Memento was my #19. Blood Simple and Le Samourai are not on my list. I have never seen Le Samourai, but I thought Alain Delon might become the star whose films had the most mentions. I don't remember if anyone is keeping track of that. Blood Simple is the most Noir, Coen movie but it is not my favorite. I like Fargo and No country for Old Men better.
I am going to reveal my #4 which won't be on this list, but it should. Insomnia (1997) starring Stellan Skarsgard. It is a dark neo-noir filmed in relentless daylight. I can not recommend it enough. https://images.app.goo.gl/W5jvfMAK5TW72bEB8
This is a fantastic film which deepens upon each subsequent viewing due to how deceptively simple it is. While it's a mystery, it's not one in the typical whodunit sense. It's more so in the sense of requiring the viewer to contemplate and make sense of the main character, Jef Costello. He hardly shows any emotion and he doesn't even speak that much throughout the film. Sometimes he shows bits of subtlety when he's in danger, but that's about it. The quotation at the beginning reveals why he acts that way as he finds solitude in his profession, most likely due to the swift skill he carries it out with. Is he truly alone though? There's only 2 people he interacts with throughout the film. One of them is Jane, a woman he uses as an alibi for his various crimes. He seems to have no sexual desires for her, even at the end when she asks him if there's anything she can do for him. It's clear that he doesn't want to have their relationship expand much further than that. He fully knows what he wants of her and gets it. The only person in the film who's really significant to him is Valerie, a piano player who lies to the police superintendent in order to get him off the hook. Since he's puzzled as to why she lied (she never explains why she did it), it seems like she disrupts the solitude he strives for. Even after she's revealed to be related to someone who wants him dead, he's still unable to bring himself to kill her at the film's dramatic ending. The possibilities as to why he spares her include his difficulty in making sense of her motives and the suggestion that he was romantically interested in her in a way which he didn't even understand. The implications that scene gives to the film makes it one of the most memorable endings I've seen in recent years. Topped with a drab color scheme which helps to make Jef feel more alienated, this is easily a great film.
This is a fantastic film which deepens upon each subsequent viewing due to how deceptively simple it is. While it's a mystery, it's not one in the typical whodunit sense. It's more so in the sense of requiring the viewer to contemplate and make sense of the main character, Jef Costello. He hardly shows any emotion and he doesn't even speak that much throughout the film. Sometimes he shows bits of subtlety when he's in danger, but that's about it. The quotation at the beginning reveals why he acts that way as he finds solitude in his profession, most likely due to the swift skill he carries it out with. Is he truly alone though? There's only 2 people he interacts with throughout the film. One of them is Jane, a woman he uses as an alibi for his various crimes. He seems to have no sexual desires for her, even at the end when she asks him if there's anything she can do for him. It's clear that he doesn't want to have their relationship expand much further than that. He fully knows what he wants of her and gets it. The only person in the film who's really significant to him is Valerie, a piano player who lies to the police superintendent in order to get him off the hook. Since he's puzzled as to why she lied (she never explains why she did it), it seems like she disrupts the solitude he strives for. Even after she's revealed to be related to someone who wants him dead, he's still unable to bring himself to kill her at the film's dramatic ending. The possibilities as to why he spares her include his difficulty in making sense of her motives and the suggestion that he was romantically interested in her in a way which he didn't even understand. The implications that scene gives to the film makes it one of the most memorable endings I've seen in recent years. Topped with a drab color scheme which helps to make Jef feel more alienated, this is easily a great film.
It seems light on story/characterization at first glance, but this film, as well as Melville's Army of Shadows, has a deeper thematic undercurrent which runs throughout the film. It explores how a hitman's life of solitude is disrupted and challenged by those around him. Throughout the first act, he doesn't say much dialogue, nor does he seem concerned or stressed out about his task. It's assumed he's done the same job multiple times and he has the procedure necessary to complete it with memorized like clockwork. He also doesn't appear to have any meaningful relationships with other people. He seems cold and distant from the men he works for and seems uninterested in pursuing a romantic relationship of any kind with Jane, even though she seems eager to do so. All he wants from her is her alibi. Nothing more. The opening act gives us a sense of what's going to be disrupted.
