Noir Soapbox

BEAST OF BURDEN by Ray Banks

2009-03-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

Usually I leave a book to one side for a while before trying to review it. I like to let my thoughts settle. Hot off reading BEAST OF BURDEN, though, I thought I’d go straight into it without any planning.

Call it a Callum Innes tribute review.

I’m thinking I’ll drop two big clunking cliché’s in the review, but I’ll give you fair warning before I do. After reading the third Inns book, NO MORE HEROES, I wasn’t sure there would be another. Without wanting to spoil things, Banks made some very bold choices at the end of that book, and made it difficult to understand how the character would carry a fourth crime novel.
But that is the silly thinking of an idiot. What Ray and Cal prove here is that, as with Matt Scudder, the time a character gets most interesting is just when you think his story is done.

(Here’s one of those clunking cliché things, duck!)
So, that brings us to the fourth book in the Cal Innes Quartet. There’s a lot of baggage carried over through the series and it set the plot up here for a great ending. There’s death and violence, swearing, and some of the best dialogue of the series.

Every character from the previous books gets an appearance (or at least a mention), and they all get to leave the series in ways that feel natural and unforced.
Innes is typically messed up. Even more so than before, to the point where he seems to have moved past looking for a fight, to now looking to cover up and avoid a beating. It’s hard to think of a central character that’s been on a more complete journey. As usual, there’s a degree of hidden greatness to Cal’s actions. He’s a fuck up who makes the wrong choices, but he’s often doing things for almost the right reasons.
Throughout the series, he’s never been as fast or as clever as he thinks he is. Never one step ahead of anyone. The extra dimension here is that Banks switches back to having two narrators’, each trying to solve a mystery in their own way, so this time you’re never sure who is ahead of who.

This took the novel in a different direction to the previous three. They all had mysteries involved, but they were ones that the reader could figure out just enough ahead of Cal to see where he made the wrong choices. Here Banks throws in more twists and turns, fuelled by the dual investigators, so that the central mystery is not clear until after Cal has chosen to reveal it to us, and even then there are a few twists.
In many ways, Innes gets to control his own fate, fare more than in previous books, and ends the series on the right note. Although I can’t expand on what I mean there without spoiling the whole thing.

The second narrator is a brilliant return for Donkin, the bully-cop from the first book. I may not get my wish, but I would gladly go to war to get a Donkin centric book, such is the way he comes alive here. He was a hell of a lot of fun.
There’s a feeling throughout the book of loss, of time catching up with people and burning them out. (SECOND CLUNKING CLICHÉ ON THE WAY) There’s inevitability to everybody’s stories, a sense of foreboding and fatalism that gives Banks’ latest book a Jim Thompson-esque quality that I really enjoyed.

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

2009-02-14T05:16:00.000-08:00

We re-watched the film recently and I was struck by how much of an influence it’s had on my for the decade that followed.
This was an instance where I unashamedly admit to seeing the film before reading the book. It was also the start of me delving back into crime fiction with a stronger passion than ever before; sure I’d read and enjoyed some of the classics, but I was too young to really soak in what was happening. L.A. Confidential arrived just at the right time. The film pulled back the curtain; the book ripped the curtain off the rail.

I was always going to end up in that place, I can see looking back. At a high school writing project in English, I chose to write a private detective story at thirteen. Some gumpf involving missing Incan gold and a man in a long coat. I was writing the clichés, knowing that they had some resonance with me, but not yet any real meaning. Also, as I’ve written before, the comics I’d been drawn to in the previous decade were the noir-inspired ones, the etchings of David Mazzucheli and even the impressionism of Norm Breyfogle.

As any pulp fan will tell you, most of the things I love ultimately came from the same source. Comic Books, Hardboiled fiction and Film Noir all have the pulps as a grandparent
I’d already been watching black and white crime films while bunking off school, and gone on a massive binge of German Expressionism that probably owed more to Tim Burton than I’d like to admit. But as a writer I was usually writing horror stories, and as a reader it was more often than not fantasy or sci fi. Then 1997 happened, and this film happened. In fact, it wasn’t just this film, as I recall. JACKIE BROWN was in the same year, with all its Elmore Leonard goodness.

Wow, what a year that was.

Things made more sense, there was a worldview that I could really understand and that matched the comics and music I was listening to.
In the blink of an eye I was ditching German films about cabinets for British films about having nil by Ray Winstone’s mouth, I was ditching BLADE RUNNER in favour of the films it was cribbing from, and my bookshelves saw a revolution. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK has forever stayed at number one in my list, but it has faced stiff competition from CHINATOWN.

How is the film as an adaptation?

It’s both the best example you can find and lousy. It’s gold dust.
The book is epic. So epic it’ll need a separate blog at some point. It has serial killers, a conspiracy involving a thinly disguised Walt Disney, it has drug addicts and alcoholics. It covers, if I recall correctly, about six years. And the ending, oh boy, that ending messed me up good.

The film is lean by comparison. The plot takes place over a few months, almost all of the books sub plots are gone, and the characters are pared down to angry, bristling impressions of the originals. Dozens of characters are missing, back-stories have been changed or ignored, and, with the addition of a motel shoot out and a touch of glory, you could almost say the entire point of the book has been lost. Ellroy himself, when discussing the addition of the high-noon style shoot out, once said “It was madness. But it was inspired madness..” And he should know.

It’s an absolute genius adaptation. It highlights the difference in language between book and film. I often complain about adaptations, and people think I’m being dumb. They tell me that a film has to be different to the book, and yes, it does. But this is the standard that I’m holding them too. You can adapt a book, make changes, and still get it.

The ‘hero’ was a self-serving political animal. The only honest guy in the film was a woman-beating thug, and even the happy ending was about three stages past fucked up.
It was period without ever feeling old. The director or set designer deserve an Oscar just for that. Too many people think that telling a story set in the past means you need to make things look quaint or old, when quite the opposite, you need to make the old setting look contemporary. You need to feel like you’re in the period, when all of the set dressings and clothes would look modern.

The dialogue crackles along, a mix of Ellroy originals and new touches bought in by Brian Helgeland (who previously appeared on this blog when I looked at PAYBACK.)
The film understands the book; it shares its dark beating heart, and gives us a condensed version. The first and final scenes are pretty much identical from book to film, but the route there is changed. And that’s a good thing; Ellroy is not really meant for the masses. And there are nice touches along the way. Jack Vincennes pivotal scene in the film is when he looks himself in the mirror in a bar, and leaves his dirty money on top of an untouched drink.
If you add to that the knowledge that Jack was an alcoholic in the book, the scene gets extra depth. His fate is wildly different in the film, but it makes the same point as the book in a much simpler way.

Ultimately, the film is a much brighter and nicer version of the story. Its ending is much less ambiguous, it’s characters much more likeable. It is the cleaned up Hollywood version. The things we usually hate, the added action, the changed ending, the missing subplots. But, somewhere along the line, everyone making the film understood the book they were adapting and the story they were telling. They just got it. And it was stunning.

Quick notes

2008-09-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

Just a few quick notes for you. My official 'writer' website is almost up and running now over at Jaystringer.com
I'll still be plugging away on my noir soapbox, but the .com will be the place to go to for my 'official' persona as i try and get my career to kick up a gear in the next twelve months.

I've mentioned before that i started off another project over the summer, of a pulp inspired serial. The site for that is now also up and running at marahchase.blogspot.com/

I think that serializing on the web is the closest thing we have to the old pulps of the thirties that all of us are so beholden to, and that in fifty years time people will be looking back on all of this as an exciting and revolutionary time. I'm not claiming to have a piece of that action, but there will be action. We're probably looking at two episodes a week, on days not yet decided. To be true matinee style serials, i suppose, saturday morning should be considered.

