By Joyce Corrigan
Film noir. How sexy and exotic it sounds. Yet this provocative, enduring and quintessentially American movie genre is so-called not to be pretentious, but simply because it was coined by French movie critic Nino Frank back in 1946.
“Noir,” meaning black or dark, best summed up the sophisticated, sinister crime dramas produced by Hollywood in abundance immediately following World War II. Riddled with shady, cynical characters —the best of them unabashed seducers — and shadowy, black and white visual effects, noir was a game-changer in the history of American culture. It also made superstars of the likes of Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, the leads in “Gilda,” and Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner in “The Killers.”
Not only was film noir highly-stylized and addictively entertaining, it also gave expression to the deep skepticism of a nation that had been victors in the biggest, deadliest war in history, but, with a recently-declared Cold War fraught with geopolitical and nuclear tensions, now faced even greater uncertainties. In uncertain times, what better group catharsis than a movie?
Why not embrace the darkness within you, as Darth Vader advises, and steal down to Jacob Burns Film Center for their first annual Noirvember Film Festival, opening this weekend. In addition to 1940s and 1950s classics like “Gilda,” “The Killers” and “MildredPierce,” the lineup includes 1970s neo-noir masterpieces “Klute” and “Chinatown” and – one for the kids! —the 1988 ‘toon noir “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” demures the impossibly bodacious animated vixen Jessica Rabbit, voiced by an uncredited Kathleen Turner.
As one might expect, a Jacob Burns film fest is not just about just watching movies. The immersive month-long event also offers pre-screening introductions from esteemed film historians and critics, themed pre-screening cocktails at “Unhappy Hours” and a fundraising Murder Mystery Dinner to support JBFC’s free educational programs (come dressed as your favorite villain or vixen). Presented in collaboration with the Martin Scorsese Dept of Cinema Studies at NYU’s Tisch School will be a series of in-depth lectures held the first three Sundays of November. First up on Nov. 3 will be “Film Noir 101” with Tisch Professor Dana Polan who will introduce the genre.
“It was immensely significant that the original American noirs were getting noticed by countries like France and Japan who had long- established intellectual art-film cultures,” he remarked. “Up until World War II, Hollywood had been the dream factory with clean-cut heroes, and suddenly here are leading-men who were real losers and suckers and morally ambiguous women. Everyone was trying to score.” “You’re a cookie full of arsenic,” Burt Lancaster tells a hustling publicity agent played by Tony Curtis in the 1957 film, “Sweet Smell of Success.”
With the U.S. having emerged as the sole postwar superpower, its cultural dominance of the globe was hitting its stride both in pop culture and, significantly, more rarefied circles. During noir’s heyday, Europeans also couldn’t get enough of the conceptual canvases being created by Abstract Expressionist painters like Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, or the frenetic jazz of John Coltrane, which had morphed from 40s big band into a more dissonant sound reflecting postwar disquiet.
“The French who’d been starved for Hollywood movies during the Nazi occupation were suddenly getting to see all these stylish, sensational noir thrillers,” explained Pollan, “They particularly loved strange surreal acts of violence that happened in darkness.” He directed viewers to the opening frames of “Gilda.” In that scene, Glenn Ford’s small-town gambler character, Johnny, gets mugged walking down a pitch-black street in Buenos Aires, only to be “rescued” by a shady character, casino owner Ballin Mundson. Shady, indeed: Mundson is a homicidal, Nazi-involved thug who has a claustrophobic hate-hate marriage to Hayworth’s Gilda, who happens to be Johnny’s ex. But no spoilers here.
Then there’s the 1946 film, “The Killers” based on an Ernest Hemingway short story, which earned four Oscar nominations. Two hit men walk into a diner asking for “the Swede” (Lancaster). When they find him, he doesn’t put up a fight. He’d gotten what he deserved: after all, he’d done the bidding of a slinky, manipulative siren (Gardner), a gangster’s gun moll by day. Even the gangster himself confesses, “If there’s one thing in this world I hate, it’s a double-crossing dame.”
But, make no mistake, Hollywood during this period was still producing lots of movies like “Going My Way” with Bing Crosby and “Singing in the Rain” with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. But could mass audiences possibly embrace gritty noir and technicolor feel-good flicks simultaneously? “Not only could they in those days, but we still can!” laughed Pollan. As evidence, you don’t need to look back any further than last summer’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon.
“To really understand film noir,” said JBFC Senior Programmer and Series Curator Monica Castillo, “you have to appreciate its cunning balance between grit and glamor. Enter the femme fatale.”
“Gilda” was a smash hit and solidified Hayworth as a full-fledged sex symbol and superstar. “The actress was so entwined with the role,” Castillo noted, “that her image from the movie poster was glued onto the atomic bomb dropped on Bikini Atoll the year the film opened.” (Bombshell, get it? )
“At a time when you can’t trust your own government, noir characters reaffirm the audience’s own cynicism. Being a bad girl before her time, and unapologetically promiscuous, was Gilda’s act of rebellion,” Castillo continued. “Gilda” turns 80 next year and hasn’t lost a lick of its sex appeal.
Fast forward to 1971 and the neo-noir thriller “Klute” starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. Released in the years following the assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King, who had long been wire-tapped by the FBI, it was the first of director Alan Pakula’s “paranoia trilogy.” Along with “Parallax View” and “All the President’s Men,” the three-film set explored themes of conspiracy and surveillance.
With fabulously dark and disturbing lighting by cinematographer Gordon Willis (who would shoot “The Godfather” the following year), “Klute” perfectly captures what Fonda’s character describes sardonically as “the sin, the glitter, the wickedness!” of New York City. Fonda plays Bree, a high-priced call girl who agrees to help a detective on a missing persons case involving a man who may or not be surveilling her. As seedy as the city looks in the film, Fonda looks drop-dead chic in every scene. Like Gilda, Bree is free of any old-fashioned moralizing, and, in fact , makes clear she’s OK with her call girl career. Fonda won her first Oscar for the role. The film’s epilogue includes a hint of redemption but, lest diehard noir fans be disappointed, the happy ending is tantalizingly ambiguous.
“Noirvember, Film Noir from Yesterday to Today” runs from Nov. 3 to 19 at JBFC, 364 Manville Road., Pleasantville. For the complete festival schedule and to purchase tickets, visit filmsburncenter.org.Film Noir festival arrives at Jacob Burns Film Center.
PICTURED ABOVE: Posters from the movies "Gilda," "Klute" and "The Killers" each being featured this month as part of the Noirvember Film Festival at Jacob Burns Film Center. Photos courtesy Jacobs Burns Film Center.