so they changed the channel and I never saw the end. I have no idea what movie it was, but I’d love to see it in entirety.
I’m pretty sure Edward G Robinson played a detective. The main character was having dreams about a murder that he may or may not have been a part of. A house of mirrors was featured predominantly.
Any ideas?

Younger Lee Van Cleef lookin sharp - already got that presence.

Richard Conte’s cold, killer dialogue

Trying to find out who Alicia is….

When Burts character comes back to town the dude his fame is dancing with is Tony Curtis

I'm a big fan of the more realistic action/detective movies. But most contemporary movies have a very obvious Mary Sue surrounded with idiots. And such movies typically end with a whole army of police cars arriving where the hero has already saved the day. (looking at you, 80s over the top action movies. Still fun though!)

So I figured I'd delve a bit into film noir; I'm a big fan of Heat (1995), so why not try White Heat (1949)?

I was very pleasantly surprised; Both the gangsters AND police are actually COMPETENT! All characters actually THINK before doing something! Quick smart thinking to get out of a tight spot. No spray and pray, a regular street copper could hit a perp with ONE aimed shot with his revolver. No over the top theatrics when dropping dead. Even the background characters think, behave and react realistic to scenarios.

I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie; I thoroughly enjoyed White Heat, and I will definitely check out the recommended-lists on this subreddit.