Film Noir

Film Noir and crime fiction are not necessarily staples of modern culture, but they are currently a fixture in my own personal culture.
I suppose it was the film Home Alone, which initially made me aware of film noir. The Angels with Filthy Souls were the best part of the film and my favorite and the favorite of most people I know (and if it wasn't than I would hope that the elaborate series of obstacles Kevin McCallister creates to trap the wet bandits were). I guess that time period was pretty big in my early 1990s childhood. Children were treated with films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Dick Tracy. I kind of caught the tail end of this pulp fiction revival because I was barely able to comprehend the alphabet by the time these films came out. By the time I was able to comprehend dialogue the film makers moved on to the 1940s and world war two with Memphis Belle, The Rocketeer, and A League of Their Own.
Since infancy I have been a faithful watcher of Siskel and Ebert (now Ebert and Roper) Sometimes on Siskel and Ebert they would discuss classic gangster films. Anytime they showed clips from these flicks I found myself enamored. I found myself full of desire to watch mobsters in their fedoras and zoot suits wearing fedoras, smoking fat cigars, and talking with a strong Long Island drawl.
I watched those revival films a few times in my younger years, and forgot about them when I became obsessed with the Disney animated features. However, I do remember loving the way these films looked. Visually they were the coolest things ever. Not even the Disney princesses gave off the air of cool and collectedness that Jessica Rabbit did. They were sweet, kind, happy, and relatively asexual.
I largely forgot about these films as my life progressed with each Disney feature. Sometimes I would catch bits and pieces of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on television, but I was ambivalent to it because it was just a way to pass the time.
When I got to high school my interest in film really peaked around my Freshman year. I lost the desire to watch what everyone else did and instead I wanted to watch some of the great classics and I also got really into foreign and independent film. This interest developed because I really thought that I would make movies some day, like my idol, Wes Anderson (yep, I'm one of those people). I thought, What better way to start than with the classics.
One of the keystone films for me was The Godfather. It is such a badass film about the mafia in the 1940s, which is a time period I have always been interested in. Although it is not the golden age of the mafia, it still provides a view into the underbelly of the organized crime world with rival families that can snap at any time. Now, I guess The Godfather is not necessarily considered film noir due to the style and time period, but it's a damn fine example of good crime fiction, which I adore. This film spurned my obsession with the mafia and later what would become my obsession with the superman criminal.
Another film that shaped my love of film noir is Alphaville. Granted, this Godard film is a Sci-fi marxist love story of the future, but the style is reminiscent of Film Noir. Lemmy Caution is a detective on a mission who happens to fall in love with a difficult woman along the way. What's more film noir than that? Also, He is a total bad ass. He runs over a guy's head with his car. I love it.
I reincountered true film noir when I was a senior in high school. We studied it fairly in depth for this cake class I took called Recent American Arts and Culture. I loved every minute of it. We watched Double Indemnity, which made me fall in love with Billy Wilder films. We also watched a sprinkling of Hitchcock (although he borders a bit on psycho-horror) in that class as well, which only added to to my love of the genre.
Lately, I have found myself restless during most films, and unable to get into literature (something which is incredibly rare). While in the process of writing a script for a murder mystery dinner, I figured out the issue. Everything I had been reading was too mundane, all the films (though silly) lacked the cheap thrill (but also wonderful complexity) of mobster, detective, and crime films. Everything was lacking in grit, something I have currently been craving for. So I went to the library and picked up The Godfather (novel) by Mario Puzo, which my mother has been encouraging me to read for years now. And this weekend I watched four crime films: The Departed, The Big Sleep, Sunset Boulevard, and Chinatown.
I loved every minute of each film--the complex characters, sharp dialogue, suave gentlemen, and striking narration (especially Sunset Boulevard). I guess I love these fictions so much because such a world is so distant from my own, it is a great escape from my own banal reality. Also, they just look so good. The lighting is wonderful, the costumes and set design is well executed, and they are all exceptionally well written.
Sometimes I wish I could live in such a world, but the truth is that if I did, I probably would not be alive. And such worlds are too much for a whole life. They are best handled two hours at a time.

I leave you with a song to reflect the classic spider woman of Film Noir: Femme Fatale-The Velvet Underground