Neo Film Noir 1961-2035 on blu-ray and 4K UHD

[Richard--W]

NEO NOIR



Definition of Neo Film Noir

Wikipedia List of Neo Noir Films

A constantly developing genre, film noir began to push
against its own boundaries with transitional films like
Sweet Smell of Success, Touch of Evil and Vertigo.
In the 1950s film noir evolved into Neo Noir.
Hardboiled stories with an existential dread, fatally
flawed characters with no good choices, savage violence,
an introspective darkness and the cruel twist of fate
are still present in Neo Noir, but private eyes, plodding cops,
hapless protagonists, femme fatales and the need for justice
to be served are not always present. Not every Neo Noir
dispenses with the cliches of classic film noir, but many do.

Neo Noir is not the exact same thing as film noir.
There are significant differences.

List:

[Show spoiler]

Sets and Collections:






1960




1961-1970




1971-1980




1981-1990




1991-2000




2001-2010




2011-2020




2021-2030





Neo Noir Television:




Related Threads:
Official Film Noir on blu-ray
Pre-Code and Early Talkie Films on blu-ray


Links:
Essential Nordic Noir


Further Reading:
American Neo Noir: The Movie Never Ends - by Alain Silver and James Ursini
Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo Noir - by Foster Hirsch
The Philosophy of Neo-Noir (Popular Culture Series) - by Mark T. Conrad
Neo-Noir - edited by Mark Bould, foreward by Mike Hodges
Neo-Noir as Post-Classical Hollywood Cinema - by Robert Arnett
Neo-Noir: Contemporary Film Noir from Chinatown to The Dark Knight - by Douglas Keesey
NeoNoir: The New Film Noir Style from Psycho to Collateral - by Ronald Schwartz
John Dahl and Neo-Noir: Examining Auteurism and Genre - by Paul Monaco
Encyclopedia of Television Noir 1949-2024 - by Vincent Terrace
TV Noir: Dark Drama on the Small Screen - by Alan Glover
The Philosophy of TV Noir (Popular Culture Series) - by Steven Sanders and Aoen J. Skoble

[Richard--W]

Neo Noir 4K UHD

1961-1970


1971-1980



1981-1990


1991-2000



2001-2010



2011-2020



2021-2030

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I've said this before, but I do consider the Neo-Noir section to be more of a bonus to the main film noir stuff, as what people believe should be included is much broader than classic film noir. This is mainly why I manage this thread on a community-basis, where I welcome feedback from everyone on what should be included or not. With that in mind, it's impossible to please everyone with the lists.

Someone is free to make a separate neo-noir thread, but I do feel it's just easier to have the discussion of titles in one centralized place. The focus will always be on classic film noir here though.

Official Film Noir on blu-ray is my favorite thread to visit on this forum.
I've done a lot of shopping off that thread since I joined up here.
MifuneFan runs a neat & tidy ship. Since she does not object, and has
invited a deeper look, I thought I would take a more expansive look
into Neo Noir. Film Noir and Neo Noir are not necessarily the exact
same thing. There are significant differences. This new thread is
meant to compliment MifuneFan's outstanding work here. It's going
to grow larger as more titles are added.

I hope everyone will enjoy it and invite your participation.

[Richard--W]

Walking Tall was a drive-in hit in 1973. This modern neo-noir classic struck a chord
with audiences. A Tennessee sheriff is maimed and disfigured by organized criminals
who are corrupting town government to ignore vice and gambling, which the people
seem to want. He comes back from hospital months later to finish the town clean-up
he had started. The people don't particularly want his help, and tragedy will be visited
upon his family. The plot resembles The Phenix City Story (1955), also directed by
Phil Karlson, but it's based on the life of Sheriff Buford Pusser, whose story had filled
newspapers in the early 1960s. Karlson also directed the film noir classics Dark Alibi
(1946), Scandal Sheet, Kansas City Confidential (both 1952) and 99 River Street
(1953) among others.

When I saw the film, the audience response was the same as in the trailer:

Walking Tall (1973) Official Trailer - YouTube

[jt839]

Add Body Double




And The Long Goodbye

[Richard--W]

Jackson County Jail (1976) is the neo noir in this set.
Caged Heat is not.

[Richard--W]

Two different adaptations of the 1939 novel 23 years apart,
but they are both excellent noir films.

[Richard--W]

Good, decent law-breaking Neo Noirs in need of blu-rays:

[Richard--W]

Not all film noir's are erotic, but all erotic thrillers draw on the
stylization, aesthetics and plotting of film noir. For example:

Erotic Thrillers on blu-ray & 4K UHD

[Richard--W]

Delighted to find that Leonard Shrader's underrated and overlooked neo-noir
Naked Tango (1990) has been transferred to blu-ray in Japan. This
very potent noir had a VHS release in the 1990s but no DVD or blu-ray
anywhere, until now.

Mathilda May (the space vampire in Lifeforce) stars as a French girl on her
way to Argentina in the 1920s for a pre-arranged marriage, only to discover
on the boat that she has been tricked, and will be forced to work in a brothel
against her will. Her predicament is based on actual circumstances. She tries
to escape, and when that doesn't work, tries to trick the brothel keepers
into thinking she has succumbed to her carnal desires so that they will not
watch her too closely. The film conjures up a nightmare atmosphere with
pools of light and shadow and splashes of red. The period detail is authentic.
The tango dances with a skinny Vincent D'Onofrio would make Rudolph
Valentino blush. This film goes where Paramount could not go in 1921.

The late Leonard Shrader co-wrote some of his brother Paul's early films,
and he is the only credited writer of Kiss of the Spider Woman (I'm not a
fan). Naked Tango is the only film he directed and wrote, I think.

