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I've been on a noir kick lately, so in lieu of watching a million films (which I don't have time to do) I read The Dark Side of the Screen, which was one of the first books ever to be written about film noir.
I -- look, I really enjoyed reading this book. So many plot descriptions! So many Wikipedia articles to then go and read! So many screencaps of dramatic chiaroscuro that showed up in hilariously random placements in my poorly-edited library ebook!
HOWEVER I have a hard time actually believing anything Foster Hirsch says about noir because I disagree with him ... so vehemently ... in so many ways ...
I mean I knew I was going to be dubious when he kept describing Double Indemnity as a film about a dominating virago leading a weak-willed man to destruction. Double Indemnity is not a film about nice people, but it's ... not that. Eventually I got so confused that I began to wonder if he'd somehow seen an alternate universe Double Indemnity, starring an alternate universe Barbara Stanwyck. "Barbara Stanwyck is simply not convincing as anything other than a noir spider woman," says Foster Hirsch, of the woman who was THE ROM-COM QUEEN OF 1941. "She has no curves, no flowing lines; everything about her presence is sharp, angular, hard-bitten."
BARBARA STANWYCK, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE WOMAN WITHOUT CURVES:
Then he starts in on Joan Crawford, whose "onscreen hardness mirrored her true personality, CHILD-TORTURER AND CASTRATING WIFE." OK, allcaps mine. But COME ON.
FOSTER HIRSCH: So really the only women in noir are femmes fatales -- "firm-jawed, grim-faced women who regard men with faintly concealed distaste" -- or boring long-suffering wives.
BECCA: But ... Foster Hirsch, I don't have the encylopedic knowledge of noir that you do, but I'm pretty sure that last chapter, you described, IN DETAIL, the plots of at least three famous noirs starring women as the heroic protagonists. Plus, sarcastic Girl Fridays like Effie in The Maltese Falcon. Plus, Lauren Bacall in, like, any noir she was ever in, ever. So, um...?
FOSTER HIRSCH: I don't see your point.
Like ... man, noir is a misogynistic genre, but it takes real effort to come across as more misogynistic than noir! I'm not even angry, I'm just baffled.
(The one leading actress he admits as sympathetic in noir: Gloria Grahame, who has a "timorous, appealing, little-girl quality, thin-lipped, squeaky-voiced, slit-eyed, pumpkin-faced." OKAY THEN.)
However, while Foster Hirsch is wrong a lot of the time, I can't deny that his film descriptions are ... kind of horribly hilarious gold? Pretty much gold.
On the novel Serenade: "Lured back to New York by his former male lover, he re-enters the world of opera as the effete man and the passionate senorita wage battle over his body and soul. In a climactic scene, the senorita thrusts a sword through the hovering homosexual -- a phallic thrust to save her man's phallus for herself."
WOW. I'm ... in awe.
I'm also a big fan of his explanation of the heroine's behavior in Christmas Holiday: "She maintains her obsession even after the discovery that her husband is a murderer; she cannot change her feelings even after it becomes increasingly clear that she has married a lily-lived mama's boy who is also insane."
A LILY-LIVERED MAMA'S BOY WHO IS ALSO INSANE. SIR. SIR, YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL THEORIST OF FILM.
I do, however, continue to be baffled by his description of how Janet Leigh in Touch of Evil is "terrorized in a creepy roadside motel by a brutal lesbian and her gang of thugs." I ... don't remember any lesbians in Touch of Evil? I watched it last week and I think I would have noticed!
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/383029.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.
I -- look, I really enjoyed reading this book. So many plot descriptions! So many Wikipedia articles to then go and read! So many screencaps of dramatic chiaroscuro that showed up in hilariously random placements in my poorly-edited library ebook!
HOWEVER I have a hard time actually believing anything Foster Hirsch says about noir because I disagree with him ... so vehemently ... in so many ways ...
I mean I knew I was going to be dubious when he kept describing Double Indemnity as a film about a dominating virago leading a weak-willed man to destruction. Double Indemnity is not a film about nice people, but it's ... not that. Eventually I got so confused that I began to wonder if he'd somehow seen an alternate universe Double Indemnity, starring an alternate universe Barbara Stanwyck. "Barbara Stanwyck is simply not convincing as anything other than a noir spider woman," says Foster Hirsch, of the woman who was THE ROM-COM QUEEN OF 1941. "She has no curves, no flowing lines; everything about her presence is sharp, angular, hard-bitten."
BARBARA STANWYCK, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE WOMAN WITHOUT CURVES:
Then he starts in on Joan Crawford, whose "onscreen hardness mirrored her true personality, CHILD-TORTURER AND CASTRATING WIFE." OK, allcaps mine. But COME ON.
FOSTER HIRSCH: So really the only women in noir are femmes fatales -- "firm-jawed, grim-faced women who regard men with faintly concealed distaste" -- or boring long-suffering wives.
BECCA: But ... Foster Hirsch, I don't have the encylopedic knowledge of noir that you do, but I'm pretty sure that last chapter, you described, IN DETAIL, the plots of at least three famous noirs starring women as the heroic protagonists. Plus, sarcastic Girl Fridays like Effie in The Maltese Falcon. Plus, Lauren Bacall in, like, any noir she was ever in, ever. So, um...?
FOSTER HIRSCH: I don't see your point.
Like ... man, noir is a misogynistic genre, but it takes real effort to come across as more misogynistic than noir! I'm not even angry, I'm just baffled.
(The one leading actress he admits as sympathetic in noir: Gloria Grahame, who has a "timorous, appealing, little-girl quality, thin-lipped, squeaky-voiced, slit-eyed, pumpkin-faced." OKAY THEN.)
However, while Foster Hirsch is wrong a lot of the time, I can't deny that his film descriptions are ... kind of horribly hilarious gold? Pretty much gold.
On the novel Serenade: "Lured back to New York by his former male lover, he re-enters the world of opera as the effete man and the passionate senorita wage battle over his body and soul. In a climactic scene, the senorita thrusts a sword through the hovering homosexual -- a phallic thrust to save her man's phallus for herself."
WOW. I'm ... in awe.
I'm also a big fan of his explanation of the heroine's behavior in Christmas Holiday: "She maintains her obsession even after the discovery that her husband is a murderer; she cannot change her feelings even after it becomes increasingly clear that she has married a lily-lived mama's boy who is also insane."
A LILY-LIVERED MAMA'S BOY WHO IS ALSO INSANE. SIR. SIR, YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL THEORIST OF FILM.
I do, however, continue to be baffled by his description of how Janet Leigh in Touch of Evil is "terrorized in a creepy roadside motel by a brutal lesbian and her gang of thugs." I ... don't remember any lesbians in Touch of Evil? I watched it last week and I think I would have noticed!
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/383029.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.