On the surface level of this disruption, there's the threat of being caught by the police and having the other men he works for turning on him (presumably, this is the first time he encountered these threats to such a significant degree). Valerie threatens his life of solitude the most though. She lies to the police to get him off the hook and is revealed to have ties to his boss, someone who wanted him dead. Since she refuses to answer his questions on why she lied to the police and since little is known about her motives or her status with his boss, it's clear that he's unable to make any sense of her motives and - more importantly - is unable to understand his relationship with her. There's a suggestion that he was romantically interested in her in a way which he didn't understand (in contrast to how he rejected Jane's potential sexual advances in the final act), thus preventing him from killing her at the end.
It seems light on story/characterization at first glance, but this film, as well as Melville's Army of Shadows, has a deeper thematic undercurrent which runs throughout the film. It explores how a hitman's life of solitude is disrupted and challenged by those around him. Throughout the first act, he doesn't say much dialogue, nor does he seem concerned or stressed out about his task. It's assumed he's done the same job multiple times and he has the procedure necessary to complete it with memorized like clockwork. He also doesn't appear to have any meaningful relationships with other people. He seems cold and distant from the men he works for and seems uninterested in pursuing a romantic relationship of any kind with Jane, even though she seems eager to do so. All he wants from her is her alibi. Nothing more. The opening act gives us a sense of what's going to be disrupted.
On the surface level of this disruption, there's the threat of being caught by the police and having the other men he works for turning on him (presumably, this is the first time he encountered these threats to such a significant degree). Valerie threatens his life of solitude the most though. She lies to the police to get him off the hook and is revealed to have ties to his boss, someone who wanted him dead. Since she refuses to answer his questions on why she lied to the police and since little is known about her motives or her status with his boss, it's clear that he's unable to make any sense of her motives and - more importantly - is unable to understand his relationship with her. There's a suggestion that he was romantically interested in her in a way which he didn't understand (in contrast to how he rejected Jane's potential sexual advances in the final act), thus preventing him from killing her at the end.
1. Le Samourai
6. Miller's Crossing
7. The Big Lebowski
8. Pulp Fiction
10. Le Circle Rouge
12. Memento
13. No Country for Old Men
16. Mulholland Drive
17. The Silence of the Lambs
18. Blow Out
22. Point Blank
23. Alphaville
25. Blood Simple
I've seen Le Samourai a couple of times and I do like it but something bothers me. I can't remember for sure, but I think it was something like why didn't he just change his clothes.
Ok, it's not tagged as neo noir, but it seems just as neo-noir to me as a lot of the films on this list, with plenty of moodily shot noirish locations and a story of conspiracy and betrayal in which the cop protagonist pulls at the edges of a cover-up and falls for his informant. Set in Warsaw in the 80s, the title comes from a real life police operation targeting Poland's gay community. The colour scheme and quiet scenes give me Melville vibes, but there's also a lovely warm glow to certain scenes and I love all the shots through mirrors and windows. I also find the main character's journey of self discovery in terms of his identity and integrity well drawn and touching.
I've seen Le Samourai a couple of times and I do like it but something bothers me. I can't remember for sure, but I think it was something like why didn't he just change his clothes.
The entire film concerns his sense of professionalism and solitude being disrupted, so I didn't have an issue with that, personally. It makes sense for him.
I am going to reveal my #4 which won't be on this list, but it should. Insomnia (1997) starring Stellan Skarsgard. It is a dark neo-noir filmed in relentless daylight. I can not recommend it enough. https://images.app.goo.gl/W5jvfMAK5TW72bEB8
Very good film. It's interesting to me that we never got anything close to this level from the director after his debut.
