The Film Noir Thread

[Zombipanda]

So, I just got done watching The Lady From Shanghai and it was just brilliant. Orson Welles (who is my god) plays an Irish seaman who gets tangled up with Rita Hayworth as one of the most badass femme fatales ever while working on her husbands yacht. And naturally, from there, it leads to a complicated murder story. Anyway, the dialogue is brilliant and witty, and the scenery's beautiful.

So... uuhh.... Anyone else dig the genre?

 

[compound]

These questions go out to anybody who cares to reply:

What, for you, are the essential, indispensable elements of an effective noir movie? What aspects does it need before it can be successfully considered noir? And what makes a *quality* noir film?

 

[compound]

Here's an interesting argument:

It's useless to remake a *specific* film noir movie, because they all feature the same elements anyway, in terms of character archetypes (The Wronged Man, The Heavy/Goon, The Femme Fatale, etc.) and plot devices (mistaken identity, betrayals, double crosses), and visual cues (dimly lit streets; smoky bars), etc.

As a result, film noir, despite being visually recognizable, is actually very much a plot-centric, writer-driven genre than people give it credit for.

It's really the sequencing of events, and how the story is told, that makes Chinatown distinct from Double Indemnity, or Devil In A Blue Dress, or Blood Simple, and so on.