It's Valentine's Day, and what better occasion to coincide with the second annual Film Preservation Blogathon, For the Love of Film (Noir)co-hosted by Self-Styled Siren and Marilyn Ferdinand. Not only is it great readin', it's a benefit for The Film Noir Foundation. Last year, the project raised $30,000 for the Foundation.
This year... well, I'll just quote one of the blogathon contributors, Leonard Maltin:
The film to be rescued this year is Cy Endfield's "The Sound of Fury," also known as "Try and Get Me!" (1950), a lynch-mob drama written by Jo Pagano, starring Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges. It's an "orphan" picture that's in need of proper preservation, and the Film Noir Foundation is spearheading the project. Blogger Marilyn Ferdinand of Ferdy on Films, who has once again organized this mass fundraising project along with The Siren of Self-Styled Siren, explains, "A nitrate print of the film will be restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, using a reference print from Martin Scorsese's personal collection to guide them and fill in any blanks. Paramount Pictures has agreed to help fund the restoration, but FNF is going to have to come up with significant funds to get the job done. That's where we come in."
So, a big black-and-white Valentine goes out to the Siren and Marilyn -- and a special one to Greg Farrara of Cinema Styles, who created the splendid, atmospheric montage above to help publicize the event. Watch it, get into the spirit, and get yourself over to For the Love of Film (Noir), Sugar -- here or here.
6 Comments
Thanks for the post, Jim. Having a post up at Scanners definitely helps get the word out!
Jim,
Where do you stand on the debate, already up and running in a couple of corners of the Blogathon, over whether Film Noir is a genre or not?
I've always found Paul Schrader's description, in his seminal 1972 Film Comment piece, "Notes on Film Noir," to make the most sense -- that it's a matter of tone, feeling, thematic concerns and visual style. You can identify elements that are found in most films we'd consider "noir" (expressionistic shadows, femmes fatale, venetian blinds, etc.) but not in all of them. Films as diverse as "The Maltese Falcon," "Touch of Evil," "Chinatown," "Night of the Hunter" and "The Big Lebowski" are all noir in some essential aspects -- but they don't all belong to the same genre.
Yes, I'd tend to agree.
I think it is also a matter of how people define 'genre' in the first place. A genre can be a grouping of works similar in style alone and not in story or vice versa. It can be a grouping on any basis.
I think most people see film genres as a bringing together of films on both visual style and story.
Very nice post.
And for that matter, I was fascinated by the Metropolis restoration and the story behind it. I love stuff like this.
Jim & Stephen,
I think the verdict is out on Noir. I think that it is or has become a genre. I agree there is a certain "tone, feeling, thematic concern, and visual style" but having said that, those same descriptions have become the corner stone of what makes a film noir.
Over time, through repetition and viewer acceptance, those elements ultimately become conventionalized, thus turning noir into a genre. How else can there be something called "neo-noir"
Noirs films don't necessarily contain every convention at one time (although the best usually do) but that is what makes the genre variation so rich.
Depending on how one cuts it, I think noir can be a genre, a style, a cycle, etc., etc., etc.
And then that black pool opened up again..
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