Fragments of Noir: March 2018

Saturday, 31 March 2018

George C Scott

New Centurions

Hustler

Hardcore

Anatomy of a Murder

Malice

Rage

Friday, 30 March 2018

For decades now Sinatra had defined the glamour of the urban night. It was both a time and a place; to inhabit the night, to be one of it's restless creatures, was a small act of defiance, a shared declaration of freedom. A refusal to play by all those conventional rules that insisted on men and women rising at seven in the morning, leaving for work at eight, and falling exhausted into bed at ten o'clock that night. Sinatra, in his music, gave voice to all those who believed that the most intense living begins at midnight ; show people, bartenders, and sporting women, gamblers, detectives and gangsters, small winners and big losers ; artists and newspapermen. If you loved someone who did not love you back you could always walk into a saloon, put your money on the bar, and listen to Sinatra.

Pete Hamill
Why Sinatra Matters
1998

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Bob Willoughby
1955

No Matter How Much

No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.

Chuck Palahniuk

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Zack Zdrale

Thursday, 29 March 2018

On Noir Set

Third Man

Key Largo

Chinatown

Vertigo

Reservoir Dogs

Night of the Hunter

Nocturnal Animals

Nightmare Alley

Heat

Sunset Boulevard

Wednesday, 28 March 2018

There's No Use

She looked slick as hell ; polished, neat and with that feminine deadliness that can drive you nuts. They work on it until they get complete control of the situation. There's no use trying to break them down. They've made it.

Gil Brewer

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Mead Schaeffer
1941
http://noirfiction.info/GIL.htm

A Losing Game

Tuesday, 27 March 2018

Big Lonely City #2

Louis Faurer

Harry Callahan

Leonard Freed

Robert Frank

Vivian Maier

Ruth Orkin

Carlos Saura

unknown

John Vachon

Monday, 26 March 2018

No Greater Solitude

Melville's solitary, taciturn men kill a lot of time in hideouts such as the spare sepia-brown room where Le Samourai opens. Light entering the darkened chamber through two symmetrical windows fans across the ceilings like beams from projectors. The eye is drawn first to a domed silver-wired birdcage, a delicate miniature prison. It takes longer to notice the man in a dark suit, stretched out on a daybed, the smoke curling up from his cigarette the only sign of life in this exquisite tableau.

Sara Imogen Smith

excerpt from
One Hundred Years of Jean Pierre Melville - No Greater Solitude
in Noircitymag

http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/noircitymag/One-Hundred-Years-of-Jean-Pierre-Melville.pdf

Choosing the Pain

I wanted a drink. There were a hundred reasons why a man will want a drink, but i wanted one now for the most elementary reason of all. I didn't want to feel what i was feeling and a voice within was telling me that i needed a drink, that i couldn't bear it without it. But that voice is a liar. You can always bear the pain. It'll hurt, it'll burn like acid in an open wound. But you can stand it. And as long as you can make yourself go on choosing the pain over the relief, you can keep going.

Lawrence Block

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Rinzi Ruiz