Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:20,680
Dark, isn't it? You'd better get used to it.
2
00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:24,160
For the next hour, this is how the world is going to be.
3
00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:26,560
This is the world of film noir.
4
00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:30,560
It's a dark, American place with a fancy French name,
5
00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:34,480
a place where the sun has died, and people get by with neon,
6
00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:37,600
where the only pleasure to be had is from Bourbon
7
00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:41,280
and the satisfaction of knowing that life is a cheap little game
8
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:43,120
in which everyone plays dirty.
9
00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:48,880
The funny thing is, you don't need to have seen too many film noirs in order to know the conventions.
10
00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:50,640
They are in our head, somehow.
11
00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:53,360
So, who wrote the rules of noir?
12
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:59,080
And why, more than 60 years after the genre was founded, do we still love to play by them?
13
00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:25,280
I'm going to say one word at a time.
14
00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:27,320
Most of them won't mean a thing to you.
15
00:01:27,320 --> 00:01:29,840
But I want you to say whatever pops into your head.
16
00:01:29,840 --> 00:01:31,800
Cigarettes.
17
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:33,400
Rainy streets.
18
00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:34,800
Black.
19
00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:36,000
Mournful.
20
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:37,760
Peter Lorre.
21
00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:39,280
Shadows.
22
00:01:39,280 --> 00:01:41,040
Robert Mitchum.
23
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:42,360
Lipstick.
24
00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:43,920
Fate.
25
00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:45,200
Bogart.
26
00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:46,520
Guns.
27
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:56,080
Film noir wasn't a species of cinema born of a movement or a manifesto.
28
00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:59,800
It wasn't Dogma '95 or the Nouvelle Vague.
29
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:04,200
It wasn't even a commercial brand name like Hammer Horror or Ealing Comedy.
30
00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:07,920
It grew more obscurely than that, but vigorously.
31
00:02:07,920 --> 00:02:12,960
It bred its own characters. It bred its own grammar and language.
32
00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:18,720
It bred its own dark, sleazy sense of the irredeemable nature of the world.
33
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:21,240
It worked out its own rules.
34
00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:23,080
And tonight we are going to cast
35
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:24,560
a little light upon them.
36
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:25,640
But only a little.
37
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:30,520
OK.
38
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:35,160
Get me the stuff on her family, pictures, anything interesting.
39
00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:37,360
- You'll get it.
- I'll see ya.
40
00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:39,680
You bring it over, Joe. Come on, let's go.
41
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:45,360
Oh, by the way. Would you mind telling me her name?
42
00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:48,600
Kathie Moffat.
43
00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:50,120
Thanks.
44
00:02:52,920 --> 00:02:56,400
Now, like any good private investigator knows,
45
00:02:56,400 --> 00:03:00,920
you've got to see who's in the frame before you can work out whodunnit, and why.
46
00:03:00,920 --> 00:03:04,560
So, who populates the darkness of film noir?
47
00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:06,560
It's your sinners.
48
00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:08,560
This is a fallen world we're in.
49
00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,760
Goodness here is as rare as natural daylight.
50
00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:13,640
The lawyers are all crooked.
51
00:03:13,640 --> 00:03:16,680
The district attorneys are all bent, and the cops?
52
00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:19,320
Well, you wouldn't trust them to tell you the time.
53
00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:25,040
I get the distinct impression that you don't like me. Would I be wrong?
54
00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,560
You could be right, you fat slob.
55
00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:31,160
Ha ha ha! Come back, Sidney,
56
00:03:31,160 --> 00:03:32,760
I want to chastise you!
57
00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:40,360
Now, you might expect a bit of that in any crime movie but in film noir
58
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:43,320
you can't even trust the figures in the foreground.
59
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:48,400
Your film noir heroine, she's a predator, even when she's playing the victim.
60
00:03:48,400 --> 00:03:51,000
Her tears are crocodile tears.
61
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:55,440
Generally, the blonder and brighter she is on the outside,
62
00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:57,760
the badder she is on the inside.
63
00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:00,880
And the hero? Well, he's her lunch.
64
00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:02,440
But here's the twist.
65
00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:04,480
He usually knows it.
66
00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:18,880
Double Indemnity is a noir with greatness carved on its black heart.
67
00:04:18,880 --> 00:04:21,880
This dame has more history than the Smithsonian
68
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:26,200
and this hero is a dead man walking, past the tinned peaches.
69
00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:30,160
I loved you Walter, and I hated him,
70
00:04:30,280 --> 00:04:33,760
but I wasn't going to do anything about it, not until I met you.
71
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:35,960
You planned the whole thing.
72
00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:37,520
I only wanted him dead.
73
00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:39,760
And I'm the one that fixed it so he was dead.
74
00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:41,400
Is that what you're telling me?
75
00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:43,840
And nobody's pulling out.
76
00:04:43,840 --> 00:04:47,440
If we went into this together and we are coming out at the end together.
77
00:04:47,440 --> 00:04:51,360
It's straight down the line for both of us. Remember?
78
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:53,920
Double Indemnity had an enormous impact
79
00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:58,760
on creating the genre because it was such a good film,
80
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:01,720
and such a high-quality film, and it was so successful,
81
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,360
that it really opened up the floodgates
82
00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:08,880
to a lot of films that came afterwards.
83
00:05:08,880 --> 00:05:12,960
The Postman Always Rings Twice came in on that tide.
84
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,760
Lana Turner is somewhere at the top of these legs.
85
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:19,360
In the world of film noir,
86
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:23,360
legs like hers were bound to get tangled up in something.
87
00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:32,040
You dropped this?
88
00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:34,400
Mmm hmm. Thanks.
89
00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:45,840
'The femme fatale is of course the black widow,
90
00:05:45,840 --> 00:05:48,240
'the dark women at the heart of these stories.'
91
00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:51,000
The woman who's incredibly sexy and desirable,
92
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,760
but who you can't trust as far as you would throw her.
93
00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:01,160
You've always got a woman who's a catalyst for all the bad things that happen.
94
00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:02,440
You could really
95
00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:05,600
put the battery cables on there and jack it up,
96
00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:07,040
because you had the visuals
97
00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:11,200
of people like Stanwyck, Jane Greer in Out Of The Past.
98
00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:15,200
These were women you could feel the coldness of a corpse coming off of them.
99
00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:19,760
You touch me, and you won't live till the morning!
100
00:06:19,760 --> 00:06:23,640
They have to be a little bit dirty, they have to be a little bit slutty.
101
00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:25,320
They've been around the block.
102
00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:26,760
Hey, that's nice perfume.
103
00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:30,680
Something new. It attracts mosquitoes and it repels men.
104
00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:33,760
All of that is part of the way that they are troped
105
00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:37,320
as being beautiful, sexy but dangerous.
106
00:06:37,320 --> 00:06:40,840
You're right. I'm lying like mad.
107
00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:43,000
I hate men. I loathe them.
