WHERE'S THE DRAMA?

11 EXT GENRE NIGHT

LIFE ISN'T A SENTENCE; IT'S A GENRE

From the screenwriter’s perspective, genre is the acknowledgement of the pre-eminence of both tribal affiliation and the presence in one’s audience of a tribal consciousness.

In terms of dramatic, screen storytelling, tribe is identifiable by what it does.

Genre, in turn, is an expression of those defining social processes through which particular tribal entities manifest their being, both inside and outside the script.

Genre is the tribal storyteller's manner of portraying or dramatising the guiding themes and symbols inherent in both the storyteller’s tribe and audience. The underlying values, emotions and ideas by which the storyteller and his/her audience identify themselves are major considerations (or influences) in the choice of genre.

Consider the words: "Once upon a time ..." They will have a very different meaning for an audience whose cultural initiation has included fairy tales. An initiated audience will expect an anecdote or narrative, probably of a fanciful nature, involving unexpected events and characters, some of whom may be larger than life.

Genre invokes tribe and tribe evokes genre.

Dramatic scripts, if approached tribally, from the perspective of character-based experiences, evolve into structures that are purposeful; and, like the actions of the characters that inhabit them, are goal oriented. Genre implies purpose.

A screen story exists for a purpose; it possesses its own objective, some times quite different from the objectives of the characters, insofar as it conveys an emotional meaning that the storyteller wants to leave with his or her audience.

The character, structure and movement of the emotional energy of a film, when grounded in a dramatic grammar and guided by tribal sensitivities, produce a singular coherence, which we refer to as genre.

Every genre produces its own, special kind of energy that derives from the actions of ALL of the story’s characters. Such actions appear real, legitimate and seamless so long as they maintain coherence amongst all of the story’s constituent parts, most of which – if the film is successful – will go unnoticed by the audience.

Only when it breaks down, when the style is inexplicably altered or changes in some way, do we become aware of the species of the emotional energy we have been experiencing, and if that happens we are invariably thrown out of the story.

Genre is the dress code of character and plot – not a physical dress code, but an emotional one, for it tells the audience that has been invited to the feast what kind of emotional investment is required and what sort of party they can expect.

So long as the story remains the story in which the emotional investment has been made one reads the emotional codes of the characters with alacrity and, hopefully, some degree of empathy. But break the code and you will find that it is difficult if not impossible to transcend or constructively transform the confusion thus produced.

A screen story makes a pact with its characters, and these include not only the characters IN the script, but also the characters outside of it, namely the AUDIENCE and the TRIBE. Taken together this configuration determines the screenwriter’s relationship to the subject matter.

The most successful film storytellers frequently tell stories about themselves, or the people to whom they are tribally connected. It is difficult to imagine how a filmmaker could create the kind of emotional energy required to make an emotional impact on an audience without working from his or her origins. Indeed it is these origins that have brought him or her into the ambit of the audiences to whom the stories might be addressed. In this way, genre waits on audience, or at least the storyteller’s realisation of audience, imaginatively, in the process of finding the story.

The means by which one communicates a story – in this case, film or video – is another factor in the encoding process that is genre. Choices concerning the way in which the story is shot, lit, designed, edited or organised, are all elements in the creation of genre, and are themselves grounded in the writer’s, director’s producer’s et al, relationships with the characters, the audience and the tribe.

Purpose, or genre, is determined by a nexus of identities involving characters in the script (and their given circumstances) and characters outside the script - namely the storyteller/s, the audience and the tribe (and their tribal circumstances).

The sympathetic and coherent alignment of all the circumstances of ALL the characters in the story-finding enterprise produce the CHARACTER of the story itself, which is its genre.

LOOKING AT FILM NOIR

Film noir, or "black cinema", reached its apex in the decade after the Second World War. Typified by low key lighting, dark interiors, night exteriors (shot night-for-night), wet streets, a brooding mood, a hard-boiled and independent hero with an ambivalence towards or dislike of authority, cynical dialogue, villains who prefer greed and lust, and a smouldering suggestion of illicit sexuality, personified by a sexually agressive femme fatale, whose deceit threatens to undo the best hopes and fortunes of the male lead, it graphically captured the spirit of the times, though it antecedents are traceable back to the mass electrification of the cities - around 1910 - and the rise of German Expressionism, a painting movement that came to the fore duing the 30s Depression.

Its emergence as a dramatic form was disarmingly articulated in the gritty pulp fiction that followed World War II, especially in the work of writers like Hammett, Chandler and Horace McCoy among others, and the vision of several leading German and Austrian film directors who emigrated to America after Hitler came to power.

The insecurities and confusion of the post-war period wedded to a series of profound technological developments in both lighting and film stocks, were major contributing factors to the popularity of the genre.

Essentially, there are two types of dramatic plots that characterise the form.

