Blog #8: 1st Assignment: Option 1 & 2nd Assignment

After reading both stories, there were a couple of similarities both protagonists seem to share.  Both characters have an uneasy relationship with their wife and/or girlfriend, like Jim for example in “The Kidnapper Bell “all this time he had a wife at home while he was on a date with his girlfriend that didn’t really have an interest in him up until she really needed him in helping her rescue her little sister from her kidnapper which led her to her own death. As for Nick in “City of Commerce” his gambling addiction gets the better of him and lands him in trouble with the Russians making him miss his important meeting that his wife kept nagging him about and in the end barely escapes with his life. His relationship with her wife is described as “Admissions of love came less and less frequently from her these days, not that I blamed her.” (N. Pollack 228). One thing that stuck out though in both stories is having both male protagonists ignoring their reality to satisfy their need for thrill, exploiting imperfections in their relationships, unaware of getting involved in unexpected dilemmas or situations that puts them on the brink of life and death, and end up having that event as either life-changing or a repressed memory. Such details like these, I believe can be summed up as very well description of male protagonists of neo-noir for this type of story.

I chose the story “The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones” as the best example of noir because even though it was a short story, many familiar qualities from classic noir are told in this story where the femme fatale seduces the male protagonist, then tries to manipulate him into helping her getting rid of a dead body she had just killed. With Tate being uncooperative, he refuses to lend her a hand at the risk of him getting killed by her with the pistol in her hand and manages to escape and call the police, but realizes it’s too late when he sees her in her car, ready to fire. “I put my weight back onto my feet just as I catch sight of a vaguely familiar, battered red Corolla pulling into the lot and heading toward me, the face behind the wheel bearing down on mine, jaws clenched so tight they’re bulging, and all I can think is how pretty she still looks.” (S. Phillips 298). Out of the other stories in the “The Gold Coast Section”, I find “Kinship” to be the most difficult one to classify as noir, just because I think the story is only about revenge and that’s it. Not much else of noir I couldn’t really see in that story.

Blog #7: Option one

After reading both “The Method” and “Morocco Junction 90210”, Hollywoodlandia is not a very fun place to live in. Noir not only surrounds the lower to middle class society, it also spreads into the underside of upper-middle class and the rich. By exploring perspectives of both female protagonists, Holly and Minerva, respectively, each illustrate the livelihood of the fame and fortune as sad and unforgiving. Specifically, the ex-actresses or actors, who have been long forgotten and entrapped in their own golden, three-story cage, terrified of the outside world.  Which is really weird thing to picture, since they have all that money and supposedly live in a safer environment; one might assume they have nothing to worry about because the way they are living, they should always be happy and safe, classifying them as another social stereotype, but that’s not the case, instead it’s almost the complete opposite.

“We all lived here for the same reason: the address. Los Feliz Boulevard called to mind the mansions in the hills north and south of the street, but this was Granny Los Feliz, who counted her pennies and voted Republican, who drank cream sherry out of cut glass.”(J. Fitch 100). From Holly’s point of view, she knows many people like herself believe they can make it big when coming to Hollywood marking another strong example of a stereotypic view, but realizes it’s not as easy as it sounds, quickly changing her perspective about living in Los Feliz. As for Beverly Hills, Minerva states a relevant fact that may or may not be true, “Old BH hated the fact that the place’s original name was Morocco Junction; they thought it sounded like some cheesy hotel on the Vegas Strip, as indeed it did.”(P. Morrison 129). This goes to show that even Beverly Hills hides its real name to keep up its reputation just like the many rich people who hide their shame to keep up appearances in their circle.

 It’s amazing how noir sheds its darkness upon the many outcasts around and in the rich community to match the turmoil and despair with the lower-class community. 

Blog #6: Contrast between Classic Noir and Neo-Noir

To start off, classic film noir has been set as a foundation for many upcoming authors and movie makers to explore new innovative ideas. That’s where neo-noir comes in by exploring in depth the basic roots of classic film noir ideologies and its known qualities. Another way to look at it, is neo-noir expanding on aspects of society by connecting postmodern aesthetics and references to pop culture.

Although classic film noir followed a pattern of plot with the male protagonist and the femme fatale killing each other with guilt, or by other reasons, it’s more common for neo-noir films to let the criminal like in “The Last Seduction”, femme fatale character, get away and live on from the chaos planned by her and a puppet. Also, unlike classic noir, neo-noir tends to create more broad and abstract situations of reality where the main characters have specific characteristics and qualities, such as Jack in Fight Club exposing his split personality or alter-ego Tyler Durden, as the character questions his own masculine identity and self-consciousness. Neo-noir also touches up on nostalgia from previous works of classic noir tales expressing somewhat of a recreated version, but with more modernized elements. And the most obvious difference I think neo-noir doesn’t show as much, is that it doesn’t really give the feeling of black and white which are always with classic noir, but remain to have its own dark effects.

