Today's movie showing was certainly the oddest one we have seen so far. Although The Dark City certainly contains all the aspects of Film Noir and is filled with symbolism, it goes a bit further in terms of violence, comedy, and sexual scenes. This of course, is mostly because the movie was not produced under the Hayes Codes and is relatively new in comparison to The Asphalt Jungle. The plot also seems to be a bit more complex and mysterious which helps to build up suspense (something I felt the Asphalt Jungle was laking apart from the heist scene).
Also, I had a question for you Mr. Bennett. I was looking through some footage from old film noir movies and I noticed that many of the coming attractions for films during the 30's 40's and 50's are produced in a similar fashion. The coming attractions often open with the producer describing the film's setting, main character, and sometimes a significant amount of the plot. This particular one caught my attention : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE2e6FYjCQg . This technique doesn't just relate to film noir though, because if I recall Citizen Kane's coming attraction was the same. So my question is why was this such a common technique. Maybe its just because of the generation of films I grew up with, but I feel that there are certainly better ways to introduce your movie to the public. I know its bad to give away to much of the plot in a coming attraction, but it certainly is more effective for building up interest in a movie.
Lastly I wanted to challenge you on a comment you made in class not relating to film. You were talking about the tensions in North and South Korea for a few minutes and you asked how the South Koreans responded to North Korean gunfire. I believed that the South had responded with gunfire of their own on several occasions and said so, but you were sure this was not the case. I wasn't ready to challenge you without any articles to back me up so I came home and did some research. Many of the articles online confirm that the South did indeed fire back. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/korea.border.incident/index.html < this article from CNN states that the south responded with three "warning" shots of their own. Im not sure if this is the exact incident you were referring to though because there has been several recently. While I understand that these shots weren't the complete military retaliation you wanted to see, any open fire on another nation is always significant, and even more so when those countries have such extremely high tensions towards one another.
The film you reference in the YouTube video is a famous one, The Naked City, one of my favorites. So much of it was filmed in what is known as "cinema verite' " actually on the streets of NYC during the summer of '47. It is a sub-genre of documentary style film noir, and often had that kind of voice over, but never has blatant as this one. Mark Hellenger was a famous entertainment personality. It is his voice at the beginning. Unfortunately, he died very young shortly after. The director is also one of my faves, Jules Dassan. May I suggest you see "Brute Force." In fact, I should show that in class. One can never see enough film noir.
ReplyDeleteDark City is very strange. I'm not sure it has much sex in it. The original cut did not show the dead woman so many times. The director's cut shows her for a longer time. The scene with the hooker is pretty tame, though she does have a nice physique. You're right, however, in your assertion that these scenes would not be acceptable under the so-called Hayes codes. However, there is no profanity at all in this film, for some reason.
As far as Korea is concerned, I'm not convinced that several "warning shots" represents a serious response to the unprovoked sinking of a warship, or the indiscriminate shelling of a village, both of which resulted in signifcant numbers of dead. However, I mis-spoke if I said that the south was wrong not to retaliate. The stakes are obviously very high, and it is arguable that the south is exercising prudence in an effort to avoid a catastrophic war. I should have said that it is not reasonalbe to assume that the south can continue to be so patient in teh face of repeated attacks. Hence, my statement that we stand on the brink of a very serious war, one that may include nuclear weapons. They fall on us, though. They will fall on Seoul, Pyongyang, and other Korean cities.
Obviously, I meant that they "won't" fall on us.
ReplyDelete