Coming up on the soapbox soon is my little love letter to a few Springsteen albums that fit on here nicely. I'm working through another Pelecanos, so expect another review. Also, i'm thinking of an epic look at THE WIRE, so if anyine out there is interested in contributed to a collection of essays on the show, drop me a line.

Stone Junction

2008-09-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

It’s time to talk about the best book ever written.

Wow, what a loaded statement. Wars have probably been started over less. Okay, lets bring it down to earth.

It’s time to talk about my favourite book.

STONE JUNCTION by Jim Dodge. It’s a book that goes everywhere with me. When people ask me my favourite book, I don’t even have to hesitate. I probably couldn’t draw up a top ten list; ranking books like that is near impossible. But I do know which book would be at the top.

What’s it about? It’s impossible to describe really.

I’ve tried many times to tell people about it, but I always see their eyes glaze over at the halfway point. It’s impossible to categorise. In my days working in a bookshop, I found that this would sell exactly the same whether you put it in the fiction section, the crime section or the fantasy section.

The main narrative centres on Daniel. He starts the book as a child, travelling America with his young mother. She’s the rebellious sort, cast out for punching a nun, and turns to grifting to get money for her young family.
They get picked up by a truck driver who reveals himself to be part of a secret society, a union of outlaws if you will, and from there the book takes flight on just about the strangest, most eclectic and most affirming journey set to paper.
It’s got sex, it’s got crime, it’s got terrorists, it’s got a jewell heist, it’s got gambling and driving, romance and explosives. It’s got alchemy and genuine magic. It’s the most fantastic book ever set in the real world, as if Kerouac dropped a blotter halfway through ON THE ROAD.

It’s not without problems. The journey has been so magical, and so uncontrollable, that the book loses a bit of steam in the final pages. But there was honestly no ending that would have done toe story justice. The prose is crazy and free, taught and Hammett-like one minute, flowery and flowing the next. It works though, which is a feat in itself.

One of the quotes on the back of my current edition, the well-put together cannongate one, says “A book I put my life on hold for. ” and that sums it up well. It’s been the book I turn to in crisis, along with THE PRINCESS BRIDE. The best quote though probably belongs to the BIG ISSUE; “the kind of book that inspires you to smear yourself in pigs blood and stand butt-naked on the church roof howling abuse at the congregation.” Oh yes.

THE WALKING DEAD

2008-08-31T04:14:00.000-07:00

My next piece was going to round off a comic book trilogy by taking a look at GOTHAM CENTRAL. It’s a series that was heavily influenced by the first two comics I looked at, and would have shown their legacy.

Best laid plans of Jokers and men…

I haven’t re-read enough of the series yet to really do it justice. In the meantime, I did get addicted to THE WALKING DEAD.
Does it really fit with the themes of this site? Well, I’m sure I could make arguments that proved it did, if I worked at it. But lets not derail the show. I’m not going to limit my writing by making an argument that everything is noir; sometimes I’m just going to go with it.

THE WALKING DEAD is something of a phenomenon. A creator owned ‘indie’ comic. Its possibly the only comic on the market that’s figures are constantly going up. That doesn’t happen, it just doesn’t.

To any fans of horror films, its premise is simple and cliché. Zombies are walking the earth. Nobody knows why. Civilization has fallen. The cities are overrun; the government is nowhere to be seen.

The series, now on issue fifty-something, starts when Rick, an injured cop, wakes from a coma in hospital to find the world has collapsed while he was asleep. Yes, the beginning has been done before, but that’s not the point. If this series uses some well-trodden clichés, it’s using them in a new way. The films have always been limited by their time. Even the most ambitious of films, and Romero got pretty ambitious, could only provide character study for a couple of hours. What THE WALKING DEAD can do, that’s not been done before, is to tae these clichés and run with them. And then keep running. We’ve followed the cast of characters far beyond the point where any film would have left them behind. Some characters last a couple of issues, some last for over forty.

We get to see people try and cope with the madness; we get to see religious people either lose faith or see the apocalypse as proof that the bible was right. We get to see the limits of our own rules, the point as which it becomes acceptable to start killing people who disagree with you. The lengths people will go to defend their families when there is no law around to come and help.

And there are the cliffhangers. Oh god, the cliffhangers.

The first couple of issues are quite tame. They set up the world and introduce you to Rick. Nothing much really happens and the cliff-hangers don’t really have much impact. Once the rest of the cast begin to get introduced, everything goes to hell. Almost every one of the first 49 issues ends in some moments that makes you swear, or gasp, or cry. Serious shit happens, and nobody in the cast is safe.

Issue 49 put tears in my eyes, and that feels rare these days.

So go for it, run out and get the trades to catch up, then start buying the issues. THE WALKING DEAD is proof that comic books as a 22 page monthly art form are not dead. Proof that, if the industry could be bothered fixing distribution, they would still be able to sell comics instead of abandoning them for trade paperbacks.

BATMAN: YEAR ONE

2008-08-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

BATMAN: YEAR ONE

After writing of my love for DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN yesterday, it’s important to ‘finish the story.’

Now, for obvious reasons, the two story arcs will never be packaged together. They will never co-exist in that sense. It’s a shame because they truly are companion pieces; Crime driven re-inventions of comic book vigilantes, by the same creative team.
Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli were the creators behind both projects, Millers scripting and Mazzucchelli’s art. They brought the New York of Daredevil and the Gotham of Batman kicking and screaming into the 1980's.

Much gets written about Frank Miller. For two decades it was cliché to worship at his feet, now its becoming cliché to criticise him. Both of these fads come from a grain of truth though; Miller was on a hot streak back then, reinventing and re-energising everything he touched. Since then he has become a parody of himself. Still the best at what he does, but no longer in touch with what it was he did. It’s probably much the same trap that Bob Dylan finds himself in. When you have been so superhumanly good in the past, everything you do will feel trivial.

I never liked Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. It’s the holy bible of comic books, and to not like it is to be the guy who says, “The Beatles are overrated,” It’s going to get you outcast. I stand by it though. As a story, it’s sloppy and overblown. It’s full of the same overblown writing that Miller has become lampooned for these days, and too much of it is reactionary. Things happen in this story that are simply a reaction to the preceding fifty years of history, they don’t happen as an extension of the plot or the characters, they happen merely to get a reaction, to make a point.

Sure, a good writer takes his character in new directions. The most realistic approach is that all characters will act out of character during a crisis. But there is a line not to cross, if you push a character to far in the wrong direction, you lose the essence of what made the guy tick in the first place. Batman is not going to use a gun. He’s just not. Think about it.

Anyway, enough of DKR. The payoff is that I absolutely love BATMAN: YEAR ONE. It’s strong, it’s epic without sacrificing character, it just feels…true. If DKR was the Batman of BLADE RUNNER, BYO was the Batman of THE FRNCH CONNECTION. Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after a decade of travelling the world. He’s been training, a driven missionary, an angry young man. He knows what he wants to do, but not how.

At the same time, Jim Gordon arrives in Gotham. More than anything, this is his story. He’s a man who’s been beaten down; he’s weary deep in his soul. He hates himself, and his wife isn’t crazy about him either. He’s done something wrong in his career. It’s never explained or expanded upon but we learn that he got caught doing something in Chicago. Something that caused his career to be tainted, and his stock to plummet. He gets transferred to Gotham because the corrupt powers that be –and in Gotham that was everyone- assumed that he would be compliant. Hire a corrupt cop to come and look the other way. The trouble is, Gordon has something left in him, some part of himself somewhere, that wants to be able to look in the mirror and not hate what he see’s. He’s going to earn his redemption and be the one honest man, even if it kills him.

