Film Noir

Just watch “Out of the Past,” starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, and you’ll see. The only moments of true tenderness involve women lighting cigarettes for men and men lighting cigarettes for each other.

That excerpt is from today's 'editorial' section of  'The New York Times. It describes a genre that exists only in looking back. A time when film-making followed conventions of that day and for a while all said much the same thing. 'Men were men and women were dames' or broads, my favorite. Colour changed things but we later learned it didn't have to. 'China Town' reminded us and 'Pulp Fiction' was the modern mirror. 'Doll' is not popular and has not been for a very long time well before Uma's rendition and one of the reasons that film scores so highly with men. Although it is not my point I must formally nod to Dick Dale, his music is the perfect note to paint brash and arrogant strokes of testosterone. The article nailed me in my tracks and forced me to examine my own work and ask tough questions like what is 'noble' and is my life up to my standards. You see 'standards' are the thing. We develop them at a young age and they are not flexible. When our vision was crisp and intuitive we decided what the world was and how we would interface. I don't mean 'what are we going to be when we grow up' but rather 'who'. Yes I know 'conditioning' and 'product of society' thinking; I embrace the philosophy and always have. You cannot distance yourself from the life you were brought into but it is our response that defines us and we started to calibrate our interpretations at somewhere around nine years old. Not even a decade into our run and now we are well into the race. I've outgrown the 'who ever dies with the most toys wins' stage. That was not an outlook just an explanation for our consumerism. It is not a mad dash it is a marathon and 'Film Noir' captured the essence of our nature. That is why it is important that we do not let it die.

Anyhow that's how I chose to interpret the article. A lot of words to say what?

The Film Noir Foundation