The blu-ray is region A, in native English with subtitled Spanish passages,
and can be found on ebay. Don't hesitate. Buy it now.

[Richard--W]

The inspiration for this cover art, and perhaps for David Lynch, must have
been Edward Hopper's MORNING SUN, a 1952 oil on canvas. One of Hopper's
best known interiors.

[Richard--W]

Is Macon County Line (1974) a noir? I say yes, maybe.

[tehthomas]

Awesome thread!

Not a movie, but I highly recommend this book for reference.

[Richard--W]

Revised the OP. A more comprehensive revision coming soon.

Added Links and Further Reading.

[kinotek]

I disagree with a lot of these (Serpico? The Passenger? The Godfather? Seriously?), but I'm in general support of the thread.

Here are a few more for the list:



And a DVD I really, really wish would get an upgrade:

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by kinotek

I disagree with a lot of these (Serpico? The Passenger? The Godfather? Seriously?), but I'm in general support of the thread.

Here are a few more for the list:



And a DVD I really, really wish would get an upgrade:

Your additions are right on the money.

I'm on the fence about The Passenger, which appears on a few authoritative
lists. I'm not removing The Godfather. The Godfather may be other things
before it's a noir, but it's also a noir, and a highly evolved noir both visually
and dramatically. It's as hardboiled as any noir from the 1940s. How people
can miss the darkness at the heart of this story just mystifies me.

[kinotek]

Originally Posted by Richard--W

Your additions are right on the money.

I'm on the fence about The Passenger, which appears on a few authoritative
lists. I'm not removing The Godfather. The Godfather may be other things
before it's a noir, but it's also a noir, and a highly evolved noir both visually
and dramatically. It's as hardboiled as any noir from the 1940s. How people
can miss the darkness at the heart of this story just mystifies me.

Agreed that The Godfather is many things, but at base it's really a glorified gangster flick, isn't it? As for the darkness at its heart, I feel like that's pretty hard to miss. It's shot, after all, by "The Prince of Darkness" himself, Gordon Willis. ;-)

That notwithstanding, I'll never think of it as a noir. Who's the poor-sap protagonist? The femme fatale? The compromised lawman fighting against and/or succumbing to the darkness? To me, at least one of those characters is necessary for a noir. But then, maybe I'm just a traditionalist!

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by kinotek

Agreed that The Godfather is many things, but at base it's really a glorified gangster flick, isn't it? As for the darkness at its heart, I feel like that's pretty hard to miss. It's shot, after all, by "The Prince of Darkness" himself, Gordon Willis. ;-)

That notwithstanding, I'll never think of it as a noir. Who's the poor-sap protagonist? The femme fatale? The compromised lawman fighting against and/or succumbing to the darkness? To me, at least one of those characters is necessary for a noir. But then, maybe I'm just a traditionalist!

That's the traditional view of classic film noir, and it's fine.

Film noir evolved into Neo noir. You can see the genre refining itself by the
late 1950s. Neo noir is allowed to dig deeper into the dark side of human
nature and to expand the boundaries providing that it "plays the scene" as
they say.

I would not describe The Godfather films as "glorified gangster films" because
there is a rich subtext in them that separates and elevates them from the
the standard shoot 'em up. Each film is a multi-layered story.

Michael starts out as the well-intentioned protagonist who gradually succumbs
to corruption and his own inner darkness. His rise to power is a fall from grace,
and a spiritual struggle for him as he does evil to do good for his family. He is
inherently flawed and cannot rise above it.

I don't think "prince of darkness" is a fair shingle to hang around Gordon
Willis' neck. Most of his films were not darkly lit; look at his work for Woody
Allen, for example. The Godfather is a color film that's timed like black &
white. You can see deep into the shadows. He talks about this in interviews.
Contrast and color saturation were dependent on Technicolor's analog dye-
transfer process (which the digital realm fails to replicate, and why I didn't
include the 4K's which are a travesty). Coppola's tableau compositions are
meant to echo the pictorialism of Mervyn LeRoy's and Howard Hawks'
gangster films in the 1930s. His other films are not composed or lit like
The Godfather films.

[kinotek]

Originally Posted by Richard--W

I would not describe The Godfather films as "glorified gangster films" because
there is a rich subtext in them that separates and elevates them from the
the standard shoot 'em up. Each film is a multi-layered story.

...

I don't think "prince of darkness" is a fair shingle to hang around Gordon
Willis' neck. Most of his films were not darkly lit; look at his work for Woody
Allen, for example. The Godfather is a color film that's timed like black &
white....

Agreed about The Godfather. I revere it (and II) as highly as the next film lover, I was simply being reductionist in order to boil it down to the genre from which it sprung (and its pulpy source material). I wasn't trying to diminish it in any way--as I assumed we all know what a masterpiece it is--but rather to contrast it with noir.

As for Gordon Willis, you may have noted my half-smiley, since I was referring to the title he was popularly given by contemporary critics and fellow filmmakers. His work with Woody aside, the man was responsible for The Parallax View and Klute, prime examples of his (then-unprecedented) ability to keep characters in the dark.

And while your point is taken re: the evolution from classic noir to neo noir, I still don't believe that makes the brush so broad as to include straight-up thrillers (The French Connection, Blow Out), rape-revenge films (Death Wish, Ms. 45), gangster movies (including Scarface and the obvious Scorsese), arthouse weirdness (Down By Law, Blue Velvet, Eyes Wide Shut) or really anything by Bob Fosse. But that's just my opinion, of course!

[Kakihara]

Yeah, I respectfully disagree with a lot of inclusions here but I appreciate the concept of this thread!