Film Noir: How it affected late 20th century and the 21st century Part 1

I was working on a presentation on film Noir for my Film History class when I began to notice characteristics of Film Noir in more recent (recent meaning last 20 years) films. now these connections haven't gone unnoticed. Films like Fight Club (1999) and Hard Eight (1996) have been noted for their dark undertones that hadn't been seen since the 1960's with the popularity of Noir. My connections however extend past the films that connect just through style and visuals, but more along the bases of narrative structure.

First I think its important to highlight what film noir is for those reading that have minimal understanding of how film noir is understood. Film noir is marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, menace, and cynical characters. Usually we break down Film Noir into three seperate categories; Thematic concerns, narrative concerns, and style.

1) Thematic concerns: Dark moods which reflect the moral structure of the world.

2) Narrative concerns: Plot and story reflection of on the moral climate of society. Can depend on past events told through flashbacks, which gives noir a feel of sensibility.
3) Style: Visually seems dark and fanatical. use of lighting. etc.

I feel that while watching some recent films that the narrative concerns have returned back to the film noir understanding. Now the same historical setting are mirrored during our time. The 1930's which predate noir created instability. We are currently in recession around the world and now our return to finacial stability has been put into question. With the war in the 1940's, people began to feel negatively upon the country. The attack on Pearl Harbor is mirrored with the events of 9/11. The attacks spark an involvement from Hollywood to show positive, almost propaganda like films. World Trade Center would be the best example of this. The view on the current war in the middle east is different from WWII because people in the past believed there was good cause to fighitng against the axis. Now with the middle-east, many people believe that the involvement of both the US and Canada is not necessary. This is significant in my opinion because both events are happening at the same time so the darker undertones are becoming prominent when these events overlap.

Noir: The Departed Part 1 of 2

Of recent films, one I believe take is highly noir like is The Departed (2006) . I don't think of this is noir just because of the crime aspect or its links to mobster films. Narratively, the film outputs two moral arguments in two seperate, but both negative fashion. Through the double plot that follows both Sullivan, the mole in the Police department, and Costigan, the mole in the crime family, we see a moral fluctuation that is seemingly in attempted to be balanced. The characterization of the film is significant to viewing this film as being somewhat noir.

Sullivan was raised under the wing of crime boss Costello, and his work in the police department to some extend make up for his connections to Costello. The ending of their father-son relationship comes to an end when the son kills the father. It is there when Sullivan accepts his moral responsibility, which is that to free yourself of guilt you need to free yourself from the source of guild, Costello. This concept of the father-son relationship was prominent in Film Noir, as many children grew up with strained relationships or opinions of their fathers. Sullivan didn't have a father, therefore he was vulnerable to the security which Costello offered.

Costigan is the reverse of Sullivan. He is a good man asked to do bad things. His wish to be a state police officer is blocked by his past and his families ties to crime. This makes him a perfect took for the police to use in situating him as an informant. He is not reluctant to be placed in such a role, and is almost conned like into the position. None the less, Costigan does it because of the moral good it does. He feels, at least in my opinion, that his service will be an insult to a family that he hates. The noble act comes from his father, who did the same thing to his family, refusing to skin to crime and lives his life doing manual labour to raise his son. I wouldn't consider this part of the father-son relationship because his father does not appear in the film. However this does still have an enormous effect on Costigan. If there is a father son relationship it is Costigan and Queenan. Queenan is the one who offers Costigan a chance, he shelters him and makes sure that he keep his moral integrity. His noir quality are based on his background. He grew up between the north and south of Boston, his violent upbringing separates his views on life between bad and good. Queenan acts as a merger of those two sides, the crime and the high life.

Now financially, both characters are both jobless at the start of the film. This is very similar to other Noir's like Sunset BLVD (1950), where the protagonist start off unemployed but takes a job that is not morally right. Both Costigan and Sullivan must do the same thing at different points in their life. Their ties to crime become a motif for their weak ability to care for themselves. Sullivan more than Costigan because he was a child, but Cositgan still because he needs to be a state police officer, therefore he must take the worst job they have.

 In Part 2, I will talk about Madolyn's similarities with the Femme fatale and the style similarities within the visuals of The Departed

The Academy Awards: Why certain films get chosen over others.