If some of this sounds familiar, you’ve been paying attention at the cinema. Much of the inspiration behind Chris Nolan’s Batman series lies in BYO. In fact, on of my few criticisms of the BATMAN BEGINS was that it missed one of Jim Gordon’s defining moments. I wont give away any spoilers but for those who’ve read it, think of the moment he decides to level the field by giving someone a baseball bat.

The art still stands up. Sometimes, you’ll flick through a comic that’s twenty (oh my god) years old, and the art will look dated and silly. Flicking through my hardback edition right now, the art is stunning. His Gotham is what would happen if you took the art of Edward Hopper and made it live rough for a few years, kicked it around a few times and gave it a drinking habit. It’s probably the best thing Mazzucchelli ever achieved, and maybe it’s not a coincidence that he vanished from superhero comics soon after completing it. Sometimes you’ve done everything you need to do, and you have to step back. In fact, almost every character design in here is still the default image in my head.
I’ve followed a number of great Batman artists over the past two –almost three-decades.
Breyfogle.
Nolan.
Bolland.
But when I think of Batman, or of Gordon, It’s as they were in the pages of this story.

But then, these were the stories meant for me, I suppose. There is a Batman out there for just about everyone, a take that will appeal to you whatever your tastes are. But for me, as with BORN AGAIN, this is the work that was meant for me. It’s urban; it’s grounded and realistic. The dialogue is tight, the humour is dry. The characters are flawed. There is cynicism and politics in just the right shades of subtle. And the backdrops look real and lived in.

In short, these two stories, the two bookends on Miller & Mazzucchelli’s finest work, are exactly what I mean when I use the term noir.

If you’re a crime fiction fan looking for a way into reading comics, you’re living in a golden age. There are so many writers and artists out there now who are working to get you product that you’ll like. Brubaker and Phillips to mention just two. But if you want to go back to a different age, to pull out the real gems that helped inspire the great modern writers, you need to pick up BATMAN: YEAR ONE and DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN.

I'll be returning next week to round up my comics spree with a look at GOTHAM CENTRAL, but for now a HOLD STEADY lyric that has been running through my head as i wrote these last two entries;

I was half dead. Then i got born again. I got lost in all the lights but it was ok in the end. And when we hit the twin cities, i didn't know that much about it. I knew mary tyler moore and i knew profane existence. I was keyed up. Keys jangled in the stalls. They counted money in the motels, they mostly sold it in the malls. And the carpet at the thunderbird has a burn for every cowboy that got fenced in.

DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN

2008-08-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

I’m thinking DAREDEVIL tonight.

I’ve written before of my life long love of comic books. Growing up at a time before dyslexia was an option, I was struggling to read and write, but I loved stories. School was just no help at all. Comics fused things together for me, a brain that works visually, finding the perfect way in to understanding what was going on.
My love of crime fiction, too, seems to come from the basic and primal prose. Writers who don’t put too many words in a sentence. There’s the great Mats quote, “I hate music, it’s got too many notes”. That about sums up my love/hate relationship with writing.

Batman came first, of course. British reprints of old classic comics. Silver age Batman tales sized up to fit the standard British size. Once family members saw how quickly I took to them, and how quickly this set me racing into being the most ambitious reader in the class, I was given comics quicker than I could read them. I went from someone who couldn’t read or write to someone who was making his own illustrated books and giving them to people.

I was still only about five or six when Frank Miller tore monthly super hero books apart with DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN and BATMAN: YEAR ONE, but they were in my hands. Comics were for kids, so adults never gave any thought to what I was reading. Earth shattering, groundbreaking and dark. Boy, were they dark. The effect on me was so profound that I still have those comics, in the loft at my parents, and I have the collected editions of both stories on my shelf as I type this.
If Batman was first, Daredevil was the real mind trip.

The two heroes of often compared. People say Daredevil is Marvel’s Batman. It’s a bit lazy, really. He’s a moody vigilante who operates in a big city. He likes the dark. They’re both crime-fiction oriented. That’s….about it.
Don’t get me wrong; I love both of them, I’m obsessed with both of them. This write up, especially as I compare the two, will give the impression that I’m degrading Batman. Not so; but to really give Daredevil his due; I’ll have to show how he scores points over the Bat.

They come from different places, and they react with different parts of me. Batman is a classic and righteous hero. As dark as he gets, and as many character flaws as we can point out, he’s a basically incorruptible fiction. THE DARK KNIGT sold that idea brilliantly. The film pointed out that he’s self righteous to a flaw, that he’s angry and insular, that his methods are questionable. But it always comes with the important get out – the man himself is incorruptible.

Also, lets face it, he’s rich. Batman exists because Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed, yes. But Batman is possible because Bruce Wayne is loaded.
Matt Murdock doesn’t have such an advantage. He has every excuse to be a bad guy. A cheat. A bully. He succeeds in spite of who he is, and where he comes from. In the DC universe, Daredevil would be a Batman villain.

His Dad was a corrupt Boxer. His Mother, he was led to believe, died in childbirth. As an adult he learns that she ran away to join the church. He’s blinded in an accident and finds that his senses overcompensate to super-human levels.

He’s a Lawyer who fights crime by night. He’s a Catholic who takes the laws of god and man into his own hands. He’s selfish and selfless, he’s a liar and a cheat, and he’s trying every day of his life to be a hero. Every single selfless act he’s ever done, every single one, has cost him. As a child, he jumped in front of a truck to save an old man, and he lost his sight. That’s the pattern for his life locked in, right there. He is constantly getting knocked down, and constantly finding his way back to his feet for another go.

Recently, Brian Bendis put him through a new level of hell. His identity was outed in the press, ‘Matt Murdock is Daredevil’ screamed the headlines, in a story line that played out over several years. We got some wonderful in-depth character study dressed up as super-hero comic books.

A lawyer who is a vigilante is breaking the law, and will be arrested and disbarred. A catholic who is lying has their own personal demons to deal with. Matt refused to admit he was Daredevil. In front of the world’s media –and more importantly in front of friends who were in on the secret- he lied about his identity. He sued the newspaper for millions of dollars for libel. He continued to attend church. He continued to put on a costume and beat the crap out of criminals. He compromised everything that his profession held dear, and his religion held sacred, in the name of a higher good. All the while, he was the self-righteous guy who felt that it was his decision to make.

But anyway, back to me in the mid eighties. Learning to see the world through comics.

BORN AGAIN is possibly the best achievement of super hero comics. Okay, people will say WATCHMEN, and watchmen is a masterwork. But it also set out to be one. It had things to say about the genre, but had to create whole new characters to do it. There was a degree of separation because it was not taking direct aim at the characters that had inspired it. WATCHMEN has had a long lasting affect on the industry, but there was no long lasting implication for any of the characters, because they didn't exist outside of that one story.

BORN AGAIN, by contrast, was set in the main Marvel universe. It happened in one of its monthly books, with one of its long running characters.It's actions would have log lasting consquences. It's emotional toll would get to play out.

There were no epic conspiracies, no great destruction or grand scale. It was dark and gritty, which were two important cliché watchwords in 80’s comics. But it was more than the cliché. It was grounded and human.

The Kingpin, the man who ran most of New York’s crime empire, found out the true identity of Daredevil. He found out when one of Matt’s friends, an ex lover, sold the secret in order to buy a fix of heroin. Desperate times and desperate measures. When you reach the point that you need something so bad, when your own soul is worth so little, that you will betray the man you love for one more high.