108
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:45,600
It's probably worth thinking about a character,
109
00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:48,840
say, like Barbara Stanwyck's character in Double Indemnity.
110
00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:52,240
Her introduction is at the top of the stairs, wrapped in a robe.
111
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:55,360
She's been sunbathing and she's not wearing very much.
112
00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:59,520
And Fred MacMurray, playing Walter Neff, is shot from below, looking up at her.
113
00:06:59,520 --> 00:07:03,080
And even that, in a very unconscious and basic way,
114
00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:05,320
establishes a power relationship there.
115
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:08,080
She is quite literally superior to him.
116
00:07:08,080 --> 00:07:09,720
Is there anything I can do?
117
00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:11,480
The insurance ran out on the 15th.
118
00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:13,960
I'd hate to think of you having a smashed fender
119
00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:16,240
while you're not...fully covered.
120
00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:19,840
Perhaps I know what you mean, Mr Neff.
121
00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:21,400
I've just been taking the sun.
122
00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:23,320
No pigeons around, I hope.
123
00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:27,240
Er, now about those policies, Mrs Dietrichson. I hate to take up your time.
124
00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:30,920
That's all right. If you wait till I put something on I'll be right down.
125
00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:34,880
And she comes down the stairs and the camera focuses on her ankle
126
00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:38,160
because Fred MacMurray is focusing on her ankle and her legs.
127
00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:42,120
There's a sense that comes through strongly in Fred MacMurray's voiceover
128
00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:46,520
and he's talking about that anklet, and how he can't get it out of his mind and the legs,
129
00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:50,040
and that suddenly he's not thinking about insurance any more.
130
00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:52,480
He's thinking about Barbara Stanwyck.
131
00:07:54,560 --> 00:07:57,800
That's a honey of an anklet you're wearing, Mrs Dietrichson.
132
00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:02,680
There's a real sense that what power women have is with sexuality and attractiveness.
133
00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:07,080
And if women want to have fantasies of power, and what women don't?
134
00:08:07,080 --> 00:08:08,680
What people don't?
135
00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:13,840
These stories are very much channelling that sense of where you could get your power from.
136
00:08:13,840 --> 00:08:16,520
Your picture don't do you justice, baby.
137
00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:19,400
Why don't you break his head, Jeff?
138
00:08:19,400 --> 00:08:20,680
I was hoping you'd do this.
139
00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:26,680
That's Jane Greer backed up against the curtain.
140
00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:30,800
She can hardly conceal how thrilled she is by the sight of Robert Mitchum
141
00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:33,600
punching the lights out of the blackmailer,
142
00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:36,720
who has come to reveal all the double crosses on her resume.
143
00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:44,680
Out of the Past is Mitchum's greatest turn as a film noir anti-hero.
144
00:08:44,680 --> 00:08:48,360
These are the type of men who populate film noir.
145
00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:50,920
Hello.
146
00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:53,360
You wouldn't want your daughter to marry one,
147
00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:57,120
unless you were happy for her to troll off with one of these losers -
148
00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:00,800
guys who drink too much, smoke too much, earn too little
149
00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:03,480
and struggle under the weight of their cynicism.
150
00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:05,120
GUNSHOT
151
00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:07,680
- That's one, Eddie.
- Don't Marlowe, don't!
152
00:09:07,680 --> 00:09:08,720
That's two, Eddie.
153
00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:12,800
Don't shoot, it's me, Marlowe.
154
00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:20,200
'To me, noir is about what's inside the characters.'
155
00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:23,040
Their sense of psychosis, their claustrophobia.
156
00:09:23,040 --> 00:09:27,120
Their desire to escape this world gone wrong that they
157
00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:30,440
find themselves in, particularly after World War II.
158
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:31,960
Do you know this gentleman?
159
00:09:34,760 --> 00:09:36,480
No.
160
00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:38,720
Did you ever see him before?
161
00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:41,240
- Yes, a few times.
- Where?
162
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:43,960
At the patio apartments. We both live there.
163
00:09:43,960 --> 00:09:45,040
Do you know who he is?
164
00:09:46,080 --> 00:09:51,640
Yes. When I moved in a few days ago, Mr Steele was pointed out to me by the manager.
165
00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:54,520
She was very proud of having a celebrity for a tenant.
166
00:09:54,520 --> 00:09:56,880
Did you see Mr Steele last night?
167
00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:00,320
Yes, as I came home I saw him going into his apartment with a girl.
168
00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:03,360
That girl was Mildred Atkinson.
169
00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:06,560
She was murdered between one and two o'clock this morning.
170
00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:13,160
'In A Lonely Place is a film which isn't trying too hard to be noir, which I like.'
171
00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:17,200
Bogart plays a struggling screenwriter who might or might not be a murderer.
172
00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:20,040
You never know until the end of the film.
173
00:10:22,080 --> 00:10:26,280
And it's his best performance in a very distinguished career.
174
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:31,200
You know, when you first walked into the police station, I said to myself, "There she is.
175
00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:32,880
The one that's different.
176
00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:35,760
She's not coy or cute or corny.
177
00:10:35,760 --> 00:10:38,880
She's a good guy. I'm glad she's on my side.
178
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,480
She speaks her mind and she knows what she wants.
179
00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:46,200
Thank you, sir. But let me add, I also know what I don't want.
180
00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:47,840
And I don't want to be rushed.
181
00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:50,680
'These people are all trapped in these spaces.'
182
00:10:50,680 --> 00:10:54,200
Whether it is the nightclub that they go to or the apartment house,
183
00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:57,640
you can feel them trying to rip their way out of it, and they can't.
184
00:11:02,560 --> 00:11:06,400
A cancellation on Flight 16 for New York.
185
00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:11,280
I'll stay with you Dix, I promise. I love you, Dix, I'll marry you, I'll go away with you. Take me.
186
00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:13,400
You'd run away the first chance you get.
187
00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:17,440
- Don't act like this, Dix, I can't live with a maniac!
- I'll never let you go!
188
00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:20,960
Dix, don't. Don't! Please!
189
00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:23,040
Don't, Dix, please don't!
190
00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:25,640
PHONE RINGS
191
00:11:33,760 --> 00:11:37,760
These people can't connect even though they're in love,
192
00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:42,360
they can't make that final step to hold each other
193
00:11:42,360 --> 00:11:47,120
and hold on to each other and get through to the daylight, you know?
194
00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:48,280
They just can't do it.
195
00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:50,600
And it's the tragedy of the film.
196
00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:55,040
And of course, when we discover that he's not the murderer,
197
00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:57,440
it's too late for him and too late for them.
198
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:01,400
I lived for you.
199
00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:03,640
How you loved me.
200
00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:06,680
Goodbye, Dix.
201
00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:11,200
In A Lonely Place could be the title of any of these pictures.
202
00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:14,280
Noir men and women never get through to the daylight.
203
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:19,000
It's impossible to imagine them motoring off into a happy, sunlit ending.
