“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.