Matt’s life is then taken away a strip at a time. His job. His bank accounts. His house. His friends. His sanity –always a fragile thing to begin with- begins slipping away from him. At his lowest ebb, when he should by any rights be dead, he finds himself collapsed in the arms of a nun, on the steps of a church. In the arms of a woman who seems strangely familiar to him, he begins to heal and find strength; he begins to piece things back together. One of the best elements to any heroic story is the comeback. Not only for Matt, but for Karen, the woman who betrayed him, as they somehow find each other again and begin to rebuild.

The ending takes the character into a new place, which is often so rare in episodic comic books. He doesn’t get his whole life back, the money, the house. So much of what was taken away stays taken. Because that’s real life. But Matt learns who he is, and how much he can take, and seems happier in the final panel than at any other time in his life.

You have to go a long way to find a story this good in any format. It just so happens it was put into my hands as a kids story when I was too young to know what was about to hit me.

CHOOCHTOWN, Hamell On Trial

2008-08-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

“My name is Chooch. I don’t know what you’ve heard about the night in question.”

Your favourite albums of all time. Sometimes, you have a set list that doesn’t vary. You may remember STICKY FINGERS as one of your all time top ten, but how often do you listen to it?
(bad example, it still makes my list)
But at the same time, there are some albums that you one day realise you listen to, in some form, every week. Of every year. Albums that, now that you think about it, are far more important to you than many of the ones you hold on some mentally laminated list.

CHOOCHTOWN, by (Ed) Hamell On Trial is just such an album.

Since the day I first bought it, up until about twenty minutes ago, I can’t think of a week that’s gone by without listening to one of its tracks, or the whole thing. It’s represented on almost every mix CD I’ve made in this decade.

It’s an album made up of two different strands. Part of it is a selection of songs that are either semi-autobiographical, or simply sung in Hamell’s own voice (i.e. normal songs). The other side of the album is a collection of songs that are written and sung in character, focusing on a collection of criminals, losers and deadbeats. To begin with, I thought this was a very Elmore Leonard-ish collection of stories; set in the same world and sharing the same backing characters, but not directly linked. The more you listen, the more you realise that it’s actually telling the same story from the points of view of several of the people involved.

In some songs, the links are made obvious. Chooch, the cool tough guy (or wannabe cool tough guy, it’s up to you) is mentioned in one song, then narrates another. He also gets one or two cameo’s in other songs, including an appearance ‘on the run’ that took me way too long to notice. In other songs, the links are there for you to search, one track you might meet a girl, and then in a later one you might meet the boyfriend. Any time you hear mention of someone in one song, chances are they get to speak their mind later (or earlier) on the album.

It crackles along with great dialogue and great lyrics, it’s pace is frenetic and, simply put, this thing moves. It’s like the perfect crime novel or movie, it really is that good.
Everything centres around a late night diner, where Bobby causes a fight, a cook gets locked in a freezer, some drugs change hands, and a private detective looks for a missing woman. There’s a drug pick up gone wrong, there’s betrayal, there’s love, and there’s possibly a monster in a swamp. Oh, and partying. There is a lot of partying.

”Oh we are gonna party, when Judy gets back from the rehab/She aint gonna know/She might not even be invited”

It’s full on noir; there are guys losing their hearts and minds over women, there are people making dumb mistakes in the name of money or sex. And it is full of classic noir lines;

”She was brilliantly doomed, I got a kick how he loved her”

It’s not all about the lyrics of course. The music has grown to be as important to me as any of my ‘typical’ album choices; the acoustic guitar on this album is faster and louder than many people manage with any electric. On the track ‘ THE LONG DRIVE’, there is the loosest and saddest brass this side of Springsteen’s ‘MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER’. It sounds exactly like an old time movie, and is the soundtrack to almost every private detective novel you’ve ever read. The whole disc has the sound of something recorded drunk and loose in a friend’s basement, which it probably was. It’s halfway between the rawness of HOOTENANY and the spirit from when Bob Dylan was the funniest man on the planet.

One of the darker moments of humour comes off the track ‘JOE BRUSH’, which tells the story of a musician driven half insane by a girlfriend. In a fit of heart broken rage, while ‘he thought about what’s near and dear and he remembered Van Gough’s ear’, Joe mails his playing finger to his girl.

"She’d like to give the finger to Joe, but she moved to San Francisco with some money from an inheritance, and Joe now plays a mean slide guitar”

(And where did she get that inheritance? Hmmmm)

It’s the kind of dark humour you’d usually expect to find in an Allan Guthrie novel. In fact, this is one of the most literate pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Much credit is being given at the moment to a resurgence of ‘literate rock’, to the fact that bands like THE HOLD STEADY are putting out albums filled with references to Kerouac, and that can stand as novels in their own right. But literate music never went away, it just spent a lot of time playing drunk in friend’s basements.

If you like guitars, lyrics and crime fiction, you have to listen to this album. Then listen to it again, the again, then start playing the game of connecting all the different tales.

The album’s final word is a lament on the loss of Bill Hicks, a shadow that still hangs over many peoples world. The song stops dead halfway through for a phone conversation between God and the Devil, haggling over tickets to see Bill perform. For me, the world now feels a lot scarier without George Carlin, and Hamell perfectly sums up that feeling with his song for Hicks.

“The world is crazy and you’re on your own/I hear Bill’s voice, I feel I’m not alone.”

DRAMA CITY, George Pelecanos

2008-08-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

Why have I not read George Pelecanos until now?

The only real answer can be idiocy. I’ve had many people tell me to give him a try, over the years. I worked as the crime buyer in a bookshop where reps were forever trying to convince me that the book they had in their hands was the next great opus.
In all honesty, I think I wrote him off for no real reason. I was first told to read him at the same time as I was told to read a few other crime writers that the publishers were starting to push. Unfair to name names, but I didn’t enjoy the ones that I read, and so Pelecanos probably got written off as being part of that list. I’m not saying that was the right attitude, and I hope I would not get that treatment when my work eventually see’s print.

Anyway, long story short;
I love THE WIRE, he seemed like one of the shows best writers, so I decided to go back and give him a go.

FUCKING HELL.

I read DRAMA CITY. Now, it’s clear there is a relation between this book and season three of THE WIRE. They exist almost as companion pieces, as the research from one must have informed the other. The themes being explored are the same, it’s in a nearby neighbourhood, and you can almost see the characters as the same people.

Lorenzo Brown is a convict, fresh out of prison. The only life he’s ever known in the gangs, the drug trade, and the code of violence that comes with it. He’s got a second chance and he’s doing his best to hold on to it with both hands. It’s never easy though; his old life gave flash cars, money, status and drugs. His new life gives him few possessions, a small apartment, an adopted dog and the chance of a romance with a single mother.

The other main character is Rachel Lopez; Brown’s parole officer who has her own bag full of issues. If Lorenzo is on his second chance, Rachel is sleepwalking through her first. Visiting convicts by day, and knowing that some of them are not going to make it in the ‘straight’ world, and drinking herself into other peoples oblivions by night.
There are a lot of finely drawn supporting characters, on both sides of the law. With very few words, Pelecanos has the ability to make a character real. This is not so much a thriller, or a crime novel, as an exploration of a failed system. As with so much of the fiction that resonates with me these days, it shows that everybody, in all walks of life, is compromised by their own status in society, and by the system they work for.

It’s a book that shows people making decisions, struggling against a system that was not designed with them in mind. There’s a huge emotional connection between the reader and the characters, at least there was for me, and you can feel the weight of the decisions they make, you feel nervous for their fates even when you can see them coming. You want them to make the right choices.

It’s an old tired argument, one I won’t trot out in detail here, but crime fiction at its best is far more important than any genre labels you can give it. It examines society from the points of view of those who have the most to lose or gain, and those who have the least of either. It’s art that pretends to be pure entertainment. Hell, Charles Dickens was simply a great crime writer.