204
00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:22,920
Dirty, double-crossing rat!
205
00:12:38,440 --> 00:12:42,840
In 1940s America, everything was in short supply.
206
00:12:42,840 --> 00:12:47,120
The batteries in these torches, the celluloid running through the camera.
207
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:51,320
Pearl Harbor saw to that, and as the screenwriters went off to war,
208
00:12:51,320 --> 00:12:57,080
Hollywood found it was also running out of stories that were marketable, modern and cheap.
209
00:13:01,560 --> 00:13:07,640
Film producers had to look beyond the shiny papers and the Book Of the Month Club.
210
00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:11,000
And where they looked was to narratives that were produced
211
00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:14,800
as quickly and efficiently as the films themselves.
212
00:13:14,800 --> 00:13:20,400
The sort of stories that were written on typewriters and printed on yellow paper.
213
00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:24,600
The kind of stories that came off on your fingers as you read them.
214
00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:27,960
This was fiction of a different consistency.
215
00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:30,720
Rough, somehow. And it had a name.
216
00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:42,160
I just found out all over again how big this city is.
217
00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:43,760
My feet hurt.
218
00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:46,280
And my mind felt like a plumber's handkerchief.
219
00:13:46,280 --> 00:13:48,400
The office bottle hadn't sparked me up,
220
00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:52,040
so I'd taken out my little black book and decided to go grouse hunting.
221
00:13:53,200 --> 00:13:56,480
Nothing like soft shoulders to improve my morale.
222
00:13:56,480 --> 00:14:00,640
Pulp Fiction was about tough detectives who got into hot water.
223
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:03,960
That's how it it got its alternative name - hard-boiled.
224
00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,640
It was strong meat and film producers loved its flavour.
225
00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:10,640
That's why the guys who cooked up hard-boiled plots
226
00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:13,760
should get the credit for creating the recipe for film noir.
227
00:14:13,760 --> 00:14:17,640
Guys like Raymond Chandler, who wrote Murder My Sweet
228
00:14:17,640 --> 00:14:22,680
and James M Cain, who wrote about cheap detectives and cheaper crooks,
229
00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:26,520
people who weren't at home in places with a carpet.
230
00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:30,520
I seen your name on the blackboard downstairs.
231
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:35,080
- Yeah?
- I came up to see you.
232
00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:42,640
- You're a private eye, huh?
- That's right.
233
00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:46,640
But it was Dashiell Hammett who was the daddy of the genre.
234
00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:52,400
His first book, Red Harvest, was published in 1929.
235
00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:57,920
Everything in there is a blueprint for the entire hard-boiled noir canon that would come later on.
236
00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:02,360
The very first paragraph talks about the fact that this place is called Poisonville,
237
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,960
even though the name of the town is Personville.
238
00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:12,520
And there's that sort of wisecracking attitude, a very clinical look at death.
239
00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:14,760
The book is almost deliriously violent,
240
00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:18,880
without being graphic, but the body count is as high as anything
241
00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:21,520
that's ever been written in the American novel.
242
00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:25,560
Hammett was a Pinkerton man.
243
00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:28,800
He'd been a detective. He'd lived a life.
244
00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:31,960
So what he brought was his life experience to these books,
245
00:15:31,960 --> 00:15:35,160
and he started something which had not been done before.
246
00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:39,240
He said that the system is corrupt, that if you peel back the layers,
247
00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:42,120
there's maggots underneath and they're writhing.
248
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:48,200
And he was telling people, you're wrong about everything.
249
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,240
Don't go to bed feeling comfortable,
250
00:15:50,240 --> 00:15:52,920
because there's nothing to be comfortable about.
251
00:15:56,160 --> 00:16:00,400
Film makers longed to make pictures that were as tough and sleazy
252
00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:02,680
as the words on Hammett's pages,
253
00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:06,160
but it took time for the censors to be persuaded.
254
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:10,520
Here's Bogey in a Hammett story, The Maltese Falcon.
255
00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:15,000
It had been filmed twice before but only this version, hatched by John Huston,
256
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,800
captured the cheap and venal nature of its characters.
257
00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:22,120
Effie?
258
00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:24,160
It's me.
259
00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:25,840
Listen, Precious.
260
00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:27,920
Miles has been shot.
261
00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:30,320
Yeah. Dead.
262
00:16:30,320 --> 00:16:34,080
Bogart as Sam Spade is actually the definitive
263
00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:38,560
hard-boiled character transferred from the page to the screen.
264
00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:43,120
It's the most successful effort I can think of.
265
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:46,080
I wouldn't have told him if I thought he would kill him.
266
00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:48,800
If you thought he wouldn't kill Miles you were right.
267
00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:51,320
He had too many years' experience as a detective
268
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:54,040
to be caught by a man he was shadowing up a blind alley
269
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:55,960
with a gun and his overcoat buttoned.
270
00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:58,960
But he'd have gone up there with you, Angel.
271
00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:01,360
He was just dumb enough for that.
272
00:17:01,360 --> 00:17:05,960
That kind of hard-boiled world has become our reality.
273
00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:08,200
Whether it existed or not.
274
00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:12,080
And it's a magnificent creation but it is a creation.
275
00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:15,600
Once Hammett's nasty world had made it to the big screen,
276
00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:19,080
the dark work of other writers was given the green light.
277
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:23,680
Like Double Indemnity, that hot, filthy novel by James M Cain.
278
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,640
Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes.
279
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:34,320
I killed Deitrichson. Me, Walter Neff.
280
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:41,560
The characters speak in what is now - or even then - known as the hard-boiled style.
281
00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:45,240
And there's this flat delivery, very matter of fact and very tough guy.
282
00:17:45,240 --> 00:17:48,120
Everything about the language is going to be tough guy.
283
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:50,520
Insurance salesman. 35 years old.
284
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:52,760
Unmarried. No visible scars.
285
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:55,480
"I killed him for a woman and I killer him for money."
286
00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:59,720
I didn't get the money and... I didn't get the woman.
287
00:18:01,240 --> 00:18:02,800
Pretty, isn't it?
288
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:06,480
It's that "Pretty, isn't it?" there I think is so characteristic of it,
289
00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:12,200
of this cynicism of the language and the cynicism of all the characters in their relationship to each other.
290
00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:17,280
Sunset Boulevard, like Double Indemnity,
291
00:18:17,280 --> 00:18:20,000
is shaped by noir's debt to pulp fiction.
292
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:22,240
You're about to hear the voice of the hero.
293
00:18:22,240 --> 00:18:26,360
He's dead, but he still gets to tell us the story of his life,
294
00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:31,680
whispering his nasty little thoughts into your nasty little ear.
295
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:36,120
Maybe you'd like to hear the facts, the whole truth.
296
00:18:36,120 --> 00:18:38,480
If so, you've come to the right party.
297
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:41,800
You see, the body of a young man
298
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:44,160
was found floating in the pool of her mansion
299
00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:47,280
with two shots in his back and one in his stomach.