This morning the Academy award nominations were released. As usual, Hollywood films were nominated less on the actual outcome of the film but rather on the names behind those pictures. Names like Fincher, Boyle, Coen, Nolan, etc all received vast nominations for their films that year. My interest in these awards come less from the frequent amounts of popular names that are listed but rather the smaller names and the ones that were neglected.

The Golden Globe gives many viewers the idea of who is going to be nominated for the Oscars. And that is true, the same films nominated by the Globes for best picture drama were all included in the ten Best picture nominations for the Oscars. In contrast, only one from the best comedy film side chosen to be included in the ten, that being The Kids are All Right (2010). The other four films seem to be filling the void created by the fact that with the rule change for best picture after the 81st academy awards.

The Academy chose to change the rule because of the number of films that people believed had a chance during 2008. For more information on films released in 2008, check out Film in 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_in_film

Now I love the academy awards. They tend to recognize popular films while at the same time noticing smaller films that would usually go unnoticed. My only complaint on the other hand is that this year the academy has chosen to notice more spectacle based money making films over films which have created a cult following. What I am directly referring to is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which was snubbed in my opinion by popular award shows.

Scott Pilgrim has everything. It takes from the aspect of video games and music and adds to the concept of love and hate. It builds off the simple idea of love and makes it a literal battle for the heart of one. It is similar to Inception and Black Swan in that it is a fanatical world that represents a psychological main character. Scott Pilgrim is effected in two ways in different levels. He is first effected by the emotion trauma of his previous breakup. Second, the effect of video games that represents his connection with reality.

Its visual style to me was sure to receive a nomination for Visual Effects or Film Editing, possibly Art direction. Instead, films like Alice in Wonderland and the new Harry Potter got nominations. I believe Scott Pilgrim to be better because it is not fully overpowered by its effects and editing. Most of Scott Pilgrims effects were done for the sake of battle scenes that don't overtake the pure emotions of the situations. My disgust with the two nominations is that its all been done and recognized before. Wonderland was filmed 90% with GreenScreen, mostly from digitalization. In case for their nomination is because of the magnitude of animation done. My retort however would be that quantity is not as important as quality. Scott Pilgrim has a much cleaner and more effective set of effects. Another argument could be that because Wonderland is 90% animated, it should not be included as being "visual effects" because case in point, its all an illusion so it is therefore not an effect, but a constant. For Harry Potter the animation is the same with each film.

Film Editing is an absolute for Scott Pilgrim. The academy tends to side with the continuity editing that was favored in the Traditional Hollywood Narrative from 1915-1960. Films like The Social Network follow along with these rules without holding any significant form upon its own which make it unique. I'm not insulting The Social Network, I throughly enjoyed the film, but its editing style is not as good as Pilgrim. In Scott Pilgrim, editing is rapid in succession. It uses time and space to create an opposing recognition of the mental state of the protagonist, Scott. His mind becomes clustered and therefore the film is presented in the way his mind is remembering and recognizing situations. The scene where he is dreaming of Ramona is met with him playing a song with the band, when he is asked something he jumps back into that reality only to be met in a different place, walking along a Toronto street complaining about a party they are going to attend. I feel that Edgar Wright did a masterful job in creating a scene that by using the dialog was able condense time and space so that events would conenside with the process of Scott's mind. That particular scene reminded me of the lightning mix used in Citizen Kane to show the passage of time, where music and voice over is used to connect events in time, going from Kane's childhood to him as a young adult. This is only one scene in Scott Pilgrim that offers interesting and well thought out editing.

Now not all the nominations upset me. I was very happy to hear the nominations for The Kids are All Right. I felt that the film might of been ignored because it was a summer release. I still wish that Lisa Cholodenko had recieved a directing nomination because she formed together a great film. She in my mind should replace the Coen brother on the list. I feel the Coen brothers offer very little when it comes to actual skill. My distain for them started when I first watched No Country for Old Men, which I consider to be a bad film because its events are loosely held together and in some ways almost untracable through the plot. I understood the plot, which was based off the book of the same name, but felt the film was a weak attempt at recreating it.

I do comment the academy for their array of new directors nominated, which includes Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell and Tom Hooper. I feel that Edgar Wright deserves a bit of recognition for his work. He has a consistent vision for his films that he delivers. His other films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz offer the same editing style and rapid pace that is appreciated in the indie film scene and should be more recognized by the Academy.