Blog Entry #4: Zero Draft Responses

Out of the qualities Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton used to describe film noir, I chose ambivalence because in Double Indemnity, Walter Neff the protagonist makes a troubled choice to engage in a deadly relationship with secret serial killer, Phyllis Dietrichson. Already having self-internal conflict with his decision, Walter accepts his demise at the beginning of the film and does a voice-over narrative on how it all started. As his story begins to progress, Walter was sort of aware of the possible outcome that would have happen as soon as he planned the murder with Phyllis, as well as the inability of getting away with it without Keyes ever finding out, in which in short time after, he had it all figured out, but did it anyways just to give himself a challenge, so he pretty much pushed himself right over the edge of crazy just because he “fell in love” with a beautiful woman who thinks of herself as Death. What’s even worse is that after the murder he realizes his relationship is growing apart instead of bringing them closer and has mixed feelings and ideas, thanks to her step-daughter Lola, that now Phyllis plans to kill Walter, but not before he did it first. Although, Phyllis did shoot him first and gave him a bloody wound, which eventually he bled so much he died. What a tragic scene, but yet a satisfying end to a film noir classic with a protagonist who was unable to chose between his course of life or death.  In my opinion, the protagonist went beyond his threshold of living a life of every day is exactly the same, letting lust and desire consume him to love a woman who simply killed to get ahead which led him to his doom and demise.     

With the provided descriptions of the cinematic qualities involved in film noir from the article “Ten Shades of Noir” of the online journal In Focus, many matching scenery took place in the film, Double Indemnity. For example, during the title sequence, the man on crutches hobbling towards the camera, Walter’s monologue in his dark office at the beginning of the movie, the murder scene at night in the car and at the railroad tracks where Walter and Phyllis were placing the dead corpse of Mr. Dietrichson or Nirdlinger, or the part where Keyes is leaving Walter’s small apartment, at the same time hiding Phyllis behind the door casting a dark shadow over her symbolizing her true color while creating a barrier in their not too distant future relationship, which eventually leads into the final confrontation between them in Mr. Dietrichson’s dark living room with very little light shedding through the Venetian blinds of the windows of the house allowing the viewer to expect a very dramatic moment as soon as Phyllis plants a gun under the pillow of the couch she is sitting in. All of these are evident descriptions in Double Indemnity that show true visual form and content of film noir at its best.

Blog Entry #2: "Double Indemnity": double protection against damage or loss

The cover of the “Double Indemnity” novel, written by James M. Cain shows a big train in black and white, already illustrating main elements of film noir. The main character’s name is Walter Huff, an insurance salesman who has fallen in love with Phyllis Nirdlinger the married woman or the classic femme fatale character who is desperate and chooses to manipulate Huff into planning the perfect murder against her husband and betraying everything he had ever worked for. Their relationship shows a strong example of Huff, “the male protagonist in film noir who has to inevitably choose (or have the fateful choice made for him) between the women and invariably he picks the femme fatale who destructively goads him into committing murder or some other crime of passion.” A very relevant part of the novel that I believe relates to a key element in film noir is after the murder was done, Huff is at his house in his room and had just finished a conversation with Ike Shwartz (another salesman) to complete his plan so that he would an alibi and nobody would have any suspicions of him and Phyllis that could connect to the murder, is contemplating about what had just happened and says “Soon as he hung up everything cracked. I dived for the bathroom. I was sicker than I had ever been in my life. After that passed I fell into bed. It was a long time before I could turn out the light. I lay there staring into the dark. Every now and then I would have a chill or something and start to tremble. Then I started to think. I tried not to, but it would creep up on me. I knew then what I had done. I had killed a man to get a woman. I had put myself in her power, so there was one person in the world that could point a finger at me, and I would have to die. I had done all that for her, and I never wanted to see her again as long as I lived. That’s all it takes, one drop of fear, to curdle love into hate.”(Cain 54) Now if that is not a perfect example of self-regret or internal conflict, hence crime from within in film noir, then I don’t know what is! The dark things a man does for love that has him trapped in a situation that can have fatal repercussions with a woman who is crazy, manipulative, and gorgeous just waiting for somebody to find out what crime they’ve done. This kind of quality gives the readers or audience that feeling of suspense that makes one think what is going to happen next.  Other good examples of film noir from the novel is the night-time setting on the railroad tracks where Huff and Phyllis were dragging the dead corpse of her husband to make it look like he had fallen off the train by accident, clearly showing the lie and crime they had done or the part when Huff had just finished talking on the phone with Phyllis, he says “I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake. That night I did something I hadn’t done in years. I prayed.” (Cain 70), pretty much telling what in the world has he gotten himself into.  

Silent Thoughts

There are many different ways one can define what film noir and neo-noir is, what similarities they have and how they differ. Personally, I find this genre very interesting and it feels as though not many people know what film noir is, but when they do, it really grabs your attention and interest. So far, from what I’ve been reading about film noir in articles is that the society, the people, in these stories described in this genre, have a tone and setting with qualities that show despair, self-conflict, desire, and many other dark characteristics I have yet to discover.