300
00:18:47,280 --> 00:18:49,680
Nobody important, really.
301
00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:52,920
Just a movie writer with a couple of B pictures to his credit.
302
00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:55,560
The poor dope.
303
00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:57,760
He always wanted a pool.
304
00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:00,600
Well, in the end, he got himself a pool,
305
00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:03,320
only the price turned out to be a little high.
306
00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:09,720
I've always loved narration, because it's kind of intravenous feeding.
307
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:12,920
You're getting nourishment, but you can't taste it,
308
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:15,240
because it's slipping into your veins.
309
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,000
Like Mitchum, in Out Of The Past.
310
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:23,080
Here in this kind of toxic feeding.
311
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:25,560
He goes to this little bar in Mexico and he says,
312
00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:30,120
"I sat there and I knew she wouldn't come, but I sat there anyway."
313
00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:34,080
'I went to Pablo's that night. I knew I'd go every night until she showed up.
314
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:37,040
'And I knew she knew it.
315
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:39,760
'I sat there and drank bourbon, and I shut my eyes
316
00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:42,520
'but I didn't think of a joint on 56th Street.
317
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:45,320
'I knew where I was and what I was doing.
318
00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:47,640
'I just thought what a sucker I was.'
319
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:53,680
You know, and he's just sort of accepting his fate of being the hapless lover.
320
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:56,080
And then eventually she does come, you know.
321
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:59,400
'And then she walked in out of the moonlight, smiling.'
322
00:20:02,800 --> 00:20:10,040
This was a great kind of device for allowing...
323
00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:12,720
real men, masculine men,
324
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:16,680
men who had fought at war and were now disillusioned,
325
00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:23,080
to show a kind of softer side, without appearing weak.
326
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:29,040
'I never saw her in the daytime.
327
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:30,640
'We seemed to live by night.
328
00:20:30,640 --> 00:20:34,440
'What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked.
329
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:37,200
'I didn't know where she lived. I never followed her.
330
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,720
'All I ever had to go on was a place and time to see her again.
331
00:20:40,720 --> 00:20:42,760
'I don't know what we were waiting for.
332
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:44,800
'Maybe we thought the world would end.
333
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:49,160
'Maybe we thought it was a dream, and we'd wake up with a hangover in Niagara Falls'.
334
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:53,080
I think there are several reasons why voiceover becomes useful for them.
335
00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:58,840
And eventually, they start playing with it and thinking about the kinds of effects they can create with it.
336
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,920
They use it when detectives are beaten up or drugged,
337
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:07,400
like in Murder My Sweet.
338
00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:09,880
There's a surprising line for modern viewers,
339
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:13,840
where Dick Powell says, "I found myself in this crazy coked-up dream".
340
00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:17,160
You think, "Did I hear that right? Did he say what I think he said?"
341
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:19,640
'Next thing I remember, I was going somewhere.
342
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:22,800
'It was not my idea.
343
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:26,480
'The rest of it was a crazy, coked-up dream.
344
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:30,000
'I had never been there before.'
345
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:36,440
And so the voiceover again lets the film makes sense of this quite surreal sequence,
346
00:21:36,440 --> 00:21:41,640
and lets them play with that attempt to render a drugged, narcotic interrogation scene.
347
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:47,920
So they actually begin to use it to experiment with psychological effects - memory, dream, nightmare.
348
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:52,560
And again, that becomes carried out into other films in that era as well,
349
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:55,800
but it's really characteristic of film noir.
350
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:07,400
Pulp fiction knows a lot of nasty tricks.
351
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:09,760
It puts you inside the head of the hero,
352
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:12,880
and then hits you with a right hook or a shot of dope.
353
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:15,680
It distorts time and space, and leaves you reeling.
354
00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:20,040
Many of the people who made these pictures felt just as disoriented.
355
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:24,240
Film noir grew in the Californian night,
356
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:28,120
but its vision, like its name, came from Europe.
357
00:22:28,120 --> 00:22:31,040
Want to know two good things Hitler did?
358
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:32,680
He built the autobahn,
359
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:36,840
and he created the conditions in which film noir was born.
360
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:39,080
Granted, he didn't do it for a good reason,
361
00:22:39,080 --> 00:22:43,240
but the tide of darkness that the Nazis unleashed across Europe
362
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:48,760
propelled some of the most talented film people in the world westward towards Hollywood,
363
00:22:48,760 --> 00:22:52,360
actors, technicians, directors, cameramen,
364
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:55,360
and they brought with them a sense of the twilight
365
00:22:55,360 --> 00:22:59,560
that had descended across the continent that they had left behind.
366
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:04,880
The world of film noir was America, all right, but not the one that the natives saw.
367
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:15,840
They might be the Gestapo
368
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:20,200
or the secret police of any European state, seduced by fascism.
369
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:24,560
This film is The Killers, and these guys got the title roles.
370
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:30,840
Ernest Hemingway supplied the plot, but Robert Siodmak, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany,
371
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:37,920
was responsible for making these men look like the sort who were used to knocking on doors at 3am.
372
00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:40,760
The films that these film makers were producing
373
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:47,800
are absolutely imbued with that sense that they'd actually experienced
374
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:52,840
what was becoming the war in Europe, and experienced the real terror of the Nazi regime
375
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:57,800
in a way that their American counterparts absolutely had not.
376
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,640
The reality is that there wouldn't have been film noir
377
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:36,240
without World War II and an influx, specifically, of German emigres.
378
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:42,960
Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Edgar Ulmer, all of these people AND their technicians, cinematographers,
379
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,200
production designers, there was a mass exodus.
380
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:49,720
And they imported that technical ability,
381
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,400
but that aesthetic sensibility and sensibility
382
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:57,280
that had been formed in the '20s and '30s with German Expressionism.
383
00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:04,800
Expressionism was a visual style of skewed angles
384
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,160
and nightmare images that crossed the Atlantic to Hollywood.
385
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:16,320
But film noir didn't just feel European, it sounded European too.
386
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:22,160
Franz Waxman and Miklos Rozsa were the men who scored film noir,
387
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,640
but they were also on the run from the men in jackboots.
388
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,960
From the very old heart of music and the old world,
389
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:36,240
these composers brought this sense of a line going back, I feel,
390
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:40,880
which isn't about facile statements.
391
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:44,400
It's actually about a sense of what it really means to be human,
392
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,440
which is that you are, for the most part, groping in a fog.
393
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,720
You are going through shades of grey.
394
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,240
You're not just taking a black or white decision.
395
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,000
And it took European music, really, to make that work.
396
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,920
And in a film like The Killers this is Miklos Rozsa being very clever, because what he's got
397
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:12,360
is a situation that he'll have had a a thousand times before, which is threat, danger,
398
00:26:12,360 --> 00:26:15,800
two people walking into a bar who are going to shoot somebody else.
399
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:19,040
Now, he could have gone with ordinary threat music.