In the first type, a detective, or representative of the law, descends into an unstable unpredictable corrupt universe as he searches for the truth. In the second, a decent "Everyman" gets drawn into a corrupt environment which poisons him until he, too, ends up corrupt (e.g.: Quinlan in Touch of Evil).

The visual style of a classic Noir film, emphasises a dark and hostile universe. The hero's moral confusion is usually externalized in the use of low-key lighting and extreme, nightmarish shadows. Harsh lighting contrasts, jagged shapes, weird camera angles, all contribute to the unease and sense of threat. Often there are scenes at night in which pools of darkness are broken up by pockets of light. Dark streets, alleys, tunnels, subways, elevators, and train cars (which function as motifs of entrapment) create alien and often claustrophobic environments, depersonalised by flashing neon signs and dense fog. Clouds of cigarette smoke swirling in dimly lit cocktail lounges mix with symbols of fragility, such as window panes, sheer clothing, glasses and mirrors.

Noir characters are invariably "imprisoned" behind ornate lattices, grillwork, drifting fog and smoke.

There is also a sense of temporariness - as if the entire world is in flux, moving towards an uncertain future - hence, the use of transient settings : grubby rented rooms, bus terminals, piers, railroad yards, and the like.

The tone is usually paranoid and fatalistic. The focus, on human depravity, violence, lust, greed and betrayal.

Some Examples of Film Noir

Detectives searching for the truth in an alien, corrupt universe
• John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, 1941
• Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet, 1944
• Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944
• Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, 1958

A decent man is slowly poisoned by a corrupt environment films include:
• Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, 1944
• Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street, 1945
• Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour, 1945
• Jacques Tourneur's Out Of The Past, 1947
• Orson Welles’ The Lady From Shanghai, 1948

For a more graphic exploration of the form,
visit the website, Ten Shades of Noir, which
you can access at

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue02/infocus.htm

Eight Classic Noir Films

“Film noir” is a term that gets tossed around a lot by movie fans and critics, both professional and amateur. So it’s somewhat surprising that, six and a half decades after the genre began, there is still not a universally accepted definition of what makes a noir. Is it the characters (morally confused protagonists, dangerous women, and compelling, larger-than-life villains), the subject matter (crime and its consequences) or the cinematic style (black-and-white film, high-contrast lighting and dramatic camera work)? Although many film noirs share certain characteristics, not all movies considered film noir contain each and every element of the genre. Roughly speaking, classic noir refers to films that were made, mostly by Hollywood, in the 1940s and 1950s that all share a certain tone, style and attitude (post-war cynicism). Perhaps the best way to learn about noir is to broadly sample the best movies of the genre. Below is a list of eight movies that I think represent the best and most influential film noirs of the classic period. (Feel free to argue with my choices in the comments.) If you haven’t watched much, or any, film noir, this list is a good place to start. I think you’ll be surprised at how well most of these movies have stood up over the years; they still feel modern, fast-paced, suspenseful and extremely entertaining.

1. Touch of Evil (1958; dir. Orson Welles; Orson Welles, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh) This movie is widely considered the last of the great American film noirs. After Touch of Evil, movies incorporated noir-ish elements (Blade Runner), or movies that tried to modernize or revise the genre (Resevoir Dogs, Chinatown). Charlton Heston isn’t generally recognized as a film noir hero, but he plays a surprisingly effective Mexican police detective playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with Welles’ imposing and magnetic Hank Quinlan, a border town police captain. Welles was fired while the movie was in post-production, but the version you’re likely to see on DVD was reassembled according to instructions left by Welles. This movie has many memorable moments, including a scene between Janet Leigh and a Motel night clerk that serves as a cinematic prelude to Psycho. (Psycho is known as the prototypical slasher film due to the infamous shower scene, but anyone who has watched it recently will recognize that up until that point in the movie, Psycho is a film noir.) From the amazing three-minute tracking shot that opens the movie to the end, Touch of Evil is about everything you could wish for in film noir.

Touch of Evil

2. Double Indemnity (1944; dir. Billy Wilder; Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson). If you think of Fred MacMurray mostly because of his Disney movies or My Three Sons, it might come as a surprise that he’s in one of the all-time great film noirs. He plays the noir straight man wonderfully, and Stanwyck’s femme fatal, who convinces MacMurray’s character to engage in a bit of homicide/insurance fraud, is classic. Rounding out the cast, of course is Edward G. Robinson, who is the meanest, shrewdest insurance investigator in movie history. Billy Wilder was a giant, with more than one of his movies listed here. The movie also benefited from a Raymond Chandler screenplay based on a James M. Cain novel, a noir double dipping that wasn’t all that uncommon during the classic noir period.

