Chapter 6 - MDC Faculty Home Pages

School of Entertainment and Design Technology
FIL 1055
American Independent Film
Lecture Notes
Chapter 6
prepared by
Mario Beguiristain, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Film
from
Levy, Emanuel. Cinema of Outsiders. New York University Press, 1999.
ISBN #: 0-8147-5124-5
These notes are intended solely as a study aid and are not meant to replace the reading assignments from the text.
Chapter 6:
The Resurrection of Film Noir
Film Noir (1945-1955): Genre identified by French critics
§  A type of American low budget, B Picture
§  Invariably in B&W and shot mostly at night
§  Tough, gritty, urban stories about crime
adultery, betrayals, treachery and deceit
§  Crude violence, often against women
§  Sexual innuendo, testing the Code.
The Resurrection of Film Noir
What makes a modern film noir? Here's some of the basic ingredients:
ü  A change or case of mistaken identity for one or more characters - and the casual use
of false names for the purposes of dealing with officialdom and authority figures.
ü  Fraudulently obtained monies that may run into thousands of dollars... or a stash of
banknotes, acquired by extralegal means, that everyone is eager to get their hands on.
ü  Premeditated, first-degree murder - usually planned and executed as the perfect
crime... Of course, sometimes they even get away with it!
ü  A good man turned bad - often unwittingly - by his involvement with, and desire for, a
treacherous femme fatale - blonde, brunette or redhead... it makes no difference, she'll
happily ruin the naive hero and/or wreck his marriage.
ü  A complex web of deceit and betrayal. In the murky world of film noir, almost nobody is
who or what they appear to be - so they can't be trusted, and nice guys invariably
finish last.
ü  A clutch of revelatory plot twists in the suspenseful final reel, as dark secrets of the
pivotal characters are revealed in - often nightmarish - flashbacks.
Courtesy of Rob Marshall, videovista.net
Joel and Ethan ( The Brothers ) Coen
Ranked 3rd on The Guardian's 2004 List of the World's 40 Best Directors
Joel: Director / Screenwriter / Editor.
Born 11/29/54, Minneapolis, MN
Ethan: Producer /Director / Screenwriter / Editor. Born 9/21/57 . Minn., MN
Key Genres: Comedy, Crime, Drama TSPDT Rating: 9
Joel
Key Collaborators: Ethan Coen (Producer/Screenwriter/Editor/Director), Carter Burwell
(Composer), Roger Deakins (Cinematographer), Dennis Gassner (Production Designer),
Frances McDormand (Leading Character Player), Steve Buscemi (Leading Character
Player), John Goodman (Leading Player), Jon Polito (Character Player), John Turturro
(Leading Character Player), Holly Hunter (Leading Character Player)
Must-See Films: Blood Simple (1984), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton
Fargo (1995)
Highly Recommended: Raising Arizona (1987), The Man Who Wasn't
(2001)
Recommended: The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998),
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Fink (1991),
There
Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [ The Joel
and Ethan Coen Homepage ] [ You Know for Kids!: The Movies of the Coen Brothers ]
[ Coenesque ] [ Guardian Article ]
Books: [The Coen Brothers: The Story of Two American Filmmakers]
[Brothers Coen: Joel and Ethan Coen] [The Films of Joel and Ethan Coen ]
Ethan
1,000 Greatest Films: Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing
(1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1995), The Big Lebowski (1998)
Courtesy of www.theyshootpictures.com
Joel and Ethan ( The Brothers ) Coen
§  They form a unified team, with their individual contributions so intertwined,
that no one can say precisely who did what
§  They know how to explore the noir tradition effectively and thoroughly
§  Each of their films pays homage to a classic Hollywood genre
Joel
§  They create sealed universes with few references outside the world
of cinema
§  They call attention to themselves, playing off pop culture and doing virtuoso
riffs on old movies
§  Their films are emotionally vapid, with a hole where human feelings should be
§  Technically brilliant, most of their films feature amazing production design
§  Joel went to NYU Film School and worked as editor, masking a name for
himself on exploitation and horror films
§  Ethan abandoned Philosophy studies at Princeton to write scripts with Joel
§  Since publication of Levy, they can t be categorized solely as neo-noir
filmmakers
Ethan
§  Their choice of material always shows a shrewd awareness of their
best career move
Blood Simple
(1984)
§  One of the 1980s most visually stunning debuts
§  Script full of sprightly black humor and mordant wit
§  Violence is choreographed for visual rather than emotional effect
§  Made for under $1 Million, it has brought in close to $60 Million to date
§  Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance
§  Winner for Best Director at the Independent Spirit Awards
Raising Arizona
(1987)
§  The Coen Brothers make a calculated career
about face. This is not film noir!