400
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:22,840
But instead of that, what he does is, he plays a sort of bar-room piano.
401
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:26,880
This piano is doing boogie woogie sort of stuff,
402
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:28,240
very much of its day,
403
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,880
but modern for the period of the film.
404
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,640
And that piano is never seen, and the musician is never seen.
405
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,760
It's just there. We kind of assume it's in the bar.
406
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:42,520
But the orchestra begins to creep in behind the piano doing what it's doing,
407
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,040
until the first moment we see the killers,
408
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:49,000
when absolutely out of time and absolutely out of any key at all, we get ...
409
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,680
HE PLAYS THE KILLERS THEME
410
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:53,320
And it cuts right across.
411
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,320
But then it's gone and the piano's carrying on,
412
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:08,920
but the piano is beginning to get more frenetic,
413
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:13,480
as if the piano has started to be terrified of these men who've just walked into this bar.
414
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,840
It gets faster. It begins to lose the way it was going before,
415
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,400
and begins to become something else, and we have to kind of follow it.
416
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,520
We're being dragged by melodies off somewhere else.
417
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:34,400
That's what the piano's doing. At this point, it's building up and building up and building up
418
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,360
in the moments in which very tiny movements are happening, head movements.
419
00:27:38,360 --> 00:27:42,840
The music's getting faster and more frenetic until the moment they pull their guns.
420
00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:49,040
We know The Killers theme.
421
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,880
That's the first thing we heard... Bom duh bom bom...
422
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:53,840
underneath the title sequence.
423
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,440
That's the other thing about film noir.
424
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:06,040
It promises suspense, and those first few notes in any title sequence, whether it's the "thwack"
425
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,480
at the beginning of On Dangerous Ground...
426
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,280
TITLE MUSIC PLAYS
427
00:28:13,360 --> 00:28:16,760
That's the pay-off to those of us who've seen a poster saying
428
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,160
"Come and have the most suspenseful evening of your life."
429
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:27,840
European emigres created a new sound and a new look for American cinema, something alien and yet familiar.
430
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:31,080
Unheimlich, they might have said if they'd read their Freud,
431
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:32,600
and many of them had.
432
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:34,080
But their gift was greater
433
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,840
than simply a different way of holding the camera,
434
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:38,920
or building a musical score.
435
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:43,440
These guys brought attitude as well as technical expertise.
436
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:50,520
They knew there were some places in the world where paranoia was a rational response to life.
437
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:54,480
There's a very dark idea lurking at the heart of their films.
438
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:59,320
What if American cops and lawyers and officials were much the same
439
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,800
as the ones who had made their lives a misery in Europe?
440
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:08,320
What if even though the right side had won the war, there was going to be no bright new door,
441
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:14,840
just more darkness and amorality, but with automatic cars and smoother cigarettes?
442
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:16,800
Can you hear me, lieutenant?
443
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:24,480
I just want to ask you one question and then you can go.
444
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,960
What are you looking for? Maybe I can help you.
445
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,120
What about Alicia?
446
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:35,360
What's your information? Arresting all my friends?
447
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:37,880
What's behind it?
448
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,880
Mingo, try it.
449
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:46,640
Aaagh!
450
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:53,240
It's not an accident that film noir really kicked in after World War II.
451
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:59,160
There were some proto noirs that were very influential earlier on.
452
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:03,440
But it got much darker and crazier after the war.
453
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,120
These people saw a lot of death,
454
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:15,200
and they saw the, um...
455
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,560
the mechanisms of fate,
456
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:21,680
and what people do in times of war that can make them inhuman.
457
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,160
- Where did you go with Bannion?
- Nowhere. Nowhere!
458
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,680
- He dragged me over the Gaiety!
- Oh, the Gaiety, the Gaiety.
459
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,760
You pig. You lying pig!
460
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:36,760
Aaagh!
461
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:41,880
My face! My face!
462
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,040
There's something very consonant about the way that
463
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,200
the films look and feel,
464
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:54,480
with this sense of being under a great deal of duress, being in a very dark time.
465
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:56,560
It's a dark time for the world.
466
00:30:56,560 --> 00:31:02,080
It is a time that is uncovering man's propensity for evil.
467
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,720
Vince threw hot coffee in my face.
468
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:07,800
I'm going to be scarred.
469
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,760
The whole side of my face will be scarred.
470
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,920
- Where's Stone now?
- I don't know.
471
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,400
They made Higgins take me to the doctor.
472
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,320
- Higgins the police commissioner?
- Yes.
473
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,360
The doctor put on the bandages.
474
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,000
Can I stay with you?
475
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:34,320
Please can I stay?
476
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:42,280
It was a remarkably pessimistic and bitter period for American cinema, which has,
477
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:47,640
in the course of its history, made money making people feel good.
478
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:52,360
Yet here we had this very fertile period where
479
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:58,720
these kinds of gloomy and pessimistic films were actually very commercial,
480
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:06,000
which is why it was a great period for artists, because it opened up all kinds of venues for expression.
481
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:11,600
The producers of Gun Crazy were a pair of former racketeers.
482
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,480
They let the director do anything he liked, except spend money.
483
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:16,880
But look at the result.
484
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,600
Laurie, don't! Come on!
485
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,720
SIRENS WAIL
486
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:35,560
'Times are changing in film noir, and we can really see it as a transitional genre.'
487
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:42,120
It's getting us into a more adult sense of people's relationships,
488
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:47,320
into a more graphic willingness to show violence and evil.
489
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:48,400
BELL RINGS
490
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:56,240
And a more complicated moral world, in which the question of how much you are responsible for what you
491
00:32:56,240 --> 00:33:00,000
do and for what other people do is always centre of the story.
492
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,160
"..Office manager of the meat-packing company, and
493
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:10,480
"William Bechtel, company guard, were killed last Friday when bandits made off with a company payroll".
494
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,240
- Well?
- Well?
495
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:19,320
Two people dead...just so we can live without working.
496
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:25,280
Why? Why did you do it? Why do you have to murder people?
497
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:27,440
Why can't you let them live?
498
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,240
Because I had to.
499
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:30,840
Because I was afraid.
500
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:36,720
Because they would have killed you. Because you're the only thing I've got in the whole world.
501
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:38,720
Because I love you.
502
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:40,560
We're killers.
503
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,880
- You're not. I am.
- No, we both are.
504
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,320
We go into a racket like this to get something at the point of a gun.
505
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,880
You have to be ready to kill even before you start a job.
506
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:52,800
I'm as guilty as you are.
507
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,000
I just let you do my killing for me.
508
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:57,280
I might as well tell you.
509
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,600
I've done it before.
510
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,240
I killed a man in St Louis too.
511
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:09,040
It is one of the primary genres in which America is willing to show the American Dream as broken.
512
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,520
Emigre film-makers brought the paranoid darkness of
513
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,000
occupied Europe to the boulevards of Hollywood,
514
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,880
but victory didn't banish those anxieties.
