Movie budgets of the 1940s pale in comparison to those of today. It’s the question of maybe a few million versus an average $40 million, but just as independent films are produced today, there were independent films with minuscule budgets released in the ‘40s. Most of these low budget films were genre B movies produced […]
Opinion Piece
Touch Of Noir: Christopher Nolan’s Ingenious, Notoriety Worthy Neo-Noir ‘Following’
Fans of director Christopher Nolan will note his eight feature films prevailing noir tones. From Memento (2000) to the The Dark Knight Trilogy and Inception (2010), Nolan is constantly imbibing his films with sheer mystery and suspense. As Nolan continues to cleverly deceive audiences, his ardent fans return to his first features and the start […]
Touch Of Noir: The End Of Film Noir And ‘Touch Of Evil’
Continuing the exploration of the outer limits of film noir I will now discuss one of the last examples of the genre with Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). In the seventeen year period between 1941 and 1958, film noir had come to dominate Hollywood. Loosely based on the novel “Badge of Evil” by Whit […]
Touch Of Noir: The Outer Limits Of Film Noir With ‘The Maltese Falcon’
There are two films most often cited as the bookends, the outer limits of film noir: The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958). By near consensus, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon marks the beginning of the genre, and it will be the topic of Part I of this look at the boundaries of […]
The Aftermath Of Love And War In ‘Emperor’
When the second World War is discussed the conversation usually turns to Germany and Adolf Hitler. The same can be said for movies about WWII; more often than not, and particularly in recent film history, it is the story of the Nazi’s rise to power and the holocaust that feeds screenwriter’s imaginations and research. But […]