§  It s a screwball comedy about a childless couple
who kidnap a baby
§  A road picture for the 1980s, filled with
references to the Road Warrior movies,
Badlands and Carrie
§  Cost $6 Million and grossed over $35 Million
worldwide for 20th Century-Fox
§  Oddball chemistry between Nicholas Cage and
Holly Hunter worked amazingly well
§  Like most of their films, it falls apart in the
third act
Miller s Crossing
(1990)
§  Their tribute to gangster films
§  Visually striking but not engaging
Barton Fink
(1991)
§  A noirish riff on serious writers seduced by Hollywood
§  How to deal with writer s block and Studio Bosses
§  Set in a stifling, cavernous hotel that dominates the film
§  Hypnotic and hermetic--a compelling enigma of a movie
Fargo
The Hudsucker Proxy
(1991)
§  Their most costly failure to date
§  A Capraesque fairytale about the
little man and big business
§  Set in 1958, but evoking the 1930s
(1996)
§  A comic thriller with a deadpan tone
§  Considered to be their best work so far
§  Made for $7 Million, it grossed over $35 Million for Polygram
§  Frances MacDormand s Oscar winning performance as the small
town police chief is only one notch above caricature--a balancing
act the Coen s will try for again and again.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
(2000)
§  Their riff on Preston Sturges Sullivan s Travels
§  Depression era nostalgia with bluegrass score
§  Surprisingly big hit!
The Big Lebowski
(1998)
A sweet comedy adventure about kidnapping
(one of the Coen s favorite plot devices)
and over-the-hill flower children
Joel Coen
The Man Who Wasn t There
(2001)
§  B&W, highly stylized return to noir
§  A great existential character study by Billy Bob Thornton
§  Tightly constructed screenplay based on coincidences
§  Despairing and cynical, the audience wasn t there either
§  Probably their most serious work
Intolerable Cruelty
(2003)
Promising premise falls apart at the end in
spite of great comic turns by likeable cast
The Ladykillers
(2004)
Remake of British classic fails to generate
any interest in a competitive holiday release
No Country For Old
Men (2007)
Brutal and taut drug smuggling
melodrama based on a novel by
Cormac McCarthy.
Won 4 Oscars, including Best Picture
and picked up many i8 international
awards, reviving the Coen
Brothers career.
Burn After Reading
(2008)
A disk containing the memoirs of a CIA agent
ends up in the hands of two unscrupulous
gym employees who attempt to sell it. Their
funniest madcap social satire to date
A Serious Man
(2009)
A black comedy centered on Larry Gopnik, a
Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel
when his wife prepares to leave him because his
inept brother won't move out of the house.
Nominated for Best Picture and Screenplay Oscars.
True Grit
(2010)
The Brothers Coen have justified their choice to
adapt Charles Portis' novel, not remake the John
Wayne classic. The impact, and visceral reality of
life in such places and times, coupled with the
abrupt, brutal violence is something you didn't
fully grasp in the grandstanding, heroics of the
1969 version. I applaud the Coens for exercising
restraint and understatement to allow the scenes
and the situations to breathe and take there
natural course. Overall, it was an amazing
cinematic experience that truly transports the
viewer to a very real and fully realized time and
space that crackles with fire and true grit.
-- childsplay on IMDb
This is the first straight genre exercise in the
Coen Brothers career, and it's a loving one.
Their craftsmanship is a wonder. Their casting is
always inspired and exact. The cinematography by
Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was,
and can still be, the Western.
--Roger Ebert
Nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2011
Inside Llewyn Davis
(2013)
Follow a week in the life of a young folk singer as
he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of
1961. Guitar in tow, huddled against the
unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to
make it as a musician against seemingly
insurmountable obstacles -- some of them of his
own making.
“With surprising compassion, the Coens have torn
open not just a long-gone historical moment but
also a true and painful and personal one that will
forever recur: when someone dedicated to living
for art faces the fact that art might not be
enough. How many filmmakers who have
achieved such success still remember so well what
it's like to have none at all?”