515
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,840
It simply invented new ones.
516
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:27,000
So if the genre continued to create a picture of an America that was brutal, alienating and corrupt,
517
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,760
it had drawn it from life.
518
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:39,120
The look of noir suited the atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia that gripped America
519
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:40,320
just after the war,
520
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:47,320
a time when many film-makers found themselves hounded for their left-wing political views.
521
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:49,680
It's a monochrome look, of course.
522
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:53,480
In the 1940s, colour was for musicals or for
523
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,560
films where chipmunks and bluebirds did the washing up.
524
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:02,040
Noir renegotiated the relationship between black and white.
525
00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:06,480
It owned monochrome in a way that Kafka owned the letter K.
526
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:10,280
It invited audiences into a realm that seemed to be lit not by the
527
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:16,000
sun, not even by studio Klieg lamps, but by angle poises and cigarettes.
528
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,760
Neon signs and searchlights.
529
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:34,120
Who's that?
530
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:35,640
It isn't...
531
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,720
This is an early, but perfect, example of the style.
532
00:35:42,720 --> 00:35:44,640
And it's an obscurity.
533
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:48,240
A cheap little B-movie shot in a few days on the RKO back lot.
534
00:35:48,240 --> 00:35:52,840
And its images are straight from the haunted house of German expressionism.
535
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:56,840
Nosferatu seems to be on an American vacation.
536
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,160
And, he's played by Peter Lorre, who, back in Berlin,
537
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,480
had been expressionism's goggle-eyed poster-boy.
538
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,000
Looking for somebody?
539
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,000
Stranger on The Third Floor is a very interesting
540
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:22,160
film in terms of the psychology and how psychological it is.
541
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,720
The fact that you've got this beautiful moody,
542
00:36:24,720 --> 00:36:27,560
stark expressionistic style.
543
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:33,720
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?
544
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:39,240
- ALL: Guilty!
- I'm not guilty! This stranger killed him.
545
00:36:39,240 --> 00:36:41,960
There. There he is.
546
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:45,560
Why don't you do something? He'll get away. Arrest him.
547
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,600
Michael Ward! Face the court.
548
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:56,280
It is the judgment of this court that you be taken to the state prison
549
00:36:56,280 --> 00:37:03,040
and be there put to death in the manner prescribed by law.
550
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:08,320
And may God have mercy on your soul.
551
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:25,400
The wonderful voiceover narration and the dream sequences and you've got all these,
552
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:29,280
these oblique lines and barred shadows of entrapment
553
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:35,280
and all these vivid, wild expressionistic hallucinations that he's having over guilt.
554
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:39,840
There are many things that are wonderful in film noir and it does stand out as
555
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,760
an interesting early example of film noir.
556
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:45,800
Wake up!
557
00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:49,720
Why did you do it?
558
00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:53,880
- Speak up!
- Why did you kill him?
- Come on.
- Come clean!
559
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:58,000
- Confess and we'll go easy on you.
- I didn't.
- You know you killed him.
560
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:02,360
- I didn't. I didn't. The stranger did it. The man I saw in the hall.
- Where did you hide the gun?
561
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:07,040
- I never had a gun.
- Where did you put the knife?
- What knife?
- That one.
562
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:12,720
- You thought we wouldn't find it?
- I didn't kill him. I didn't!
- Extra, extra! Read all about it!
563
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:21,880
Light doesn't simply allow you to see what's in the frame, it carves the subject up, like meat on a slab.
564
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,360
It dismembers people.
565
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:28,760
Some actors hated the way that the shadow slashed their faces.
566
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:31,800
But this was all part of the agreeable cynicism of noir.
567
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:37,680
"Let's take these movie stars, these pin-ups and chop them to pieces with chiaroscuro.
568
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:39,240
"Cut them down to size.
569
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:44,080
"Reduce them to abstract arrangements of light and shade."
570
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:49,760
The case started in Los Angeles in a district just off Santa Monica Boulevard.
571
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:54,440
A secret service agent had arranged a meeting with an underworld informant.
572
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,280
The noir the genre, it was about
573
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:00,840
characters who were in this grim, greasy dark world.
574
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,240
They lived at night. They were loners.
575
00:39:03,240 --> 00:39:08,480
A sort of fatalism about the lighting that you could have an excuse to be very bold.
576
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:14,280
It was very elemental.
577
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:18,360
It's just one character or two characters with one light source.
578
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:22,560
It's not complicated, film noir. It's not complicated to do.
579
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:28,040
One of the things is a lot of things are down low and
580
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,800
shadows are being thrown up on the walls and the cameras are low
581
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:36,440
making people tall as they come forward. They get bigger and more menacing.
582
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:52,480
You decide for the audience what they're going to see.
583
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:56,560
You're not going to see any of that or that lovely set or those people.
584
00:39:56,560 --> 00:40:02,240
You're going to look at those little men and that's what I want you to look at. You have no choice.
585
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,760
Noir began as an airless kind of cinema.
586
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,880
A cinema in which the view from the window was always fake.
587
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,480
And all the driving was done on back projected roads.
588
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:22,480
A cinema that rarely left the sound stage and the back lot.
589
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:24,400
But that would change.
590
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:28,800
Noir was about to walk out into the real American night.
591
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:36,400
We had a whole group of cinematographers
592
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:41,320
and directors who had been in the war effort shooting films.
593
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:46,040
REPORTER:'Not a single member of any such patrol ever came back alive.'
594
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,960
They were shooting hand-held black and white 16mm films.
595
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:54,080
They were shooting whatever they could.
596
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:59,720
When they came back they started wanting to shoot that way on the streets.
597
00:41:01,240 --> 00:41:04,000
Location filming transformed film noir.
598
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,600
Made it look less like melodrama.
599
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:08,240
And more like the news.
600
00:41:08,240 --> 00:41:13,600
And by the mid-1950s he was as street-smart and immediate as this.
601
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:17,920
Hey the late paper just came in, who wants the late paper?
602
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:21,840
The most impressive scenes to me were the scenes on the streets.
603
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:23,520
And there's a few of them.
604
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,600
The long tracking shots and using
605
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:29,960
real locations and real lights
606
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:33,720
and maybe even using background cars that are actually there.
607
00:41:33,720 --> 00:41:37,160
I'm not sure how they'd have controlled such a huge space.
608
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:42,240
But he must have been working in incredibly tough conditions to get those scenes.
609
00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:45,600
There's one particular long dialogue scene between
610
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:52,200
Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis which is quite incredible and the shots are really held for a very long time.
611
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:58,320
The tracking, the camera would come off from one character to another and the staging is immaculate.
612
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,600
Leave him alone.
613
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:02,320
Leave him alone.
614
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:06,720
I love this dirty town.
615
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:19,000
Sidney, conjugate me a verb, for instance, to promise.
616
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:22,560
You promised to break up that romance. When?