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The entire film concerns his sense of professionalism and solitude being disrupted, so I didn't have an issue with that, personally. It makes sense for him.
I guess, but if he ditches the coat he has no problems. It just seems so obvious.
I guess, but if he ditches the coat he has no problems. It just seems so obvious.
I don't agree that his problems would've been resolved without his coat. In addition to that, the police bugged his apartment and an assassin (and the other criminals he worked with) was also aware of his whereabouts, so he'd have to ditch all that as well.
In short, I got the sense that he wasn't equipped to deal with what was happening to him.
I don't agree that his problems would've been resolved without his coat. In addition to that, the police bugged his apartment and an assassin (and the other criminals he worked with) was also aware of his whereabouts, so he'd have to ditch all that as well.
In short, I got the sense that he wasn't equipped to deal with what was happening to him.
I'll watch it again at some point. It seems like a small thing to put me off but for whatever reason it did.
Doing some catch-up since I haven't been active for, like, a week.
13-7 13) Blue Velvet: My #6. I prefer Lynch's more surreal movie (not that this doesn't aspects of it), but those movies often defy genre convention more, and this feels the neo-noir genre more.
12) No Country for Old Men: A top tiered Coen that doesn't really register in my mind as neo-noir. One interesting contrast with westerns since it was mentioned how it wasn't considered a western for the western countdown - the difference between classifying this as a neo-Western as opposed to a modern western (like Tombstone) seems more clear and usually more stark for people to mentally classify as genres. We didn't do that for modern noirs, which I'm not surprised about, just in terms of what people think of when they say neo-noir, since we've got classic film noir, neo-noir (say, Blood Simple), and modern retro/traditional noir (Miller's Crossing or LA Confidential).
11) Fargo: My #9 Another top tiered Coen. When included as a neo-noir, and I stop and think about it, I go, "oh yeah, it does obviously qualify, doesn't it?"). Because of that pause, it did land below Miller's Crossing and Blood Simple which I think of more immediately as "noir".
10) Mulholland Drive: My #16. My favorite David Lynch, but it also kind of falls into the Fargo category where I feel like Blue Velvet and Lost Highway just seem more noir to me.
09) Blood Simple: My #1! Top tiered Coen, even if it's not my favorite Coen, but it is the first movie that jumped to mind that was distinctly neo-noir, as opposed to modern, retro-noir, and it's just so much of what I think I want in a neo-noir.
08) Memento: Seen, not on my ballot. I saw this back in the day when I was still really big on Nolan. Or I should say, this was the first Nolan movie I saw and it left me high on Nolan, waiting to see what he'd do next. The late 90's/early 00's were a crazy time. In all fairness, apart from Nolan's issues with writing women, I suspect this movie would probably still hold up.
07) Le Samurai: My #8. Stone-cold cool. Usually not something that makes a movie work for me, but does it ever here. Branded to Kill was my #8. Both movies with either homages or pure inspiration for Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.
Speaking of Jarmusch, I guess that means I should have considered Ghost Dog, but that would have seem a little gratuitous in repetition. So, instead, I plumbed my memory a bit and decided, Down By Law. I won't lie, it's probably been decades now and well overdue for a rewatch, but I just have such fond memories of the movie. Decades later, this is still stuck in my head. (My #24)
Any movie where I don't want to murder Benigni is probably a low-key masterpiece by that virtue alone.
Current Ballot
01. (#09) Blood Simple (1984) 02. 03. (#55) Lost Highway (1997) 04. (#54) Pale Flower (1964) 05. (#15) Miller's Crossing (1990) 06. (#13) Blue Velvet (1986) 07. (#71) Branded to Kill (1967) 08. (#07) Le Samouraď (1967) 09. (#11) Fargo (1996) 10. 11. (#27) The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) 12. 13. (#72) Point Blank (1967) 14. 15. (#23) Le Cercle Rouge (1970) 16. (#10) Mulholland Drive (2001) 17. 18. 19. (#41) Inherent Vice (2014) 20. 21. 22. 23. (#76) Under the Silver Lake (2018) 24. (###) Down by Law (1986) 25.
