The Big Picture Magazine
“When an author becomes an adjective, it means that he’s entered a higher category. We say ‘Melvillian’ in the same way that we say ‘Fellinian’ or ‘Hitchcockian’” – Philippe Labro Throughout his career, Jean-Pierre Melville retained a passion for all things American – and especially for the classic Hollywood gangster and noir movies. He eagerly […]
“Drip, drip, drip, drip … I shouldn’t laugh but I know I’m a failure in your eyes …” So sing mad Ayrshire rockers Biffy (f*****!) Clyro in their melancholic Black Chandelier, a dark song about light and shades. The celebrated Coen brothers’ much-darker-than-light first feature, Blood Simple (1984), ends with a character lying dying, gutshot […]
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 […]
“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.” – Philip Marlowe, Farewell My Lovely Coat, hat, gun. The guts of […]
Joseph Pevney is a name you don’t hear often, although his output as a director was prolific. He made eighty or so productions, and gained success with a few commercial hits, including Female on the Beach, Tammy and the Bachelor, and (fun fact!) the first 14 episodes of Star Trek. His mostly forgotten The Midnight […]
Inspired by the novels of Dashiell Hammett, and featuring corrupt cops, Tommy gun hits, and that typical fixation over loyalty, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Miller’s Crossing goes all out to embrace the mythology and imagery of the gangster noir. And what gangster’s image is complete without the iconic fedora? Though the story follows the war […]
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 […]