617
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:26,000
You want something done JJ but I doubt if you know what's involved.
618
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:27,400
I'm a schoolboy, teach me.
619
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,920
Why don't you break it up yourself, you could do it in a few minutes flat.
620
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,160
At this late date, you need explanations?
621
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:37,480
Susie's all I've got.
622
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:42,080
Now she's growing up I want my relationship with her to remain at least at par.
623
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:46,040
I don't intend to do anything to antagonise her if I don't have to.
624
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:48,440
Be warned, son. I'll have to blitz you.
625
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:52,160
- JJ, I don't think you've got the cards to blitz me.
- I don't.
626
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:56,360
- Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think so.
- I'll listen for one more minute.
627
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,480
About a year ago I did you a certain favour.
628
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:01,800
It was a thing, well I never did such a dirty thing in my life.
629
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:03,520
All right, all right, it's forgotten. Forget it.
630
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:05,360
Which brings us up to five weeks ago.
631
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,400
Sidney, I've got a nasty little problem here.
632
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:08,960
Do so and so and I'll appreciate it.
633
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,600
Did I say no, was I fussy? Look, I'm the first to admit it didn't gel as fast as we'd like.
634
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:15,560
But why all of a sudden can't I get you on the phone?
635
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:18,320
- And why am I frozen out of the column?
- You finished?
636
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:23,360
Staging, lighting, and the whole mood of the piece feels real but
637
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:27,280
it's also got that very kind of biting quality that noir has.
638
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,440
The opening of Kiss Me Deadly is, I think,
639
00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:46,520
certainly the greatest opening in film noir but one of the greatest openings of all times.
640
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:49,720
It starts off these legs running. It's all about feet really.
641
00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:54,000
Starts on Cloris Leachman's feet running down this highway at night.
642
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,720
- Then you see a full figure and it cuts back to her feet and tracking, tracking.
- Oh. Ugh. Uh.
643
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,280
And she's trying to hitch a ride.
644
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:28,200
Trying to stop to get a lift and Ralph Meeker turns up in a sports car.
645
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:35,280
And there's this wonderful wonderful interchange between them in the car
646
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:38,920
which ends with, basically played in two shots.
647
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,240
There's a front two shot which is under-lit by the dashboard
648
00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:46,880
and the two heads are lower than the bottom of the 133 frame.
649
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:50,040
There's an enormous amount of black in the top of frame.
650
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:53,400
And then that cuts with the view over their heads where they are at the bottom of the
651
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:58,040
fame also but you see the road going away and the windscreen just lit by their headlights.
652
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,960
It's so minimal because you've just got this -
653
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,080
boosted headlights right in the road and that's it.
654
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,200
And it goes on like this.
655
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,040
And it ends where she says, "Remember me."
656
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,360
I got your name from the registration certificate.
657
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,320
Mr Hammer.
658
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,560
Get me to that bus stop and forget you ever saw me.
659
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:27,880
- If we don't make that bus stop...
- We will.
660
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,520
If we don't...
661
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:36,920
remember me.
662
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:47,440
Noir created a visual world in which the forces of darkness had more screen time than their rivals.
663
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:51,640
But there were limits on the kinds of wickedness it was allowed to represent.
664
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:56,000
So the guys who wrote the dialogue had to work hard to make sure
665
00:45:56,000 --> 00:46:00,720
the audience understood how lost and dirty its characters were.
666
00:46:00,720 --> 00:46:05,840
But without antagonising the cinema's moral policeman.
667
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:09,760
Everybody likes sex and mayhem and murder.
668
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:11,640
Especially you, madam.
669
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:14,240
The film noir revelled in all of them.
670
00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:17,560
But the party had to be held under certain conditions.
671
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:23,720
Since 1934 the haze code had taken a squeegee to the dirty surfaces of
672
00:46:23,720 --> 00:46:28,760
Hollywood, expunging all those bare nipples and low morals.
673
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,200
Those rules stayed intact in wartime.
674
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:36,080
But like a lot of rules during the war they were bent, completely bent.
675
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:40,640
So screenwriter's filled their work with sexual innuendos that
676
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:45,200
looked innocuous on the page but sounded dead dirty in the playing.
677
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:56,400
You should tell me what's engraved on that anklet.
678
00:46:57,920 --> 00:46:59,440
Just my name.
679
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,280
As for instance... Phyllis.
680
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:03,920
Melissa.
681
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:06,560
- I think I like that.
- But you're not sure.
682
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,480
I'd have to drive it around the block a couple of times.
683
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,400
Mr Nev, why don't you drop by tomorrow evening around 8:30?
684
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:14,160
- He'll be in then.
- Who?
685
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,600
My husband. You were anxious to talk to him, weren't you?
686
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:21,320
I was, but I'm getting over the idea, if you know what I mean.
687
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:25,240
There's a speed limit in this state, Mr Nev, 45 miles an hour.
688
00:47:25,240 --> 00:47:28,080
- How fast was I going, officer?
- I'd say around 90.
689
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:30,440
Suppose you get down off your motorcycle and give me a ticket.
690
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:32,960
Suppose I'll let you off with a warning this time.
691
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:37,000
- Suppose it doesn't take.
- Suppose I have to whack you over the knuckles.
692
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,760
Suppose I burst out crying and put my head on your shoulder.
693
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:43,000
Suppose you try putting it on my husband's shoulder.
694
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:44,520
That tears it.
695
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:50,200
8:30 tomorrow evening then.
696
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:51,880
That's what I suggested.
697
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,640
You'll be here too? I guess so, I usually am.
698
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:59,640
- Same chair, same perfume, same anklet.
- I wonder if I know what you mean.
699
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,200
I wonder if you wonder.
700
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:06,240
For me, one of the most characteristic aspects of film noir
701
00:48:06,240 --> 00:48:10,520
and my personal favourite part of film noir is the innuendo.
702
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:15,080
The use of innuendo and euphemism and the way that it talks about sex without talking about sex.
703
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,520
One of the best examples of that I think is in the Big Sleep.
704
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:23,320
'One of the things that's important to remember about the Big Sleep is
705
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:28,320
'that Bogarde and Bacall had this very racy off-screen romance, quite scandalous.
706
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:32,480
'So they were maybe the Brad and Angelina of their day.'
707
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:37,000
- Hello.
- Well.
- I'm late, I'm sorry.
708
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,880
- How are you today?
- Better than last night.
709
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:41,600
I can agree on that.
710
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:46,920
- Lomax.
- Good afternoon, Mrs Rutledge.
- Got a table for us?
- Certainly, this way please.
711
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:51,600
It's a film where their famous screen chemistry really ignites.
712
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,720
The director, Howard Hawks was at some pains to make
713
00:48:54,720 --> 00:49:00,720
sure that that screen chemistry was as torrid as it could be.
714
00:49:00,720 --> 00:49:05,920
And there are a couple of fabulously sexy scenes between Bogarde and Bacall.
