IdaZFilmNoirClassNotes

 5.0 French Poetic Realism - The Anit-Hero, Flashbacks, Etc. "Only that which has no history is definable." - FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, On the Genealogy of Morals, 1887 In this module we will consider the proto-noir contributions of French Poetic Realism and the resulting blueprint for certain elements of Noir (doomed male protagonist, chiaroscuro lighting, love triangle, voice-over narration, flashback, etc.). LEARNING OBJECTIVES By the end of this module, you will be able to: 1.Describe stylistic and thematic elements of French Poetic Realism 2.Identify and assess French Poetic Realism's unique contributions in regards to noir elements   of lighting, characterization, theme, mood and tone  3.Assess Le jour se lève (1939)  TO DO LIST To meet the objectives of this module, you will complete the following activities and assessments: 1.Read Naremore's "The History of an Idea"  Download Naremore's "The History of an    Idea"from More Than Night: Film ...

 4.6 Module 4 Summary RECAP In this module you've learned about the contribution of Poverty Row studios, Edgar G. Ulmer and Ida Lupino and their respective contributions to the 'B' Noir. Demonstrated in Detour are several stylistic, "oppositional" elements clearly influenced by Ulmer's earlier work in German Expressionism. To demonstrate your learning, you completed the following activities and assessments:  1.Read Naremore, Chapter 4, "Some Detours to Detour" (Links to an external site.) and all     module page content 2.Watched all Module clips and Detour RESOURCES Edgar G. Ulmer, Film Comment ( Links to an external site. ) A Recipe For Quick and Dirty Noir, Noah Isenberg ( Links to an external site. ) Early Poverty Row Studios (Images of America) (book) Edgar G. Ulmer A Filmmaker at the Margins (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism Book 48) Edgar G. Ulmer, Senses of Cinema ( Links to an external site. ) Ida Lupino, Senses of Cinema ( Links t...

 "Subverting the Male Gaze" Lecture by Denah A quick note to let you know I will be giving a Masterclass on Subverting the Male Gaze (https://youtu.be/Zcp9D395S3c) via Zoom thanks to the Anderson Valley Film Society. A former student reached out to me last semester and asked if I'd be interested in giving a talk on the subject of my choice.

 4.5 Discussion  Gender & Film Noir Gun Crazy PURPOSE To check in at week 4 this week's discussion focuses on a temperature check and evaluation of what you knew/thought about Film Noir/Gangster films and the thematic and social use of Gender in these stories coming into the course and what your thoughts are now. INSTRUCTIONS For the following short 2 essay questions please respond with a minimum of 3 well formed/developed paragraphs for each question. While you can refer to Module material, resources, readings and the Naremore text I am more interested in your synthesis of this information and your developing thoughts on the topic(s). Please include any proper citations and take a moment to revisit Resources - BEFORE MODULE 1. DID I DO IT?  1) To further explore issues of Gender in Gangster and Noir films choose one of the following films screened in the class and  Discuss the Character Types and Performers in the frame of how the story functions (visually, t...

4.4 Screening: Detour From Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist (Tom Neal) finds himself with a dead body on his hands and nowhere to run—a waking nightmare that goes from bad to worse when he picks up the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history, Ann Savage’s snarling, monstrously conniving drifter Vera. Working with no-name stars on a bargain-basement budget, B auteur Edgar G. Ulmer turned threadbare production values and seedy, low-rent atmosphere into indelible pulp poetry. Long unavailable in a format in which its hard-boiled beauty could be fully appreciated, DETOUR haunts anew in its first major restoration. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Cinémathèque Française. Restoration funding prov...

 4.3 Ida Lupino and The Hitch-Hiker Lupino directs on the desert set of  The Hitch-Hiker In 1950s Hollywood, Ida Lupino was an anomaly. The daughter of an actress mother and musician father, Lupino's theatrical family paved the way for her to become an actress in British film, where she was dubbed "the English Jean Harlow." ( Later, in Hollywood she dubbed herself "the poor man's Bette Davis," as the two competed for roles regularly, and they almost always went to Bette Davis .) She made the move to Hollywood, winning fans and critical acclaim (and briefly dating Howard Hughes) but risked the wrath of studio head Jack Warner when she started turning down roles and making her own script revisions. Eventually, she decided to try her hand at directing and she became groundbreaking in more ways than one. Never Fear was a striking drama about a dancer whose life is changed when she is struck down with polio. Outrage was one of the first films made in Hollywood ...

