The Devil's Honey #6

Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Friends of Eddie Coyle

I'll Cry Tomorrow

Indian Runner

Lost Weekend

Cutters Way

Moontide

Leaving Las Vegas

Nightmare Alley (1947)

After Dark My Sweet

The Hustler

The Petrified Forest

Small Back Room

Thunder Road

Been There Before

         There was too much of a sameness about the evening's delights. He had been the same route too many times. He'd been there before, so double-damned often, and however you travelled - backward, forward, or walking on your hands - you always got to the same place. You got nowhere, in other words, and each trip took a little more out of you.

The Grifters
Jim Thompson
1963

Dark Femmes #9

Michelle Stratton - American Gigolo (1980)

Rose Sandigate - It Always Rains on Sunday

Rae Ingram - Dead Calm

Elizabeth Hintten - The Bribe

Catherine Ballard - Crash (1996)

Vicki Buckley - Human Desire

The Player - The Driver (1978)

Rose Otis - Hell's Half Acre

Jackie Brown - Jackie Brown

Raina Arkadin - Mr Arkadin (Confidential Report)

Jasmine Fontaine - Mob City

Berit - Port of Call

Adele Corners - Kalifornia

Toni Marachek - Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Madeleine Elster/Judy Barton - Vertigo

Dong sik Kim - Housemaid (1960)

Grace McKenna - U Turn (1997)

Survive By the Day

         Noir heroes dread to look ahead, but instead try to survive by the day, and if unsuccessful at that, they retreat to the past. Thus film noir's techniques emphasise loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, and insecurity, then submerge these self-doubts in mannerism and style. In such a world style becomes paramount ; it's all that separates one from meaninglessness.

Paul Schrader
Notes on Film Noir
1976

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The Killing

 

The Killing
Stanley Kubrick
1956

New York Trilogy

Comfort of Strangers

The Comfort of Strangers
Paul Schrader
1990