1. Matt Hanson, Building Sci-Fi Moviescapes: The Science Behind the Fiction, RotoVision, Hove, 2005, reviewed for audacity here

2. Graham Barnfield, review of Paula Rabinowitz, Black and White and Noir: America's Pulp Modernism, Columbia University Press, New York, 2002, in Historical Materialism, Vol 11.4, 2003, p 420

Hollywood's Noir Detours: Unease in the Mental Megalopolis... Continued

What began as B-movies to keep studio sets and contract players in full employment became a staple feature of modern blockbusters. In tandem, movies set for box office failure build in noir guarantors of cult status. Thus Tarantino's Los Angeles is awash with profanity, whereas Alex Proyas' titular Dark City (1998) may not even exist. The blockbuster and B-movie aspects gelled together with Tim Burton's Batman (1989), re-working New York as Gotham once again, and with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005).

The two-way traffic between Hollywood and other national cinemas had interesting consequences for noir. There was a recognised kinship between doomed B-movie protagonists and the black market figure evolving into the yakuza of post-war Japanese film. While Stray Dog (Nora inu, 1949) and Branded to Kill (Koroshi no rakuin, 1967) typified this trend, the urban landscape around them evolved into a sleek yet dangerous environment (when left alone by Godzilla). Routinely, this nascent nightmare vision intersected with fantasy, whether underscoring the works of Takashi Miike or the full-blown misanthropy of Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (Teito monogatari, 1999).

In animation, the manga genre magnified these trends, to the possibly apocryphal point where Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis (Metoroporisu, 2001) was generated when its director heard a plot synopsis of the Lang original. Such trends had already coalesced in Blade Runner, embodying a love-hate relationship with all things Japanese.

Sprawling futuristic cities embody contemporary insecurity. Regardless of the technology - in both its fictitious, on-screen form and that employed in film production itself - the Hollywood Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) megalopolis is usually built on strong noir foundations. Without it, the dystopia demanded by modern misanthropy would stray into Tolkeinian fantasy. Thus despite central performances from Harrison Ford in both, the gulf between Star Wars and Blade Runner is there for all to see.

While fictional futures appear as grim as the fatalistic prognosis that opens Detour, CGI and greenscreen frees filmmakers from the constraints binding genuine architects. Matt Hanson understands that in Building Sci-Fi Moviescapes. (1) However, noir remains an attitude despite technological developments in post-production.

So two cheers for noir!

Let us cherish its critical function and power to unsettle, and its ability to house creative talents. It did both in discreet and explicit ways, and not always in a convincing fashion. Yet over time its critical venom has been drawn.

As I argue elsewhere, when ' ...cable TV leaves Turner Classic Movies chuntering on to itself in the small hours with weekly screenings of Gaslight and The Mask of Dimitrios, noir's uncanny and explanatory power is not readily apparent'. (2)

The generalisation of the noir sensibility is no so much subversive as a modern repository of self-hatred and pessimism. Viewed as an autonomous cultural product, it holds up a mirror to our dark nights of the soul. But seen as the sole voice expressing our general disenchantment with the megalopolis, it simply reinforces the obstructions to the kind of settlements we need.

If noir is everywhere and nowhere today, pre-packaged, repackaged and pastiched, it becomes a less than useful factor in the debate over our common future.

Graham Barnfield 17.11.2007

First published in Ian Abley and Jonathan Schwinge, editors, Manmade Modular Megastructures, AD magazine, Wiley-Academy, Chichester, January-February 2006, p 104 to 107

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