PROSELYTIZING FOR FRENCH NOIR

We're not at all enamored of the recent coinage that has become an annual "event," particularly on Twitter: "Noirvember." Too slick, too glib, too calculated: strike three and you're out. But one suspects it will be with us for the foreseeable future. 

Which, of course, means that occasionally we find a need to use the term to our own advantage. Since THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT festival has been in operation, it's had its own monopoly on "Noirvember," given that it's the only film noir festival to actually occur in November. 

In November of '21, other places got  into the works. Two theatres in Boston featured "Noirvember" fests this year. One figures that it's only a question of time before the Film Noir Foundation decides to get into the act somewhere.

In the meantime, THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT got back in harness at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco after a twenty-three month hiatus. (2021s schedule, segmented into an October "prequel," a November "main event," and a December "coda," brought viewers a total of 17 films, including seven festival favorites from previous years.) 

Above, a shot of French noir evangelist Don Malcolm at work in front of his "flock," and a look at the 2021 festival artwork, based on the poster art for one of the films in this year's festival, DEATH OF A KILLER (1964, directed and starring Robert Hossein).

ANATOMIZING PASTE MAGAZINE'S TOP 100 NOIR LIST

The accompanying table is the crux of our analysis of Paste Magazine's kluge-y Top 100 noirs list.

We call it that because the placement of the films based on their release dates (1940s-50s: classic; 1970s-up "neo") and the total number of films in each of these global time frames seems a bit too convenient. See if the pattern displayed in the table--sorted by poll rank and then distributed by decade--speaks to you in a way similar to the way it speaks to us:

First, the total number of "classic noirs" (late 1930s to late 1950s) just happens to add up to a round number (60). 

Second, the total number of "classic noirs" in the Top 30 is egregiously lopsided. Only CHINATOWN and BLADE RUNNER--two films seriously displaced from stories set in the present-day--made the cut. 

Third, that numerical arrangement permits the 70 subsequent films to split exactly between "classic" and "neo"--35 apiece.

All of this is just a bit too convenient...

While there are many films that clearly belong in a Top 100 list, there are some odd choices at various places in the poll, which also suggests that the list was arrived at "by committee" and not from any kind of empirical input.

THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW and THE BIG SLEEP are simultaneously oddball and mainstream choices for #1 and #2 on the list, which also suggests "committee" as opposed to something that would reflect a prevailing consensus (which would heavily favor films like DOUBLE INDEMNITY--which was rated #3--and OUT OF THE PAST--slotted at #7).

So--an odd, quirky, "kluge-y" list that could be picked apart by looking at the films as they rated by decade--which could reveal some seriously odd distortions. We don't have time to do that now, but we may come back to it later on. 

To read the full article (with copious commentary on each film included in the Top 100), click on this link:

https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/the-100-best-noirs-of-all-time