3. Out of the Past (1947; dir. Jacques Tourneur; Robert Mitchem, Kirk Douglas, Jane Greer) This may be my all-time favorite film noir, and it’s also probably the least well-known movie on this list. This movie is noir in the truest sense: it’s dark all the way through to the end. This movie takes a conventional noir storyline - the mysterious man trying to live a quiet life whose shadowy past catches up to him - and executes it perfectly. The plot jumps around in time and location and the viewer gets to try to figure out who to root for, without any clear good guys to cheer on. Oh, and Robert Mitchem makes his trench coat and dangling cigarette look so cool.

Out of the Past

4. Sunset Boulevard (1950; dir. Billy Wilder; William Holden, Gloria Swanson) Billy Wilder again. This movie is best known for Swanson’s over-the-top performance as an aging silent film starlet, and her famous “I’m ready for my close-up” line at the end of the film. But the movie is a lot more than that. Swanson is fantastic, but Holden isn’t too shabby either. Although this movie isn’t as classically noir-ish as some of the others listed here, many of the basic elements are here: the stand-up hero who gets sucked into a situation from which he can’t extricate himself, the femme fatale, the violent comeuppance. But the movie also has a sort of insider feel to it, since the backdrop is Hollywood and the movie industry.

Sunset Boulevard

5. The Third Man (1949; dir. Carol Reed; Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles) Technically, this is a “Brittish noir” starring American actors. The foreign locale and the strangely compelling zither-based score aren’t typical of noir. But this movie does have the same themes and conventions you are likely to find in a typical American noir set in Southern California. And here, you also get that fantastic scene with the Viennese Ferris wheel. Orson Welles is very effective, even though he doesn’t actually have a lot of screen time. Harry Lime is one of the greatest characters of all time, and Welles is usually credited with the movies’ most famous lines: “In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

6. The Big Sleep (1946; dir. Howard Hawks; Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall) This movie is known for being one of the best, as well as one of the most confusing, film noirs. The writing credits feature no less than a screenplay by William Faulkner, based on Raymond Chandler’s novel. The confusion comes from two sources: Code censors who never would have permitted the novel’s racy subject matter to be addressed frankly, and movie studio execs, who insisted on reshoots because they wanted the Bogart and Bacall romance to play a bigger role. I saw this years ago and had a hard time following it, even though I had read the Chandler novel. Recently, I saw a re-edited “director’s cut” version that seemed much more straight-forward. Even the theatrical version, however, is a fantastic film, despite being confusing. And of course, Humphrey Bogard is Phillip Marlowe.

7. The Maltese Falcon (1941; dir. John Huston; Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre) This movie sets the standard for the trench-coated, hardboiled detective. The bird, of course, is a MacGuffin. The dialogue is snappy and smart, and the story still feels fresh. (If it seems cliche, that’s because so many movies copied this film, the original.) Peter Lorre is always entertaining, and this is probably his best movie. And of course, Humphrey Bogart is Sam Spade.

The Maltese Falcon

8. Strangers on a Train (1951; dir. Alfred Hitchcock; Farley Granger, Robert Walker) Hitchcock filmed several movies that might be considered film noir, and I’m certainly a Hitchcock fan, but I don’t think many of them really fit within the genre. Strangers on a Train is closest, and (for my money) one of his best movies. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that Raymond Chandler wrote the screenplay, from the novel by Patricia Highsmith (who also wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley). Apparently Chandler and Hitchcock didn’t get along, and much of the screenplay was rewritten, but it still feels like something Chandler might have penned. The premise is classic: an idle conversation on a train leads a man to believe that they have agreed to swap murders, one agreeing to kill an unloved wife so that the other can marry his true love, expecting in return to have his domineering mother taken care of once and for all. And, as happens so often in film noir, once the hero gets tangled in unwanted complicity, it’s not an easy thing to get out from under. Robert Walker, who plays the psychopathic Bruno Anthony, is a brilliant noir villain. (Unfortunately, Walker passed away shortly after the movie was made, cutting short his career.) This movie also has one of Hitchcock’s most memorable scenes (for those who have seen it), an exciting climatic moment underneath a merry-go-round, which was reportedly filmed without the aid of stuntmen. Like many film noirs, this one is available in multiple versions on DVD, though I can’t recall off hand if it really makes much difference.

TRAGEDY vs COMEDY

Tragedy presents a dramatic examination of human morals. It asserts that a person’s morality may make it impossible for him to keep living. It is concerned with situations in which a character’s “higher nature” forces him/her to take action, even when such action must end in that characters demise or death. The action must be taken otherwise the character becomes less than what he/she could or should be.

Comedy, on the other hand, presents a message of hope – it tells us that no matter how bad things might get we can make it through another day. Comedy’s basic message is that the human race will survive; it is about SURVIVAL, and how survival is possible, and under what conditions.