So I finally gave Pelecanos a try, and feel very stupid for waiting so long. I need to catch up, and fast.

NO MORE HEROES, by Ray Banks

2008-08-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

I’m very late with this review.
Very late.
It came out in Feb.

I read it when it came out, and then never wrote the review. If that gives the impression that I didn’t like it, that the book inspired such apathy that I forgot, don’t be fooled.
At first, I put it down after finishing it and realised I needed to leave it a few days to think. The book had been so good, and the ending so right, that it needed to be considered before reviewing it.
Then, you know, me being me, I managed to get distracted from the job at hand.

Now, I read a lot of crime fiction, as those of you who know me can attest. I’ve always got some prized or battered paperback in my satchel. But, considering the amount I read, I don’t recommend many books to people. So when I do, hopefully, it comes with a bit of weight.

Go and buy NO MORE HEROES by Ray Banks.

His books have actually had a long relationship with my blogs. One of my earliest acts of this modern blogging craziness was to recommend his first Cal Innes book, SATURDAY’S CHILD. Then on this site itself I wrote a little love letter to the follow up, DONKEY PUNCH. And can I just say, what a prescient title that was. The phrase seems to have seeped in the past year from gutter talk to office talk. Every time someone at work asks me if I know what a donkey punch is, I say it’s a novel.

Over those two books, we get to know Callum Innes. He’s someone we all know, with a few chips on his shoulder, bad habits that he’s in denial about, and the perpetual feeling that he’s the star in the ongoing movie about his life. He’s not nearly as much of an arsehole as that sentence makes him sound. He’s a nice enough guy, he’s just far to real to exist in a crime novel. Banks has grown into a master of ‘show don’t tell’, to the point where he doesn’t need to tell us the extent to which Cal is self deluded. He doesn’t feel the need to stop the narrative to point out which characters are full of shit(e) and which are acting out of ulterior motives. He’s able to tell us a story in such a way that we get it.

Comparing Cal to Jim Rockford has been my running theme in these reviews. Rockford being the guy who never quite loses but never comes out ahead. The loveable rogue driven by the charisma of James Garner. I think, after the third novel, that Cal would have taken that sort of praise to his head without reading what comes next; my idea that Cal is who Rockford would be in the real world, if he were anyone other than Garner. Now, I’ve already made that point in another review, so I’m retiring it now. But I’ve brought it back for a reason.

Banks sets his books in a world we all know. It’s a world with real people, real voices and real consequences. The second book amped up the consequences, that Cal the loveable rogue could get seriously hurt. The third book really takes this and runs with it. Cal –the wannabe loveable rogue- can’t talk his way out of every situation, and is definitely not slippery enough to outrun consequences. If he stopped and looked in the mirror at any point, he’d probably see this and save himself a lot of trouble.

Again, it sounds like I’m savaging him. Really, what he is, is that friend we’ve all head. The one who needs a good talking too and a little bit of looking after. The one you want to help, but also enjoy seeing fuck up. Banks manages to juggle his plots so that Cal figures things out usually ahead of people in the story, but well after the reader has been screaming at him for a couple of chapters. It’s a great balancing act to pull off. It’s also just about the most realistic take on the PI idea that I’ve seen.

You can believe in this guy.

Banks has shown a development in each book. In the first one, it was handling of characters, the book had two different voices and both seemed real. The second one was the real development of plot, but as something that felt natural and real rather than convoluted and staged. Setting, too, was vital to that book. NO MORE HEROES is where Ray really starts to show off what he can do with tension, and with raised stakes. As you head into the final third, there’s a real driving force, and the sense that shit is going to go down.

The plot centres on racial tension, dodgy businessmen, and local nationalists. Arsonists target a slum landlord and Cal, becoming a hero of circumstance, is hired to find out who’s doing the burning. The temperature is building to boiling point, and when it explodes, it’s going to get messy.

If this was a Hollywood film, or an episode of that-show-I’ve-promised-not-to-name-anymore, Cal would solve everything just in time to smile, flirt with a hot woman, and down a whiskey. This isn’t a film, though, and the only time Cal ever gets an ending like that is in his dreams.

Ray Banks is writing some of the best fiction, regardless of genre, to be coming out at the moment. Grounded plot, believable characters, top dialogue. I want to know where he’s going next.

THE DARK KNIGHT

2008-08-03T06:31:00.000-07:00

What can be said about THE DARK KNIGHT that hasn’t already been said?
I’ve left this review for a while for a number of reasons. Firstly, it came out a week later here than in the US. In that time, a phenomenal amount of hype made its way across the Atlantic. I was going to need time to let the film digest. Also, Batman is one of the bigger geek obsessions of my life. I learned to read using comic books, because –at an age before schools were willing to mention ‘dyslexia’- their methods of teaching just were not doing it. Comics were perfect.

The trouble is, in the time I’ve waited, everything has been said already. Stick around while i repeat some of it, because i get to the heart of my blog afterwards. But first, i have to say all the hype is true, the film is that good. Heath is that good. The rest of the cast are going largely un noticed in the Joker hype. Christian Bale, in particular, does such a good job at what he always does; he always disappears into a character. He does it so well, and so often, that audiences perhaps are starting to take it for granted. I secretly hope that the new Terminator film is every bit the turkey it could be, so that people get to see just how great Bale is in everything else. If that makes sense.

Gary Oldman is also on top form. A lot of sentiments that I’ve heard are along the lines of ‘we’ve never seen Oldman this good before’. Well, you’ve not been paying attention. If all you’ve seen is the guy gurning and hamming in 90’s Hollywood, then yes, you’ve never seen him this good. If you’ve seen the work he does away from the spotlight, the quiet character acting he is capable of, then the only crime is that we’ve not seen this more often. There’s talk that Oldman wants’ to quit filmmaking. It would be a shame, because I can’t help but feel these films have opened up a few doors for him, the chance to do character acting in big films. I’d love to see where he would take that.

Aaron Eckhart does a great job. The film is really his film. Stuck in a battle of wits between two mythic characters, it would be easy for him to vanish. Instead, he managed to play his part so well, and so believably, that he elevates himself almost above the two costumed freaks.
The rest of the ensemble does very well in largely thankless roles. Thankless for the actors, none of them will get much praise, but each role is crucial to the story being told. Credit to Nolan for the balancing act.

It’s not without it’s flaws. There are a couple of gaping plot holes. The biggest of which, a party, is smack bang in the middle of the film, waving at you and asking to be moaned about. I like to think there are two kinds of plot holes I cinema. The first kind, the worst kind, are when the writer/director is aware that there is a bit of the story that doesn’t make sense. Some scene or element that is a bridge between two important scenes, and they decide to leave it in place and not fix it. They hope you don’t notice, or they hope you don’t care. That kind of storytelling is unforgiveable. The second kind is different. It’s when there’s an element that goes unexplained. Something that happens off camera or off page. It’s not down to laziness, rather, it’s down to economy. In the grand scheme of things, the writer/director decides that it’s the plot point that is the easiest to explain, and so trusts the audience to fill in the blanks so that the more important things can be explained on screen. I think that’s what happened here. How did the Joker leave the party? Well, sure, one line of dialogue could have explained it away, but Nolan is a director who treats his audience with respect, so he’s earned that one.

What’s left to say,really?

Well, for it to be on this blog, there’s the idea of noir. One element that has been written about at length, but better writers than me, is how much this is a crime film with added costume. It is. They’re all right.
The key for me is the themes, the structure. It’s all heading somewhere. I’ve written before about BATMAN BEGINS being the perfect modern noir, a terrorist plotting to use a city’s own fears as a weapon, to make society tear itself apart. Well, Nolan does one better here. In fact, no, more than that. He does ten better here. One of the themes is what kind of a hero does Gotham need?. Of course, the film is also asking the question what kind of superhero film do we need?