I'm afraid I wasn't as keen on Le Samourai, it didn't make my list. 10 out of 10 for style, but the movie didn't pay off for me in the way I hoped. The characters and story didn't seem that great. Just didn't click with me.
Maybe it's too early, but I'm amused by how the title for Le Samouraď isn't displaying properly (at least for me) and I'm just imaging someone screaming "Le Samouraaaaaaaa". Anyway, it was on my list at #19, and this was what I wrote about the film when it was nominated in the 23rd Hall of Fame:
Le Samouraď (1967)
Directed By: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon
Le Samouraď is a slow, quiet film with minimal dialogue that's framed and directed so well, it could've gotten away with even more silence. The cinematography is every bit as restrained and patient as it's main character, but so absorbing that something as simple as watching Castello walk down a corridor turns into incredibly compelling cinema. The atmosphere is set perfectly from that very first shot, and the film flows from there just as easily as that smoke fills the darkened room.
The colour palette is incredibly coool and almost monochromatic, since the drained and muted blues and greens practically blend into the greys around them. That apparent coldness is a great reflection of Castello's stoic and detached mannerisms. When watching neo-noirs or anything even remotely noir-adjacent I often find myself longing for the high contrast lighting techniques commonly found in the classics, but the dulled aesthetic was a great choice for this particular film.
The performances were fantastic as well, and despite his minimal number of spoken lines, Alain Delon was quite captivating whenever he was on screen - which thankfully was most of the runtime. It's impressive how much of the film he manages to carry without having anything flashy or spectacular to do. The plot can be interpreted a number of different ways, and I've seen some well-constructed arguments for a variety of philosophical readings, but the real beauty of Le Samouraď is that it works just as well when taken at face value as well.
Seen: 52/94
My List: 16 01.
02. Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - #44 03. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) - #42 04. John Wick (2014) - DNP 05. Blue Ruin (2013) - #82 06. Mother (2009) - #67 07. Dark City (1998) - #24 08. Strange Days (1995) - #65 09.
10. The Man from Nowhere (2010) - #87 11.
12. Reservoir Dogs (1992) - #16 13.
14. Angel Heart (1987) - #31 15. Infernal Affairs (2002) - #91 16. Memento (2000) - #8 17. Memories of Murder (2003) - #25 18. 19. Le Samouraď (1967) - #7 20. The Usual Suspects (1995) - #20 21. Oldboy (2003) - #52
22. 23. Nightcrawler (2014) - #21 24. 25. The Chaser (2008) - DNP 1-pointer
Yeah, I'm a little surprised Payback didn't make it, myself. [...] Not sure if Mel Gibson's off-screen antics have so tarnished his image that folks just discounted it or if it is simply that there were so many first-rate Neo Noirs in the 1990s that some of them were inevitably not going to make it?
I legitimately forgot about Payback, despite owning both cuts on DVD. I definitely would've rewatched it before finalizing my list, and it probably would've been on there somewhere in the bottom half.
Ok, it's not tagged as neo noir, but it seems just as neo-noir to me as a lot of the films on this list, with plenty of moodily shot noirish locations and a story of conspiracy and betrayal in which the cop protagonist pulls at the edges of a cover-up and falls for his informant. Set in Warsaw in the 80s, the title comes from a real life police operation targeting Poland's gay community. The colour scheme and quiet scenes give me Melville vibes, but there's also a lovely warm glow to certain scenes and I love all the shots through mirrors and windows. I also find the main character's journey of self discovery in terms of his identity and integrity well drawn and touching.
I am guessing The Long Goodbye again, for today's reveal. Day late and a dollar short. "It's OK with me."
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
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