715
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:12,960
Particularly a scene that even modern ears that are unaccustomed to the idioms and
716
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:18,920
the slang of the 1940s won't have any trouble picking up the meaning of this particular exchange.
717
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:20,960
I like you. I told you that before.
718
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,520
I like hearing you say it.
719
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:25,360
But you didn't do much about it.
720
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,360
- Well, neither did you.
- Well.
721
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:29,920
Speaking of horses.
722
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,120
I like to play them myself.
723
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:34,320
But I like to see them work out a little first.
724
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,440
See if they are front runners or come from behind.
725
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:40,080
Find out what their whole card is.
726
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:41,600
What makes them run.
727
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:44,040
- Find out mine?
- I think so.
728
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:45,800
Go ahead.
729
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:50,000
I'd say you don't like to be rated, you like to get out in front.
730
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:56,240
Open up a lead, take a little breather in the back stretch and then come home free.
731
00:49:56,240 --> 00:49:59,120
You don't like to be rated yourself.
732
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:02,520
I haven't met anyone yet that could do it. Any suggestions?
733
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:07,360
Well, I can't tell until I've seen you over a distance of ground.
734
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,800
You've got a touch of class but, I don't know, how far you can go.
735
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,960
A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
736
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,880
Go ahead Marlow, I like the way you work.
737
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,120
In case you don't know it, you're doing all right.
738
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:22,760
There's one thing I can't figure out.
739
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:24,480
- What makes me run?
- Uh-huh.
740
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:28,120
I'll give you a little hint, sugar won't work, it's been tried.
741
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:34,920
I think film noir is entirely for grown-ups and it's entirely for that generation of
742
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:40,640
twentysomethings, thirtysomethings, who weren't necessarily in a nuclear family who were
743
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,200
young free and single and wanted their entertainment -
744
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:51,760
raw, adult, mature, raunchy and they gave it to them.
745
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:56,120
# They once had a shooting up in the Klondike
746
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,960
# When they got Dan McGrew
747
00:50:59,960 --> 00:51:03,640
# Folks were putting the blame on
748
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:07,320
# The lady known as Lou
749
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:12,320
# That's the story that went around
750
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:15,480
# But here's the real low-down
751
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:21,560
# Put the blame on Mame boys
752
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,600
# Put the blame on Mame
753
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:29,520
# Mame did a dance called the hoochy-coo
754
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:33,480
# That's the thing that slew MaGrew
755
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,200
# Put the blame on Mame boys
756
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:40,720
# Put the blame
757
00:51:40,720 --> 00:51:45,720
# On Mame. #
758
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,640
On paper this probably looked like a musical interlude.
759
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,600
On the screen, it's Rita Hayworth doing stuff
760
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:59,440
that would have had half the audience slack-jawed with desire.
761
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:01,200
More, more, more.
762
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:05,560
But as well as sex, violence had to be smuggled past the censor.
763
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:10,680
Directors like Billy Wilder would very effectively use off-screen
764
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:15,000
space, particularly during this period of production code censorship.
765
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:20,080
In this way, the audience's imagination can run wild with what's going on.
766
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:23,360
But you're actually conforming to the constraints of the production code.
767
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,200
You're not showing any violence, it's all done off screen.
768
00:52:29,720 --> 00:52:33,360
Remember what the doctor said, if you get careless you might end up with a shorter leg.
769
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:37,200
So what, I could break the other one and match them up again.
770
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,720
Makes you feel pretty good to get away from me, doesn't it?
771
00:52:39,720 --> 00:52:42,680
It's only for four days, I'll be back Monday at the latest.
772
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:50,920
The fact that when the murder is done you don't actually see the violence on the screen.
773
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:56,920
You see just this tight shot of Phyllis's face as Neff is
774
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:58,440
murdering her husband.
775
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,600
This is not the right street.
776
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:02,800
Why did you turn here?
777
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:07,080
What are you doing that for?
778
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:11,480
What are you honking the horn for?
779
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:22,560
'Not only is that quite specifically effective in terms'
780
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:27,800
of revealing her character, the sort of very cold face with that sort of
781
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:35,200
mild gleam, the smile that you see in the corner of her mouth, just barely, just ever-so-slightly,
782
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:39,920
she's just really glad that this guy's been knocked off, basically.
783
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:48,600
As time moved on, the camera found itself increasingly free
784
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:52,320
to look upon violence without averting its gaze.
785
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:57,200
You don't need to know a secret code to work out what's happening here.
786
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:08,400
A touch of evil is so odd in its gallery grotesques, the close-ups,
787
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:12,880
the Dutch tilts, the extremely fatalistic dialogue.
788
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:16,480
How could you arrest me here, this is my country.
789
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:19,320
This is where you're going to die.
790
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:31,080
That wasn't no miss-fire, that was just to turn you around. I don't want to shoot you in the back.
791
00:54:31,080 --> 00:54:34,600
Unless you'd rather try to run for it.
792
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:46,200
These characters are after some kind of warped version of the American Dream.
793
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:52,280
When you think that you, that you are entitled to anything that you want and there are no costs to it.
794
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:59,680
And a sense of disappointment and even resentment that you don't have what you've been promised.
795
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:11,720
The last film you can really call a film noir is Touch of Evil and that's 58.
796
00:55:11,720 --> 00:55:14,640
Then that's pretty much the end of it.
797
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:18,240
What does it matter what you say about people?
798
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:26,720
Goodbye, Janet.
799
00:55:26,720 --> 00:55:29,040
Adios.
800
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:38,680
Film noir is a kind of cinema that we now recognise as soon as we see its stars in its shadows.
801
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:43,600
A cinema shaped by its hard-boiled literary sources.
802
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:49,200
By that atmosphere of anxiety imported from the police states of Europe by the dark imagery.
803
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:53,360
The compromised finger marked nature of its characters.
804
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:58,760
But like the people who walked its dark spaces, film noir was doomed.
805
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:05,640
It was too pessimistic to survive the American Fifties which put their faith in big fridges and Cadilacs,
806
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:11,120
audiences got hooked on TV and technicolour and wanted to be told that things were OK again.
807
00:56:11,120 --> 00:56:15,920
And though people stopped making noirs, their images are so powerful
808
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:19,640
that they've burned themselves on to our collective memory.
809
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:24,400
We remember the paranoia, we remember the sex, we remember the
810
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:30,800
darkness, and we remember the world in which these stories took place.
811
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,840
In film noir life seems to get cheaper by the minute.
812
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,400
It's every man and woman for themselves.
813
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:38,920
That's horrifying.
814
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:40,880
It's intoxicating too.
815
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:45,600
Maybe a little part of us believes that's how the world really is.
816
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:50,120
And that's why we can't tear our eyes from the shadows and why,
817
00:56:50,120 --> 00:56:55,520
more than half a century later, we keep on scaring into the dark.
818
00:56:58,240 --> 00:57:01,200
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
819
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,880
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
70536
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.