”you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”

The film gives us a white knight, a crusader without a cape. Harvey Dent is bold, he’s virtuous, and he wants to take on evil with a grin. He was clearly raised on the movies of Cary Grant and Harrison Ford, and seems to think that shit can fly in the ‘real world’. At the same time, we’re given some truly questionable heroes to cling to. Jim Gordon in the comics arrived in Gotham with some unexplained stain on his career and soul. He’d done something wrong in Chicago and Gotham was his punishment. A wacko in a bat costume was his only shining light. In this version, he’s clearly making a few bad decisions in Gotham. He’s surrounded himself with cops who are questionable –yet many of whom prove to be on the right side- and having conversations with gangsters. Yet throughout it all, we get to see his human moments. The family that represents the ideal he’s working toward. He is compromising himself with good intentions. As does the Batman himself, doing things he’s not proud of. There’s a moment in SERENITY when Mal confronts the operative about his killing streak. The operative says he’s fighting to create a better world and Mal calls him of the killing. The operative says that he knows there is no place for him in the world he is fighting for. It’s an ideal higher than that. In it’s own sad way, that is some pretty real heroism there. Gordon and Batman are both fighting to create a world that has no place in it for their actions. They fight fire with fire with fire and come out of the film with a victory hidden in defeat. The white knight is corrupted and fallen, while the dark knight is still out there. At the same time, the city needs the ideal of the white knight, the inspirational image. The Joker is both heart broken and madly in love at the end, when he realises that Batman is truly incorruptible.

As Chandler himself said of Marlowe;
He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world

The politics of the movie has stirred some debate. It seems in the current climate you have to be either for or against something. There are arguments saying this film is ‘pro bush’. There are arguments saying this film is ‘anti bush’. Personally, I could give a shit about any of that argument. These characters were around for a long time before that guy, and they’ll be around long afterwards. This is, though, one of the most political summer movies you’ll ever see. It’s intelligent, and it’s asking questions. It’s not partisan, it’s not saying that one particular party is right or wrong. The film is simply pointing out that things are a bit messed up. The story is riddled with the fact that, as in THE WIRE, everybody is compromised by the system that they operate within. Everyone has to break their own rules, and ask serious questions of themselves. The sonar thing is unethical. It's clearly pointed out as such in the film. And yet, it was also needed to get a job done.
A lot of the Joker’s plan was turning the microscope on us. In a world where a public is happy to let a guy run around in cape and do what they don't want to. Then turn that world upside down and show the society for the hypocrites that they are. The scary thing about Joker's point is that, as I’ve already said, he was right.
We live in a world where we all, all of us, let a lot of shit go in order to buy a pint of milk and cheap clothes. We've stood around and let horrible shit happen in the name of both good and evil, and then we take moral high grounds when it suits us.
I don't think things like TDK are party political. Rather, like the politics of Guthrie and Steinbeck, they just point out to us that the system is seriously fucked. And that we've let it happen.

Based on two films that perfectly capture a political view and a moment in time, that use costumed heroics to turn the lens on the audience, are we on the way to getting the first truly consistent film trilogy?

Hiatus? Nope.

2008-07-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not ignoring this blog.
I know i was starting to attract a few regular readers to my thoughts on Noir, but I’ve been taking something of a vacation from crime fiction.

Aside from my long obsession with eating up the books, films and comics, I’ve been working at getting my own writing career up and running. I found that, as i hit a few stumbling blocks in the writing of my second mystery novel RUNAWAY TOWN, i was not getting much enjoyment out of it. Out of writing or reading. This was because, despite the progress I’m making, i was becoming a bit oversaturated.

So, as a summer experiment, i followed the lead of the sunny weather and have dived head first into popcorn. I've re-read old adventure novels, rekindled my obsession with the works of Spielberg, Ford and Harryhausen, and had a blast. I've always been someone of extremes; i can do one thing or the other. So for the summer, I’ve stayed away. The result is that I’ve written a novella and an adventure novel. It was a fun writing experiment, I’m traditionally week on action and exposition, so I’ve written nothing but.

I'll be setting up another blog soon, to serialise these stories for free as a diversion from my darker crime voice. Look for that to appear as the summer ends.

I'll be back to this blog on an even better schedule than before very soon. I can feel the books on my shelf calling to be read, and the voice of my central crime character is starting to feel fresh again.I'll probably kick it off with a review of THE DARK KNIGHT before settling into some long overdue essays, and a little more fiction i have to clean out of my closet before starting fresh.

One of the main challenges I'm setting myself is to find the balance between the two extremes of my tastes, to be able to work on both at the same time. That would be the key to making a living as a writer, so i need to find that balance.

I also need to set about a re-edit of my first manuscript. The hard work starts here!

Update

2008-06-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update, this will be replaced by a decent entry soon enough.

I've been quiet lately, but i've done a lot of reading, so look out for some reviews.

Right now i'm flicking through volume 1 of FELL by Warren Ellis. I'm loving it so far. And i still need to write up seasons 1-3 of the wire, and a love letter to GROSSE POINTE BLANK.

Worth a quick look, i'd like to think,is my short story on the scotsman website. The Goldfish Heist made the shortlist. The two stories next to it were the winner and the runner up, and a selection of other shortlisted entries are on there, check them all out.

PAYBACK - STRAIGHT UP

2008-05-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

Payback.
Anyone who doesn't know the story, catch up quick;
PAYBACK was written and directed by the guy who wrote the screenplay for L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. It’s based on the novel THE HUNTER, which was also adapted into the stone classic POINT BLANK starring Lee Marvin.
The novel, the first by Richard Stark (alias for Donald Westlake), was the first appearance of the career criminal Parker. The story told from the point of view of the ‘bad guy’.

Brian Helgeland, the writer/director, set out to make a film that paid homage to a
different era of crime film. POINT BLANK and THE FRENCH CONNECTION. The hero is a bastard who kills in cold blood, and there was violence to women and unarmed men. Because the world is violent to women and unarmed men. There was a dog in it, that wasn't going to survive to the films final reel.

Mel Gibson baulked, the studio baulked. When they set out to fund a dark and violent crime film, they had actually hoped it would turn out to be Sesame Street. It was decided, perhaps correctly, that the public was not ready for that version of Mel Gibson. They’d had a decade of seeing him in palatable action adventures, of being the loveable rogue. There was also the feeling that cinema should reflect its time, and you couldn’t release a 70’s crime film in the late 90’s. I don’t agree, but I wasn’t the demographic the studio was chasing.

The director was removed, a voice over was tacked on, the film was re-cut and a brand new final act was written and filmed. This final act included such bullshit Hollywood ideas as an 'ending'.

The released version was not awful. It was fun, and slight, with a dark edge that still troubled the popcorn crowd. Mel was the loveable rogue with a touch of darkness, and the film was peppered with some daft humor.
Thanks to the re-cut, it has a beginning, middle and an ending. And it was all in the right order.

The directors’ cut is on DVD now. Credit must go to the suits, and Gibson, for letting this happen, and for participating in the documentary that comes with it.
Because the avid tapes no longer existed, the film got even more old school; it was re-edited from the original film prints. Yes, from film. That crazy substance that most filmmakers wouldn't even know to look at anymore, let alone edit with.
The film has no real beginning, no real ending. Lots of middle.

