"Yes, Fate, or Some Mysterious Force . . .

[collisionwork]

can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all."

Last year, I created a play called NECROPOLIS 1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed, or, for simplicity's sake, World Gone Wrong. It was a metaphoric nightmare portrait of contemporary America through the collaged words of film noir (1941-1958) and neo-noir (1959-present) with those of the current Administration (2000-present). As film noir was, often, in its original form, a dark leftist commentary on the USA in which it was created (HUAC and blacklisting hit prime creators of noir harder than those in any other film genre of the time), I felt the form was appropriate for the present day.

I was certainly very familiar with noir for years before making this show, and had seen dozens,, but had to do even more research to create it, and watched a couple hundred more. The play wound up using quotes from 167 films (originally 193 before cuts had to be made to the script). Lucas Krech has asked for advice on noirs to watch for a current project, and, as a result of having done this play in any case, I get asked all the time for noir recommendations.

So, here's a document that previously just went to my cast and the press, my list of the 75 "Essential Noirs" (really, of course, my favorites, for the most part, though there are some on here that I recognize as important, even if I don't like them as much as everyone else), broken down into my own system of periods and categories, followed by a shorter list of the 26 "Best of the Best."

Now, even a quick glance over these lists makes me realize that my tastes have changed somewhat even within the past year, and I've seen at least a dozen noirs since then, a couple of which probably belong on here. Also, a large number of noirs have been newly released on video in the past year, and I have about 35 I haven't seen lined up on my Netflix queue right now, so who knows what I'll find there. But . . . I'm not going to start revising this all now. These lists are as good a place to start as any. Enjoy . . .

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF “IAN’S ESSENTIAL NOIR FILMS”:

CLASSIC NOIR: TILTING TOWARDS COLLAPSE (IN FOUR PARTS)

PART ONE: BAD DECISIONS -- CRACKS APPEAR IN THE WAY THINGS “SHOULD” BE:

The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston)
The Seventh Victim (1943, Mark Robson)
Laura (1944, Otto Preminger)
Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
Phantom Lady (1944, Robert Siodmak)
Mildred Pierce (1945, Michael Curtiz)
Scarlet Street (1945, Fritz Lang)
Murder, My Sweet (1945, Edward Dmytryk)
Gilda (1946, Charles Vidor)
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946, Lewis Milestone)
The Killers (1946, Robert Siodmak)
Nocturne (1946, Edwin L. Marin)
Detour (1946, Edgar G. Ulmer)

PART TWO: A BASICALLY GOOD WORLD -- ORDER ATTEMPTS TO REGAIN CONTROL:

Brute Force (1947, Jules Dassin)
Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)
T-Men (1947, Anthony Mann)
The Big Clock (1948, John Farrow)
The Lady from Shanghai (1948, Orson Welles)
The Naked City (1948, Jules Dassin)

PART THREE: NO DICE -- MORALITY BECOMES RELATIVE:

Force of Evil (1948, Abraham Polonsky)
Raw Deal (1948, Anthony Mann)
Criss Cross (1949, Robert Siodmak)
Gun Crazy (1949, Joseph H. Lewis)
The Set-Up (1949, Robert Wise)
Thieves’ Highway (1949, Jules Dassin)
The Asphalt Jungle (1949, John Huston)

PART FOUR: HYSTERIA, INSANITY, AND BLIND CHANCE – THE NOIR FUCKING LOSES ITS SHIT:

Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder)
D.O.A. (1950, Rudolph Maté)
Night and the City (1950, Jules Dassin)
Cry Danger (1951, Robert Parrish)
Kansas City Confidential (1952, Phil Karlson)
Pickup on South Street (1953, Samuel Fuller)
The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang)
The Big Combo (1955, Joseph H. Lewis)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich)
The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick)
Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)

NEW WAVE NOIR: EXPRESSIONISM AND COLLAGE

Shoot the Piano Player (1960, François Truffaut)
Shock Corridor (1963, Samuel Fuller)
High and Low (1963, Akira Kurosawa)
Band of Outsiders (1964, Jean-Luc Godard)
The Killers (1964, Don Siegel)
The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller)
Alphaville (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
Mickey One (1965, Arthur Penn)
Pierrot le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)
Point Blank (1967, John Boorman)
Performance (1967, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg)

POST-IDEALIST NOIR: INTERNAL DETECTIVES

Hickey & Boggs (1972, Robert Culp)
The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974, Sam Peckinpah)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
The Driver (1978, Walter Hill)
Bad Timing (1980, Nicolas Roeg)
Cutter’s Way (1981, Ivan Passer)
Blow Out (1981, Brian DePalma)

SURFACE NOIR: THE FORM IS THE FUNCTION

Body Heat (1981, Lawrence Kasdan)
Thief (1981, Michael Mann)
Blade Runner (1983, Ridley Scott)
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985, William Friedkin)
Blue Velvet (1986, David Lynch)
Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987, Norman Mailer)
Dead Again (1991, Kenneth Branagh)
Basic Instinct (1992, Paul Verhoeven)
Romeo Is Bleeding (1994, Peter Medak)

INTERNAL/EXTERNAL NOIR: OUTSIDERS AND PROBLEMS OF PERCEPTION

Bound (1996, The Wachowski Brothers)
Jackie Brown (1997, Quentin Tarantino)
Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch)
Dark City (1998, Alex Proyas)
The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel Coen)
The Limey (1999, Steven Soderbergh)
Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001, Joel Coen)
Mulholland Dr. (2002, David Lynch)

THE BEST OF THE BEST:

Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder)
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks)
Detour (1946, Edgar G. Ulmer)
Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)
T-Men (1947, Anthony Mann)
The Lady from Shanghai (1948, Orson Welles)
Force of Evil (1948, Abraham Polonsky)
Raw Deal (1948, Anthony Mann)
The Set-Up (1949, Robert Wise)
Gun Crazy (1949, Joseph H. Lewis)
Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder)
D.O.A. (1950, Rudolph Maté)
The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang)
The Big Combo (1955, Joseph H. Lewis)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich)
Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
The Killers (1964, Don Siegel)
Point Blank (1967, John Boorman)
The Long Goodbye (1973, Robert Altman)
Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)
Bad Timing (1980, Nicolas Roeg)
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985, William Friedkin)
Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987, Norman Mailer)
Lost Highway (1997, David Lynch)
The Big Lebowski (1998, Joel Coen)
Mulholland Dr. (2002, David Lynch)

For those who want to descend more into the nightmare world of noir, as well as the sometimes nightmarish world of geeky noirheads, the prime place to go is THE BLACKBOARD, where we all congregate to discuss, argue, and theorize on this beautiful, painful American genre.

Comments

[silversmoke.livejournal.com]

Followed you from Lucas' journal. This list is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. Most of these films I haven't seen in years, and you've woven them together in an intricate tapestry that literally made me clap my hands with glee.

(I would only argue that Brick deserves an addendum to the end of your list.)