Bathroom book...

I'm reading the Taschen Book on Film Noir, edited by Paul Duncan and Juergen Mueller...and it is the perfect thing to pick up while you're taking a shit. Short descriptions of movies they consider to be Noir films, lugubrious discussion of what they mean in the scheme of things, all so very self-important in a way only German scholars can be, who think they've discovered something that's only been around for 75 years.

And it's so full of mistakes, I'm having more fun picking them out than actually reading about the films I've enjoyed. Like how they claim Brigid O'Shaughnessy baited Kasper Gutman and Joel Cairo into helping her get The Maltese Falcon, when she was the one hired by Gutman. And how they claim Walter Neff is being held at gunpoint by Keyes, in Double Indemnity, as he makes his confession...when actually he's doing it because the whole thing's blown up in his face; Keyes doesn't arrive on that scene until the end of the film and just watches Neff, devastated at the betrayal. Ludicrous!

What's funniest is how they include Rebecca and Gaslight as Film Noir, as well as Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. That's crazy. Out of the Past, The Killers, Killer's Kiss, Asphalt Jungle, yeah...all those are great Noir Films; including other movies just because they have the same basic look is nearly insulting to the genre.

I'm part of a group on Facebook called Classic Film Noir (1940-1958) and they qualify noir as the following:  Originally suggested by Randy Sadewater in his film class. ~
1. An investigator, a man of relative integrity
2. A Criminal
3. A Femme Fatale
4. A bland but good woman
5. An “everyman” - normal person caught up in the events
6. European emigre director
7. Stolen valuable
8. Use of lighting/angles/composition
   A. Chiaroscuro - high contrast - no fill light, long shadows
   B. Asymetrical, imbalanced composition
   C. Deep focus, giving background equal importance
   D. Reflections/mirrors
   E. Camera position, extreme high and low angles
   F. Extreme close-ups, heightened intensity
9. Script based on American Pulp Fiction
10. Heavy smoking and drinking
11. An obsession with something of the past
   A. Flashbacks
   B. Voiceover
12. Complex plot
13. Urban location
14. Bleak view of humanity
15. Fast paced/poetic dialogue
16. Events that control the outcome as much or more than the characters
17. Downbeat ending, not happily after
18. The story must be contemporary to the time the film was made.

They left out sense of doom or inevitability, something I consider very important. And this book ignores most of the depth and sensibility that makes a film a Noir piece in favor of the surface elements. For example, I can't even begin to see Peeping Tom as a piece of Noir...but it's in this thing.

However...it is a great read as you're sitting on the toilet.