It starts, brilliantly, with Gibson’s PORTER walking into the city across a bridge. Nothing to his name, we see him stealing money from a blind man (in the ‘Gibson cut’ the blind man was only pretending to be blind, here he is the real deal). He steals a wallet, gets some clothes and a meal, and starts his revenge spree.
Pretty soon, we see him beating the shit out of his wife. It’s a brutal scene, it will make you flinch. What’s great is that there is no attempt to stop the film and explain at this point, to show any context or to justify the scene. It just is. Later on, through flashback, we do see why he’s doing it. And on the documentary, both of the actors involved (Gibson and Deborah Unger) talk about it in good detail.

-Gibson; “If he didn’t care about her, he wouldn’t have visited.’
-Unger; "She deserved the beating."

If you like your films politically correct, if you like your art to represent some nice make believe world, you wont like this film. If you accept that scenes like this do happen, every day, you’ll get it.

His wife and his best friend stole seventy grand off him and left him for dead, full of bullets. He wants his money back.
Now, funnily enough, the money wasn’t really his to begin with. But that is beside the point. When he finds out that the mob now has the money? Well, he’ll just have to take on the mob and ask for it back. Nicely, of course.

One nice exchange;
-“What is this, some kind of principle?”
-“No, I just want my money back”

A dog gets killed. Lots of people die with little warning and no romance. Violence is shown for what it is. When people complain about these films, complain that they glorify violence and crime, they’ve clearly never watched them. These are the most responsible films; they show that violence and crime happen. They show that neither are pretty. They give both of them consequences.

Porter’s moral code in the new cut is far more believable than any attempt to sanitize the character. He beats the crap out of his wife for crossing him, but kills an unarmed man for insulting a woman.

The final third of the film, one of the many things the studio refused to accept a decade ago, is wonderful. A lot happens, and nothing happens, all at once. There is a showdown, yet its over in a flash, with no heroism.
The film ends in a deliberate nod to the opening.
Just as we came into the story partway through, we leave before the end.

The film will never get the recognition it deserves. Partly because it’s got Mel Gibson in it, partly because we’ll always think of the studio version first. If this film had been release in this form, and with a different actor, it would be hailed as a modern classic.

As it is, I love it, and I think one or two others may, too.

SAVAGE NIGHT, Allan Guthrie

2008-04-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

Guthrie’s SAVAGE NIGHT continues to build his own corner of the market. Or take it by force.
The question on the back asks “How much blood would you spill to avenge those you love?” The answer would be 'all of it'.
Exactly who’s doing the avenging is much trickier to answer. The plot revolves around two families, each hell bent on revenge against the other in increasingly depraved ways. Both families are guilty, one-way or another, and yet both are the victims of the plots circumstance.

To add another level, the story is told out of sequence, jumping around the plot’s timeline like a modern film narrative. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on who is guilty, and whom you should be rooting for, the narrative jumps to another point in time and completely messes with your firm grip.

The trick is to stop trying to find a good guy or a bad guy, and have fun. It’s all beautifully fucked up when it comes to morality.

What really makes Guthrie stand out, in my opinion, is the humour. He is one of the funniest writers around at the moment, though his books would probably react like Joe Pesci to be called ‘funny’. He mixes the bizarre with the real. Just when you think something ‘real’ will happen, then the story pulls out something crazy. When you think wackiness is afoot, then the story crashes back into its realistic roots.

Allan goes to length's, however, to point out that his craziest stuff comes direct from real life, from the newspapers, the television, and the unbelievable shit that people really try.

As a writer, Allan Guthrie is not afraid to kill an innocent person. He’s not afraid to kill a guilty person. He’s not afraid to hack either of them up with a saw. He’s not afraid to make it all funny.
And you’ll only be a little bit afraid when you laugh at it.

And, those who know me will know of my booksellers fetish. I love a well made paperback. Its hard to describe; somewhere between the typeset, the feel of the pages, and the quality of the cover. These things make a well made paperback.This one is very well made. But thats just me being a geek.

Criminal; Brubaker, Phillips & Staples

2008-03-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

The world of comics is far more varied than most people think.
Capes and Tights. It has a reputation as only being about the super, when in truth its got as many different genres as the worlds of cinema, music and literature. In many ways, it’s the perfect form, as it combines the strengths of all three, with few of the weaknesses.
Despite this, it has an inferiority complex. The world of comics spends a large portion of its time playing dumb, letting the world kick it around, and pretending to be kids stuff.
So okay. Comics as a medium is a large and varied place. At the same time, because of its inferiority complex and the demands of the market, you can only turn a living if you do your time in capes and tights.
With rare exceptions, you can’t have a successful crime comic if you haven’t already made a name for yourself in lycra. And I can’t think of a single long running crime series that’s not built on the back of a ready established writer.
It’s a damn shame. But those are the rules of the world, play them or find another world.

I first noticed the name Brubaker in a superhero comic.
Well, okay, BATMAN. The boo in the bat family that was given over to the super. I’d never much read it. Raised on Miller, on Grant & Breyfogle, I’d read the title when certain creators were on the book; but on the whole I read DETECTIVE COMICS, the bat title given over to his dark, noir and moody roots.
BATMAN had just had a disastrous run written by Larry Hama. Lame and lacking subtlety, it ended very quickly. In its place was a name I’d never read before. Ed Brubaker. I read a few issues and, while still erring more on the super than I wanted, it was a good new voice for me.
I drifted in and out of comics as I drifted in and out of life, but I noticed he was writing a Gotham police procedural, GOTHAM CENTRAL, and SLEEPER which totally caught me by surprise.
Then he jumped to Marvel and, holy shit, DAREDEVIL. If there’s a quick way for a writer to get to my heart, it’s to write Matt Murdock as if you were born to it.
Brubaker had good connections too. His uncle wrote the screenplay for THE BIG SLEEP. Meant to be.
Which, by way of endless introduction, brings me to CRIMINAL.

It’s a crime comic; it’s a series, and its fucking great.
Comic with a capital C, too. At a time when the whole medium is going trade crazy, rewarding readers for waiting for the trade editions by loading them with ‘dvd extras’, Brubaker is bucking the trend.
The trades are worth getting, simply because the comic is so good and the story arcs read so well collected into one.
But the issues is where its at. Aside from the story, each issue has essays on classic noir films and hardboiled authors, it has round table discussions, it has all the dvd extras.
I keep focusing on the writer, which is what I do. But that’s only half the story here, it’s a labour of love from three people. The other two are just as important. Sean Phillips is one of the best artists in the business today. He uses lighting and lines better than almost anyone I can think of right now. He was born to draw this book, and the heart and soul he puts into it shows. Writing talking heads is easy. Drawing them is tough. He manages to pull it off so well you forget these images are static. The colouring by Val Staples is the glue that holds it together. Forming the whole thing into just the right shade of seventies crime drama.

The first arc, the first five issues, told the story of Leo.
A pick pocket and legendary planner. He has a past that means he always runs away if things go bad, always has an exit plan. Part of the trick of CRIMINAL, all of its stories, is that it recognises a few of the basic things that make noir and hardboiled crime tick. There is a time when every character has to ignore a rule that’s kept them alive, they have to chose to ignore that common sense, and that moment is where the story really starts, the moment when the character has to find a proving ground.
Leo has baggage. He’s caring for his ‘uncle’, the grifter who taught him his trade, the old guy is a junkie and very little of his brain left. He gets caught up in a heist that goes wrong, and things go badly for just about everyone.

The second arc, issues 6-10, tells of Tracy Lawless. At aged 18 Tracy had a choice, prison or the army. He chose the army and it was the making of him. Through Bosnia and Iraq, he saw sights no man should see, but he was sure of himself and free. His little brother, Ricky, didn’t have that escape. He stayed in the city. It ate him up, hardened him, and eventually killed him.
The story starts with Tracy going awol from his unit to return home, hit the streets, and find out who killed his brother.
The ending is even better than the first arc. Avoiding the total physical carnage, it goes for the gut. There are deaths, sure. But of far more impact is the emotional damage, the characters that live on, but are shattered, emotionally crippled.
The idea lingers, that you can never out run your family, and you can never help who you are. It gets you, one way or another, and then it owns you.