--Alan Scherstuhl
”The Village Voice”
Retro Noir: James Foley
Director
1953Born December 28, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Key Genres: Drama, Romance, Crime TSPDT Rating: 5
Key Collaborators: Juan-Ruiz Anchia (Cinematographer),
Howard Smith (Editor)
Worth a Look: At Close Range (1986)
Approach with Caution: Reckless (1984), Glengarry Glen Ross
(1992)
Courtesy of www.theyshootpictures.com
Reckless
(1984)
A rehash of 50s Bicker Flicks, it featured
impressive and promising debuts by Foley
and actor Aidan Quinn, aided by the
stunning beauty of Darryl Hanna
At Close Range
(1987)
A melodrama about a youth corrupted by
his own father. Sean Penn and Christopher
Walken worked for deferments to allow for
the picture s $6.5 Million budget
Who s That Girl
(1987)
Foley was held partly responsible for
Madonna s semi-final attempt
to carry a picture on her own
After Dark, My Sweet
(1990)
Truly a retro-noir masterpiece, adapted from a novel by
1950s pulp writer Jim Thompson, the film observes
all of the genre s conventions and updates them
very successfully. It found only a cult audience.
2007
2003
1992
1999
Recently, James Foley directed the film version of David Mamet s Pulitzer Prize winning play Glengarry Glen
Ross , the Hong Kong actioner-inspired The Corruptor . the charming film noirish Confidence and the thriller
Perfect Stranger --but his ship has yet to come in
The Con Artist: David Mamet
Director / Screenwriter
1947 Born November 30, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Key Genres: Drama, Crime, Comedy TSPDT Rating: 7
Key Collaborators: Ricky Jay (Character Player), Rebecca Pidgeon
(Leading Character Player), Barbara Tulliver (Editor), Alaric Jans
(Composer), William H. Macy (Character Player), Joe Mantegna (Leading
Player), Michael Hausman (Producer), Michael Merritt (Production
Designer), Willo Hausman (Character Player), Juan Ruiz-Anchia
(Cinematographer)
Highly Recommended: Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
Recommended: House of Games (1987), The Winslow Boy (1998), State
and Main (2000)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ David Mamet Info Page ]
[ Salon Interview ] [ Another Mamet Page ] [ Guardian Article Written by
David Mamet ] [ Audience Article ] [ Interview: The Spanish Prisoner ]
[ Guardian Article #2 Written by David Mamet ]
Books: [ Weasels and Wisemen: Ethics and Ethnicity in the work of
David Mamet ] [ On Directing Film ]
David Mamet, the Pulitzer Prize winning
Playwright who had been writing film scripts
for years, didn t make his directorial debut
until 1987 with House of Cards. Since then,
he has continued making puzzle movies
which are more morality plays than film noir.
Cowboy Noir: John Dahl
Director / Screenwriter
1956 Born in Billings, Montana, USA
Key Genres: Crime, Thriller, Drama TSPDT Rating: 7
Key Collaborators: Eric L. Beason (Editor). Scott Chestnut (Editor), Rob Pearson
(Production Designer), Jeffrey Jur (Cinematographer), Linda Fiorentino (Leading
Player), J.T. Walsh (Leading Player), Steve Golin (Producer), Sigurjon Sighvatsson
(Producer), William Olvis (Composer), Christopher Young (Composer)
Recommended: Red Rock West (1992), The Last Seduction (1993)
Worth a Look: Kill Me Again (1989)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Talking About Noir with John Dahl ]
[ MGM/United Artists Brief Bio ]
JOHN DAHL | FAVOURITE FILMS
Chinatown Roman Polanski
A Clockwork Orange Stanley Kubrick
Crimes and Misdemeanors Woody Allen
Double Indemnity Billy Wilder
The Godfather Francis Ford Coppola
Once Upon a Time in the West Sergio Leone
Schindler's List Steven Spielberg
Sunset Blvd. Billy Wilder
The Treasure of the Sierre Madre John Huston
Unforgiven Clint Eastwood
(Source: 2002 Sight & Sound Directors' Poll)
Courtesy of www.theyshootpictures.com
Cowboy Noir: John Dahl
Director John Dahl made his reputation with the hard-boiled,
film-noir, one-two punch of Red Rock West (1993) and
The Last Seduction (1994).
The Montana-born, 42-year-old Dahl is the antithesis of the
popular culture image of the bigger-than-life movie director.
