The Big Picture Magazine
LA at dawn. Silhouettes of high-rises, bungalows and lines of palm trees merge together into a glowing mist. The urban jungle created through light and shadow, and new dreams that are always rising up, and old dreams that have turned to concrete. That’s the opening image from Michael Doster’s book Doster 80s/90s. And, for some […]
I recently re-watched The Letter (1940) on what was one of the summer’s first hot nights. Actually I may make it a summer tradition, to watch on an unbearably warm night. Because noir is the genre that offers the perfect contrast to my favourite season, to the bright and euphoric summer days. Watching noir films during […]
Summer is optimistic by nature. So am I. Maybe that’s why noir is my favourite film genre. Harking back to the past. The sensual, fatalistic bleakness. The subtle tone and mood. The quotable lines that float up into your consciousness and stick. The morally ambiguous hero, alienated from society, charismatic yet flawed, charting a course […]
The family has always been a notable thematic absence from the shadowy, suspicious world of classical American film noir. To understand why this is the case is to understand the impact of the second world war upon Hollywood and the nation at large, but these are broader concerns than shall be addressed here. If film noir can be crystallised […]