“Your future is all used up.” Essential 5: Film Noir

"I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens." -Jean-Paul Sartre, 1948




Film noir is one of those things which will never be truly defined. Film scholars will be squabbling over it until there are no more film scholars. That doesn't mean that the question isn't important and doesn't shed light on the films themselves. I feel almost as if giving my two cents is a right of passage. After reading many who have attempted what I myself am attempting here, I think its possible to break down most thinkers into three distinct camps, those who try to define noir in terms of: pure aesthetics; character traits, setting, and plot elements (the things, or semantic elements); and the themes and context (the syntactic elements). It seems to me that none of these is exactly right in and of itself but rather the answer lies in some combination.

Essential 5: Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar is arguably the most important Spanish film director since Luis Buñuel. He is well known for his melodramatic plots, use of Hitchcockian suspense techniques, and gay themes. His films are most often compared to those of Douglas Sirk, the under-appreciated creator of many melodramas in the United States in the 1950s. Much like Sirk, his films are deceptively complex and are most notable for their use of eye-popping color. Also like Sirk, his films are often disregarded and misunderstood.

Essential 5: How I Met Your Mother

I do not enjoy Friends. I find most of its situations completely implausible and boring. When it ended in 2004, I was not alone in wishing it a bon voyage. Since then many shows have tried to recreate its success but most failed. The problem was that the simplistic core idea required some sort of vision to really make it worthwhile. Seinfeld was the result of a very definite worldview, Friends, though, just seemed to lead to empty plots and storylines. If Cosmopolitan Magazine were turned into a TV show, it would be Friends. That is why I was so pleasantly surprised by How I Met Your Mother.

Princesses, Post-feminism, and Hollywood

A recent New York Times article about Nancy Meyers praised the director for rising to the top of the romantic comedy genre. Its an achievement to be sure, for any female director (in a Hollywood system in which women comprise 9% of all directors) to rise to the top of the heap. Yet the article has many up in arms. Some say that praising the director for her accomplishments loses sight of the struggle women are still going through in Hollywood, while still others take issue with calling her success an achievement at all.

Essential 5: Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock is, quite simply, my favorite director. Vertigo was a revelatory experience for me, and after seeing it I recognized movies for the first time as an art form. I began what has been a strange and wonderful journey into an unknown, beautiful world. Since that initial experience I've seen many worthwhile films, and all of them seen through the filter that is Hitchcock. It isn't that I don't think that other directors have matched any one of his films but no director can claim the sheer number of masterpieces that Hitchcock produced. The breadth and depth of his work is awe inspiring. So, in case my word orgasm didn't give it away, take this with a grain of salt, I am extremely biased and not going to pretend otherwise.

Essential 5: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Essential 5 will be a semi-frequent feature here on The Crooked Frame. The idea is that there are best of lists for pretty much everything, but very little in the way of a guide for what are the most important films/episodes in any given genre, TV show, movement, etc. I want to create a starting point for people who are interested in watching something, but don't know where to start. For example, as of a few years ago I had never seen a western, so when I decided to tackle the genre I looked all over for some sort of starting point. This didn't work out so well because some of the films which are most important to understanding the genre aren't among the greatest films. Consequently, I skipped over essential viewing like Stagecoach (1939) and The Great Train Robbery (1903) and missed a lot of what later westerns were responding to. I will present the films/episodes in the order I think they should be watched (usually chronologically) and give a little commentary (no spoilers). 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often derided for its cheesy dialogue, melodramatic plots, and ridiculous bad guys but that's missing the point. Buffy embraces everything inherent in being a genre, horror, vampire, teen, romance, gothic, feminist show. It explores so many different serious things in such lighthearted yet truthful ways that it's impossible to dismiss it once you give it a chance. The show is, on one level, incredibly satisfying with its simple monster of the week plots and harlequin romance arcs, but underneath has a lot to say about modern feminism and genre among other things.

The 15 Best of 2009 (And Some Other Loose Ends)

The year in film can only be seen in relation to the global economic crisis that seems to define it. Much like the films of the early 30's this year was about escapism, yet it was escapism tempered by allegorical overtones. As if suggesting that instead of closing our eyes to whats going on around us we are merely squinting. A good friend of mine after enthusiastically gushing about Avatar suggested that he wished he could be an Avatar on some distant world. That might be a pitch perfect summation of the escapist feeling of the movie-going public in a year dominated by Transformers and Avatar. As A.O. Scott said "our movie avatars can travel freely through time and space, skipping over metaphysical borders with digitally enabled ease." Movie technology has never been better equipped to provide the mass therapy the world so desperately needs. Yet the question arises: did the movies succeed? The most successful films of the year were aimed at teenagers, those least in need of escapist fun in a world where joblessness is reaching ever greater heights. There has been a significant number of words devoted to the lack of adult films being given wide release and those accusations seem even more spot on when one looks at what some of the most popular "auteurist" releases this year (Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, and James Cameron's Avatar). Yet it has been a good year for the movies, a sort of defiant hoorah in the face of an ever more depressing reality.

The Greatest Films of All Time: 2010 Update

If, based on the title, you are expecting to see my own list set out, then I'm afraid you'll be mistaken (but probably not disappointed). I wouldn't presume to, based on my limited and idiosyncratic viewing history, make that sort of attempt. Instead I want to highlight the newest update on what has become to many (myself included) the quintessential such list. They Shoot Pictures Don't They is basically an amalgamation of many reputable such lists into a surprisingly cohesive and satisfying whole. That isn't to say that criticism of the list isn't justified, as Kevin Lee points out the list is extremely biased towards films made in the US and Europe almost ignoring films from countries with rich cinematic history like India and China as well as the films of Africa and and the rest of Asia. The beauty of such a list, though, is giving burgeoning cinephiles and critics everywhere a place to start. I personally relied really heavily on the list when I was first starting out and cannot express how many great films I have seen as a result of their inclusion on the list. As much as many critics shrug at such things, the power of such a list to give people a place to start as well as a goal can't be easily dismissed.

The Infamous Video Review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

A 70 minute, 7-part review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) has been making the rounds for a while now. I got it from /Film and The House Next Door but I've really seen it EVERYWHERE. Its completely worth it though, so brave its long running time for a hilarious and thoughtful review of the best example of "cinematic blueballs" in the history of film.

The Art of Criticism 3: Accessing the Artist

In a film class I took 2 or 3 years ago, I remember how, on the last day of class, the professor began to discuss the nature of art. Its something I hadn't really considered before, but at the time I remember being struck by the importance of the question. Although true in every medium, film is particularly problematic when discussing the artist of any particular film. Truffaut, Bazin, Rohmer, and the rest of the Cahiers du cinéma would have you believe that the director takes all the credit in what is known as auteur theory. The idea is still hugely influential and it is probably true that if you know any film theory, you know auteur theory. Naturally, though, it is incorrect. There are so many people involved in the making of a film, from the sets to the camerawork to the kid who gets coffee who just slips in a suggestion to one of the actors, that giving credit to one person seems, besides being wrong, just plain irresponsible. Even films made by only one person are still relying on a camera built by someone else or are filming in a location constructed by many others. No film is made in a vacuum. Yet that isn't really the level I'm interested in, even though it seems the most important. It certainly has the most written about it, yet I believe its possible, and necessary, to dig deeper. As in, is the above discussion even possible (or relevant)?