In an environment fueled by dysfunction and sanctioned
excess, he's strikingly low-key and composed.
After studying music and art at the University of Montana, and film at Montana State University,
he moved to Los Angeles, attending the American Film Institute. Dahl made short films and music
videos, drew storyboards and worked as an assistant director before making Kill Me Again (1989),
his first film noir.
Then Red Rock West and The Last Seduction, which were made for theatrical release, ended up
debuting on cable television (which disqualified them from any film awards) because the financial
backers didn't believe in them, Dahl explained. In both cases, they were eventually released in
theaters to positive critical and audience response, "and that was very satisfying to me
personally," he said.
Courtesy Serena Donadoni, metrotimes.com
Kill Me Again (1989) is basically a road movie.
Bad-girl, Fay (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), hires private eye
Jack (Val Kilmer), to help fake her own death so that she
can evade the pursuit of her homicidal boyfriend, Vince
(Michael Madsen), and escape with a cache of money the
pair have stolen from Mafia gangsters.
However, Vince disregards the evidence of Fay's apparent
murder, and so the chase is on with a Mob fortune at
stake for the winner. The intricate plot twists and turns
like a rattlesnake in heat while, of the cast, Madsen - in
particular - is memorably nasty as the psychopathically
twisted villain of the piece.
Courtesy of Rob Marshall, videovista.net
Red Rock West (1992) was co-written by John
Dahl and his brother Rick, both self-evidently thriller fans
heavily into cult movies who really know their stuff. For this
offering, like many a noir classic of the 1940s, has an
electrically charged air of menace with brutal violence
simmering beneath the surface of its normality.
Into the small Wyoming town of Red Rock, comes an
honest Nicolas Cage looking for work. He has somehow
been mistaken for a killer, hired by a cuckold bar-keeper to
murder his adulterous wife (Lara Flynn Boyle).
Inevitably, the real killer - "Lyle, from Texas" (Dennis
Hopper turns up, in time to stir up1992
this already seething hot
spot of malice and duplicity, and soon enough the players
are double-crossing and backstabbing, sneaking about and
climbing over one another to steal away with the haul from
a major robbery.
All this is underscored by the script's razor-sharp sense of
humor, and director Dahl's willingness to fulfill audience
expectations. Although, at times, it all seems rather like a
rerun of the Coen brothers' unforgettable Blood Simple
(1983), Red Rock West is deserving of your attention - if
only for its excellent cinematography.
Courtesy of Rob Marshall, videovista.net
The Last Seduction (1993), was scripted by
Steve Barancik, and stars the sexy Linda Fiorentino who
portrays Bridget Gregory, the ultimate New York femme
fatale, with a vengeance. Bill Pullman plays her medichusband, Clay, who has stolen and sold off a load of dope
on the streets to pay off his loan shark. When Bridget runs
off with the cash, he hires a private eye to track
her down.
Fiorentino's stunning performance in The Last Seduction
made her actress of the year, back in 1993 - no contest. Her
role as the cunning manipulator of every foolish and weakwilled man that she encounters makes the scheming bitch
played by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct seem like a
simpering Julie Andrews clone.
Tightly plotted, and shot through with a venomous wit like
Hitchcock on speed, The Last Seduction is certainly
a handsomely stylish beast and should not be missed.
Courtesy of Rob Marshall, videovista.net
1996
1998
Prior to Rounders, Dahl made the critical and box office flop, Unforgettable (1996), a "mad scientist" thriller. He believes
some of the negative response came because it was a different genre and "there was an expectation that wasn't met.
Rounders appealed to him because "it's a classic coming of age story about what we all do to find our destiny or what
we're good at. "I think all of us," John Dahl concluded, "are asked to make moral decisions almost every day: 'Do I do
the right thing, or do I do what I want?"
Courtesy Serena Donadoni, metrotimes.com
Joy Ride
(2001) went largely unnoticed
by critics and audiences alike. Three young
people are terrorized on a highway by an
evil, unseen trucker. Did anyone see Steven
Spielberg s Duel ?
The Great Raid (2005). During World
War II, 500 POW's are beginning to give up
hope they will ever be rescued, until a group
of Rangers goes on a dangerous mission to
try and save them.
Recently, John Dahl has been directing TV Shows such as:
Dexter
Californication
The Vampire Diaries
and Battlestar Galactica
And now:
FIL 1055
American Independent Film
Lecture Notes
Chapter 6
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