SCREWBALL COMEDY

"There’s a pitch in baseball called a screwball, which was perfected by a pitcher named Carl Hubbell back in the 1930s. It’s a pitch with a particular spin that sort of flutters and drops, goes in different directions, and behaves in very unexpected ways… Screwball comedy was unconventional, went in different directions, and behaved in unexpected ways… ”Andrew Bergman,“We're in the Money: Depression America and Its Films”

The film critic James Agee described the essence of Laurel and Hardy’s comedy as the scene in which the two are moving a piano across a narrow suspension bridge in the Alps, and halfway across they meet a gorilla.

This may be more than the essence of Laurel and Hardy. It may be the essence of all American Comedy. It’s nuts, it’s illogical, it’s impossible, and it’s hilarious. It’s also abundant with endless comic variations, opened to unexpected solutions, and primarily grounded in danger.

Screwball?

(Screw-ball [skrue’bol] Noun, Slang, meaning unbalanced, erratic, irrational, unconventional), became a popular slang word in the 1930s. It was applied to films where everything was a juxtaposition: educated and uneducated, rich and poor, intelligent and stupid, honest and dishonest, and most of all male and female. When two people fell in love, they did not simply surrender to their feelings, they battled it out. They lied to one another, often assuming indifferent personas toward each other. They often employed hideous tricks on each other, until finally after running out of inventions, fall into each others arms. It was fossilized comedy, physical and often painful, but mixed with the highest level of wit and sophistication, depending wholly on elegant and inventive writing.

Some characteristics of Screwball Comedy

Reverse class snobbery, to be poor is somehow to be more noble. What’s more, to be rich is to be castigated, passions befitting theater patrons, during the Great Depression. A very skillful blend of sophistication and slapstick. Although screwball characters move in an elegant world, where even a simple bathroom appears to be the center of their universe, they may still whack one another over the head, but while The Three Stooges use sledgehammers, screwball characters use silver chafing dishes, and the like—weapons of the upper class.

A well written script, laced with barbed dialog. An overlapping style of delivery, with lines tossed off in rapid fire. An emphases on elegant clothes, cars, and furniture. The use of exotic locals, even the dump site in “My Man Godfrey”, (see below). The hero or the heroine living by his or her wits alone, though this is often balanced by a reliable gainfully employed love interest.

Last and probably most important, supporting casts of first-rate character actors playing eccentric types as well as a stable of familiar faces in leading roles (Cary Grant, William Powell, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Katharine Hepburn)

My Man Godfrey

One of the most unusual screwball comedies was “My Man Godfrey (1936)", a Universal production directed by Gregory La Cava. It begins at a garbage dump along New York’s East River. People in evening clothes, taking part in a scavenger hunt for a charity event, step out of a roadster to look for a “forgotten man”, a 1930s term for the unemployed and homeless. A derelict, after pushing one woman into an ash heap, agrees to go along with her sister. His dignity and sardonic humor impress her, and she hires him as butler for the family’s Fifth Avenue mansion. The wealthy family turn out to be spoiled, selfish, and inane—“empty-headed nitwits,” as the derelict-turned-butler calls them.

He, it turns Out, is also from a rich family; he landed in the dump through despondency over a broken love affair, Through his butler work he pulls his life together and in the end opens a posh nightclub, the Dump, on the dump site to provide employment, food, and shelter to “forget men” The film’s predominant point, however, is not that the poor are redeemable, but that the wealthy are.

Screwball comedy crested in the late 1930s. And with the increasing hostilities brewing in Europe, the glib, and at times genteel barbs between two highly disillusioned participants seemed docile, and trivial. Certainly Romantic comedy had it’s place during the war years. Films such as, “Mr. Lucky (1943)”, used the urbane characters of the Screwball genre, augmenting them with a win the war at all costs purpose. By wars end the less sophisticated, but more utilitarian comedy of Preston Sturges had come into fashion.

The Result

The invasion of television, and the dismantling of the Hollywood studio system put an end to the classic Romantic comedy. There was, however a brief revival in the postwar years with such forgettable films as the sophomoric, “The Mating of Millie (1948)” another insufferable pearl, “Please Believe Me (1950)”, and the equally obnoxious, “Confidentially Connie (1953)”.

What is typical American comedy? There are many things that Hollywood makes comedy about. Actually any subject is fair game. But there seems to be a single subject that persists—the battle of the sexes as presented in the Hollywood Romantic comedy. Only in America can you find the male-female relationship depicted as a vicious though delightful clash in which the man and women resist their feelings for one another by battling each other with a particularly desperate passion. And only in America can the story of destructive sexual passion be cultivated as a freewheeling slapstick event laced with acid wit. A subject that in most cultures would be recounted as stark tragedy, in the hands of Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Howard Hawks, or Frank Capra, is perfect material for comedy and romance.

Reprinted from Modern Times at http://moderntimes.com