Film Noir & Nolan

[Vader182]

My favorite is Dark City... has anybody else seen it but me?

I have, but I honestly don't really enjoy it.

[tykjen]

Dark City was bloody great. But my favourite is Blade Runner.

[Flying Rodent]

Dark City was bloody great. But my favourite is Blade Runner.

+1000

[Samsara17]

Pi
Requiem For a Dream
The Machinist
American Psycho

[Vader182]

Blade Runner, being one of my favorite films ever, is certainly my favorite noir piece.

Noir is probably my favorite... style. I can't really say it's a genre exactly.

The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, etc. I didn't love Double Indemnity.

Also, Pulp Fiction/Memento are some of my favorite neo-noir works out there today, but I consider Inception... not exactly within it, but close enough.

Thing about Inception is how it blends so many genres so seamlessly together, it's nuts.

-Vader

[Samsara17]

Well if Dark City and Blade Runner get some votes here, I guess I'll mention The Matrix. One of my favorite movies.

[tykjen]

Well if Dark City and Blade Runner get some votes here, I guess I'll mention The Matrix. One of my favorite movies.

But The Matrix is no noir, at least not in my opinion. It's an action extravaganza with wires showing half the time and a fairly simple plot that does not include or has any detectives working on it.

[Samsara17]

Well if Dark City and Blade Runner get some votes here, I guess I'll mention The Matrix. One of my favorite movies.

But The Matrix is no noir, at least not in my opinion. It's an action extravaganza with wires showing half the time and a fairly simple plot that does not include or has any detectives working on it.

I disagree, for a few reasons.

1. Let's look at one of the definition of film noir.

-a motion picture with an often grim urban setting, photographed in somber tones and permeated by a feeling of disillusionment, pessimism, and despair.

-a movie that is marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, menace, and cynical characters

^Sums up the Matrix perfectly, considering the plot is as cynical as it gets, that people are slaves to machines, and that our life is a lie.

2. It doesn't have detectives, but the first half is still based around a mystery, and solving a question. The Following, Memento, The Prestige, and Inception do not contain any detectives, but since it has a mystery element, mixed with dark under tones, it's often considerd partially film Noir. So if anyting, The Matrix is as Noir as the majority of Nolan's films.

[tykjen]

With straight up definitions from a dicktionary, who can compete opinions..
The Prestige? Inception? The Following? Not "noir" at all to me.

But

Blade Runner
Dark City
Angel Heart
Memento
Chinatown
Gattaca
Oldboy

Clearly stand out. For me, noir is a feeling while watching and not just pr style and definitions. The Matrix has all the elements, fair enough, but it also had a too much pumping badass soundtrack to be noir in my opinion ^ The movie delivered on effects, and not so much on [philosophy]. The Matrix did not leave me wondering anything about the plot afterwards..all I wanted was SEQUEL!

[dustbust5]

Memento is my favorite pure noir and it's not even close. A damaged character whom delves into a strange world via a mystery needing solving with a female whom twists his intentions and uses him (Natalie does so in the most potent and visceral of ways), and a world that is stranger and darker then the hero thought (the past, the true identity of his wife's killer) all while this world disorients our protagonist into not knowing what's what (so many different ways this applies lol) and ultimately facing traumas and repressions of his own past (goes hand in hand with everything here and is brilliantly one with the mystery and world Leonard is exploring") all towards a dark climax, truth or revelation that brings all this to a perfect close.

This all not mentioning a hero that has grown cold and often antisocial (Leonard is incapable of being social and responds to anyone making light with some form of "my fucking wife died) and whom often poisons himself with alcohol or simple anxiety in the constant mission to avoid the dark memories of his past (movie in a nutshell, there's a reason Nolan presents the tattoo needles in this and for that matter dream share in Inception with clear drug imagery), all of this towards an end that should use the darkness of the literal world of the film to explore the darkness of the human psyche (again, movie in a nutshell).

To me, I get exactly why Nolan heard the idea from his brother and instantly thought it was a brilliant and vital twist on the tradition of film noir, it uses a storytelling device and creative perspective to literally delve deeper into film noir tropes then ever possible before, all towards the perfect conclusion that the most dark corners of our world in fact reside in our own minds.

Memento and Inception both took film noir's subtextual tradition of exploring alcohol and drugs and their role in the bad of society by representing our own mementos that we've assigned little lies of values to and ultimately our memory period, and even better Inception with that our most addicting drug is our model of reality.

Memento is the perfect film noir and Inception is the perfect expansion and re imagining of the noir concept, Nolan is the noir king.