I really wish that Scott Pilgrim had been more recognized because of its artistic style and great direction, but the fact is that it wasn't included. This could do in some parts to the mixed reviews it received in the US and the poor ticket sales at the box office. However the case, I hope that I made a strong argument as to why Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World deserves to be recognizes as one of the best films of 2010.

The Cinema: Film vs. Animation

This discussion was sparked upon a facebook status update I made criticizing the fact that 6 of the top 10 money making movies in North America were either fully or partly animated. My outrage was met with an argument sparked by my friends brother Coltin who argued that because animated films are more family friendly and even enjoyable for parents, its no surprised they make more money. He cited Pixar and Studio Ghibli films as examples of good animation that sparks great interest in viewers.

My argument with this was that film form had been abandoned for the practice of computer creation of film. I did not object to this practice, but challenged it as being defined as a film, and instead called it a movie. I did this because the traditional cinema was based on the celluloid film used to record film for the most part up until the invention of video, which in turn has been replaced by digital recording. The problem with animation is that it uses neither film or video, but digital creations of worlds that are clearly not real.

In my film theory class, we discussed the first film theorist, Hugo Munsterberg. Munsterberg believed that cinema was the "art of the mind." His believe was that film was more of a psychological art that depended on its preception in the mind. To Munsterberg, film needed to be realistic and challenge the perception of reality in the human mind. By this understanding of film, Munsterberg would denounce animation as being the creation of a clearly false world that offers little to the imagination. I agree with Munsterberg in some ways because I accept cinema as the art of the mind, hence why I think animation doesn't belong in the same category as traditional cinema.

However, I do feel animation is significant to visual entertainment because it uses the narrative style that film adapted from theatre and literature. As Coltin wrote on my facebook wall "A story conveyed with moving pictures is still a story conveyed with moving pictures." My only problem with this statement is the idea of moving pictures. His reference to animation as "moving pictures" is generally wrong. Yes, animation is moving, but it is not always created in picture form first. In some cases it is, like the productions of Studio Ghibli which he used as part of his argument. The issue however involves my problem with American animation, which is mostly generated by computers. Some may argue that because animation is always made frame by frame, but I would reject this because cinema isn't created frame by frame. It requires mise-en-scene and the construction a filmic reality.

With mise-en-scene in mind, Coltin's brother, Adam, argued that animation is free from the constraints of traditional film. I can agree to this simply because creating something from nothing is easier then something from whatever you have at your disposal. The great thing about animation is that you have endless possibilities with what you can create.

Adam continued by arguing about the narrative construction on animations and their power to create emotional responses. He specifically used Up (2009) as an example. Now just for arguments sake, emotions are the most important thing in how Hugo Munsterberg believes cinema should be mentally. However, the construction of narrative does not define animation. Narrative is used in everything that conveys a story. The effect that Up has on human emotions is similar to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), which preceded it by 28 years. Narrative is not restricted to film, therefore Adam's argument is moot.

I went on to argue the difference in film and animation by making note of how the two were made. Film, as in movies made in the real world, is a 3d universe and presented in 2d. Animation on the other hand is created 2d and shown primarily in the 2d universe. Therefore, animation does not represent the 3d universe that humans occupy. Animation can stylistically create the real world, but it is not the real world. Some will argue that 3d films are unique and indifferent to this concept, but 3d films like Avatar (2009) use technology to trick the mind. Now this technology is not necessarily a negative towards technology, bit is still only a 2d image which capitalizes on deception.

Adam went on to question films position as being meant for documenting or storytelling. He asked " isn't the idea of film and fiction based on deception? If that is true then is not animation a purer form of that?" I answer this by saying absolutely not. The first use of film both in America and France was for documenting purposes. The Edison Company in New Jersey filmed simple things in life, like a couple kissing, and a man flexing. In France, the Lumiere brother created films called "actualities" which simply shot life as it happened. Their first uses for film were to document life. Since, as Munsterberg states, film is the art of the mind, we as viewers are fully aware we are watching animation and not reaity.

Now, narrative stories did eventually become the norm for American cinema. With the work of directors like D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, cinema became something of a spectacle. Animations is obviously part of this spectacle, but it is in a different category then regular fiction films.

In conclusion I would just like to say that I do not hate animation films because of my place in this argument. I enjoy animation films, Toy Story (1996) being one of my favorite films. I simply believe that animation films and films shot in real life are different, and their appreciation is neglected for a less traditional and as some would call a "more" entertaining film.