  Edgar G. Ulmer Ulmer was born in Ulmitz, Czechoslovakia, sometime around the turn of the century, to Sigfried Ulmer, a Jewish wine merchant active in socialist politics, and a headstrong, passionate Viennese coquette named Henrietta Edels. Shortly afterward the family moved to Vienna, where Ulmer suffered the tortures of a Jesuit education. Rendered homeless by the First World War, he was taken in by the family of an old schoolmate, Joseph Schildkraut, through whom he became acquainted with the theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt. Though he wanted to be an actor or a musician, Ulmer started off under Reinhardt designing and building sets, then did production design on films at UFA, where he worked with Fritz Lang and became one of F. W. Murnau’s closet collaborators. In the Twenties he emigrated to America and went to work for Carl Laemmle at Universal, building sets and models and assisting William Wyler on a number of silent two-reel westerns. Wyler tells an anecdote in Axel Ma...

  Al and Vera lock eyes Detour (1945), far and away the most acclaimed and enduring of all 179 feature films produced at PRC between 1939 and 1947, and certainly the only one to make it into the National Library of Congress’s Film Registry, was produced (including reshoots) over a period of around fourteen days and on a relatively lavish budget of $117,000 (around $1,640,000 adjusted). Exaggerations, fostered and encouraged by Ulmer himself, persist about the film’s production, that it cost $30,000 ($420,000 adjusted) and/or that it was shot in six days. Though much of the mythos of this iconic production rides on these well-intentioned distortions, the actual verifiable statistics of Detour’s production on their own are truly impressive. As Noah Isenberg notes in his excellent biography of Ulmer, one scene in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944), the “death-house” sequence that was actually cut from the final release of the picture itself, “reportedly cost more than all of De...

 4.0 Poverty Row, Ida Lupino and the "B" Film Al is about to have some heavy internal dialogue (voice over) in  Detour In this module we will consider the explosion of production, influence and impact of "Poverty Row" studios on Noir and look at Edger G Ulmer's Detour (1945). We will also take a look at the only woman who directed a Film Noir and had an incredibly exceptional career, Ida Lupino. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: By the end of this module, you will be able to: 1.Describe stylistic and thematic elements of Poverty Row productions  2.Identify and assess Poverty Row's unique contributions in regards to noir elements of lighting,       characterization, theme, mood and tone  3.Assess Detour (1945) as a representative Poverty Row Noir TO-DO LIST To meet the objectives of this module, you will complete the following activities and assessments: 1.Read Naremore Chapter 4 "Money, critics and the art of noir" and "Detours to Detour" ( Links to a...

 3.7 Summary: Module 3 RECAP In this module you've learned about the stylistic and thematic elements of German Expressionism and have seen how they influenced the American Gangster film, which in turn impacted Film Noir. To demonstrate your learning, you completed the following activities and assessments:  1.Read Raymond Durgnat's "Paint It Black: The Family Tree of the Film Noir" and all module page content 2.Watched all Module clips and The Public Enemy RESOURCES German Expressionism and the Gangster Film PowerPoint Screenshots of all slides below:  LOOKING AHEAD: Now you're ready to move on to Module 4.

  The Public Enemy  (William A. Wellman, 1931) PURPOSE Film noir emerged in the 1940s after the meteoric rise and fall of gangster films of the 1930s. While the pre-code gangster films of the 1930s feature graphic depictions of violence compared to crime films one decade later, noir style of the 1940s reflects the growing cynicism and darkness of postwar America. Noir draws on the style of artistic movements such as German Expressionism to paint a bleak portrayal of life in the nuclear age. The noir world is often described as a dark place, psychologically and morally, but also cinematographically. The design of shots and the composition of images matter just as much as what is conveyed via story and plot. Our discussion in this Module centers around the connections between German Expressionism's aesthetic influence on the rise of Gangster films during the pre-code era and the "mainstreaming" of Film Noir with "A" pictures like Double Indemnity . INSTRUCTIONS: I...

 3.5 SCREENING: The Public Enemy The Public Enemy (1931) is one of the earliest and best of the gangster films from Warner Bros. in the thirties. The film's screenplay (by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon), which received the film's only Academy Award nomination, was based upon their novel Beer and Blood . Unfortunately, the film wasn't even given a Best Picture nomination, nor was Cagney rewarded with a nomination for his dynamic and kinetic performance. Jean Harlow's small role as a sexy call-girl was her only screen appearance with Cagney and her only lead role with Warners. Director William Wellman's pre-code, box-office smash, shot in less than a month at a cost of approximately $151,000 , was released at approximately the same time as another classical gangster film - Little Caesar (1930/31) ( Links to an external site. ) that starred Edward G. Robinson as a petty thief whose criminal ambitions led to his inevitable downfall. The Public Enemy was even tough...