Yes, I'm Still Alive! But My Computer Isn't

So here I am. Back from the dark hole known as NO TECHNOLOGY (I kid, I kid. It's surprising but I can survive without all of my tech).

So what's the story?

I had this great blog entry almost done. I had been writing it in the airport which made me feel very much like John and how he always seems to be vloging from the airport. I hopped onto my plane and was on my way to visit San Francisco. Five hours later, when I was settling myself into my hotel room getting ready to enjoy the complementary wireless internet, my laptop (for lack of a better term) took a swan dive. When I tried to turn it back on it made a few grunt like clicks and fell silent.

What was I thinking? I was on the opposite side of the continent in another country... I had homework to do, footage to edit... pictures to send to loved ones. As you can guess I was freaking out.

So the next day instead of going to the Aquarium of the Bay, I hiked it out to the Apple Store. Where the nice guy at the Genius Bar told me that he had no clue what had happened. Pretty much the only way they were going to be able to fix my poor laptop would be to gut it and slowly replace parts until it decided it wanted to start working again. Only, they didn't have all of the parts needed at this specific location.

As you can guess, my laptop is still out of commission. I'm writing this blog post on my boyfriend's laptop. Which just happens to be the exact same type of macbook, which is tripping me out (well not exactly the same... but it looks the same). So I'm going to do my best to catch up with the blog.

I was going to blog about my trip, but I think I'm going to wait till I have my pictures. I don't think anyone would argue if I broke form in say... a week and posted some pictures of my trip. :)

So onto a real post:


THE REAL BLOG POST: Let's Talk About FILM NOIR!

So today, we're going to give a film history lesson! Or at least a really vague one!

Film Noir isn't really a genre of film, no one originally set out to make "a film noir" instead it was a stylistic movement. The French claim to have coined the term. After World War II Hollywood exported a lot of films over to Europe, since the European Film Production Companies had all shut down due to War Time. The French had at least a four year backlog of movies to go through, so it was pretty easy for them to notice some stylistic developments.

So when you think of old school detective movies, you're probably thinking about our good buddy: Humphrey Bogart. Here he is to the right. Bogart was a pretty famous actor in his time. He was Rick in Casablanca and Sam Spade the famous detective in what was considered the first film noir The Maltese Falcon (1941). The film noir detective moved away from the classy "British style" detective like Sherlock Holmes. In "the Sherlock mystery" the focus is on the act of solving the crime, not the crime itself. In Film Noir, there is a lot more focus on the Detective. He may not even be a good guy. You have three kinds of heroes in film noir. You have your detective hero, your criminal hero and your victim hero. I tend to prefer the Detective Heroes, I find them more interesting. Just a personal preference.

So other major stylistic aspects of film noir? Well the use of shadows, vertical blinds and low/canted angles. To help set the mood. Unlike Classical Hollywood Cinematography where editing is supposed to be invisible, in Film Noir, the editing and the mood are supposed to be a representative of the Detective's psyche. Or to show the good evil dynamic. For example the picture of the two people in the car. In this shot the woman is lit up. She's supposed to appear as good and angelic. While the man is half in shadow.... indicating his shady past.  The world of film noir is not a happy one. Once you defeat your criminal, there will always be a bigger and badder one waiting to take his place.

But what I find the most interesting is what goes unsaid in these films. What makes these movies so clever is how they go about alluding things, what was considered unsavoury by Hollywood. I will explain.

In the 1930s Hollywood was in a bit of trouble, the Stars were partying too hard, movies showed nudity, drugs, alcohol problems etc etc. Anyone could walk into any movie. There was no rating system. So instead of facing government censorship, the Production Code was created. By the time Film Noir started the Production Code would have been around for a decade. The writers became pretty clever in finding ways to step around the code. The wording of lines, showing images (phallic symbols like tall thin buildings or long trains going into tunnels etc). Once you know these signs the movies get more... interesting?

All in all, film noir is a pretty fun genre. And once you've seen a few of them, you start noticing them referenced in so many other movies like Pulp Fiction. Noir has survived and has spawned Retro-Noir (contemporary films taking place back in noir-times) or Neo-Noir think Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.


So to end this mammoth of a blog post. I'm give a list of a few Noir Movies I recommend and have watched recently.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) *there are three different versions of this movie. Watch the 1941 version, it has Bogart
Casablanca (1942)
Gaslight (1944) *a hybrid genre movie melodrama and noir. Reallly really good.
Phantom Lady (1944) *has a female detective
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Brick (2005) *Has a baby Joseph Gordon Levitt