Next up, and in the shops right now, is the first issue of VOLUME 2.

As I said at the start, it’s hard to turn a living in crime comics. After all the positive buzz surrounding the first two arcs, they’ve rebranded the book. A higher page count and a brand new ‘issue one’, as a jumping on point.
One of the real joys, as with any author building up a body of work, has been the growth of the world the book takes place in. It’s all in the same world, much of it in the same city. The same landmarks, the same cops, the same supporting cast.
Issue one of the new volume, the first of three stand alone issues, fills in some of the background on two of the supporting characters. It’s the best issue yet.
For readers who’ve been along from the start, it fills in background. For readers just jumping on, it lays foundations.
If you’re not reading it, you need to start, right now. This and SCALPED are the two comics most worth fighting for at the moment, and I’ll be writing about the latter soon enough.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

2008-03-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

This is a couple of years old. But i'm doing some house cleaning and that will include putting up a few old stories. It was actually adapted from a script i wrote at university. A trilogy of short films, each one was inspired by some pop-culture image and each one dealt with the same hung-over character. This one had, as its starting point, NIGHTHAWKS by Hopper. The picture that, nobody will be at all shocked to hear, i've always had an obsession with.

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Paul had long gotten out of the habit of looking up every time a customer walked in through the door. The novelty soon wears off, and you come to the realisation that Angelina Jolie isn’t going to walk in and smile. The top ten of the FBI’s most wanted is not going to take at seat at the bar and order a whiskey.
So the stranger was at the bar before Paul paid him any mind.
“A shot, please,” the guy said, in an accent free voice.
He was smoking a cigarette, and carried himself as someone important. He sat slumped forward on his stool.
“Problems?” Said Paul.
“You could say that. I’m the Devil.”
Paul took that in his stride. You heard everything working in a bar. Once, a guy told him he was Mickey Mouse in a previous life. The major supposition there being that Mickey was dead.
“Cool,”said Paul, “Can you turn me some water into wine, I mean if its no trouble”.
“No.That was Jesus.”
“Okay then, a lesser miracle, can you get Wolves promoted?”
“I’m really not into miracles, i'm more into the dammed, really.”
“Oh, you’re a punk then?”
“Yeah, I was the very first, it was my idea.”
“Okay, you’re the Devil then, for the sake of argument, what’s wrong?”
The Devil finished his drink and took a long drag on his cigarette.
“I’m just feeling a bit, I don’t know, down.”
“Isn’t that the point? Being down?”
“Funny. You’re very funny. Case in point though. I’m feeling misunderstood.”
“You’re the Devil, and you feel misunderstood.”
“I’m not a bad guy.”
“And I bet you hate that. Being an okay kind of guy totally fucks with your job, I suppose.”
“Not really. It I was never really a bad guy, that was never the idea. It started with original sin, and went downhill from there.”
“No kidding, that’s just what the Bible says too.”
“No, no. Be grateful. I’m branded as evil simply because I’m the only honest voice you’ll ever hear. I gave you people choice.”
“Get over yourself. You gave us an apple.”
“Don’t push me Paul, I know what you did in the summer of 1989, just a bit of extra cash, maybe, but it stains.”
Realising he’d never told this guy his name, Paul decided maybe it was best to find something else to do, something else that involves standing two feet further down the bar.
He walked away and began loading the dishwasher, one eye on the television, sky sports news updating the evenings European cup results.
The Devil didn’t take the hint, and didn’t seem to see the extra two feet’s distance as an obstacle to conversation.
“You see, the problem inherent in the whole system is you guys.”
“What?”
“Well, Demons, they are generally inclined to do bad things. And the Angels, they are generally required to do good things. But you want something really evil doing, something that was truly born in the dark heart of madness, you need a human. Humans can come up with things I could never dream of.”
“You mean Like Hitler?”
“No, I mean like Walt Disney. That mouse is fucking evil. There’s something in his eyes, it gives me the creeps’.
“But I thought Mickey was dead.”
“The mouse isn’t dead. He’s just sitting and watching. He’s waiting.”
“Have you thought about talking to God about this little mid-life crisis?”
“Seriously, you ever tried talking to her? There’s not a lot of two way conversation goes on there.”
“Not even for you?”
“Especially not for me, she hates me. It’s a thing.”
“Well, you did lead a rebellion.”
“No I fucking didn’t. That’s just all her friends talking for her, giving me a bad name. What I did, I cheated on her.”
“You and God were a couple?”
“Too fucking right we were. Then, well, in the days before, there was nothing to do, really, and there were all these seraphim floating round, and looking all angelic…”
“You cheated on god?”
“And boy have I paid for it. I’m stuck down here with you lot, who are far worse than I ever was. And you know what? She created you in my image. Damned to spend eternity surrounded with copies of myself, to be reminded what a shit I am.”
“So that’s it. The whole thing. The hole point to life, for us, is a break up”
“And doesn’t that explain a lot for you? Your whole constant feeling of missing something. The slight uneasy notion that you are really just a bit of a shit?”
“You’ve got an answer for everything, haven’t you? Some witty line for all occasions.”
“That’s the point, of course I have.”
“That’s impossible. Not every question can be answered, can’t be done.”
“I’m living proof. More to the point, i’m un-living proof.”
“I tell you, I can come up with a question you can’t answer, I bet you.”
“Bet?”
“Yeah, sure, why not.”
“You know my price.”
The devil pulled out another cigarette, already lit.
“I can do it, no hassle”
“I mean, think about it first, I’ve heard everything.”
“No, lets do it, I bet you, and when I win, you’ll make it so I own this bar.”
“That’s it? The whole of everything ever to ask for, and all you want to trade your soul for, is this bar?”
“Yes”
“Not even, like cbgb’s? studio 54? The viper room?”
“Nah, this place will do me”.
They shook hands.
Paul noting how the Devils palm was warm.
“Okay, here we go. You ready?”
“I can’t wait.”
Paul cleared his throat. “Why?” He said.
“Is that your question? Seriously?”
“Yeah.” Paul said. Not feeling so good now.
“I mean, when I said ‘i’ve heard everything’, that included debated with sixth form students.”
Paul dried a glass.
The force of his grip almost enough to shatter it.
The devil stood up of his stool and blew smoke in Paul’s face.
“The answer you’re looking for,” he said with a scary smile. “Is ‘Why not?’”
He downed another dink.
He winked at Paul.
“Thanks, I’m feeling a lot better.” He said, “And I’ll see you later.”

copyright, me and yadda yadda

The Simple Art of Truth

2008-01-13T16:13:00.000-08:00

I was just rereading Raymond Chandlers essay The Simple Art of Murder, if for no other reasons than there are few things more pleasurable than reading anything written by Chandler.

Seriously. It ever turns out he wrote a dental textbook, I'm there.

Its one of the most important essays about fiction. Certainly if you're a crime buff and you haven't read it, you're missing at your post. But more than that, its just important, and its about all fiction.

In it, he makes certain statements that can be questioned, when taken out of context. He starts with the assertion that 'fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic', which could be taken to town by any well thought out argument, if that was all it was saying.

He gives a great deal of time to attacking the works of certain British crime authors, something i will return to in a blog at some point, but isn't really the focus today. The essay rings with such truth, and such passion for the art, that my head is alive with it. Reading it today was a mistake, because i wont be sleeping very much now.

Here's a bit that i like;

“..things being equal, which they never are, a more powerful theme will provoke a more powerful performance. Yet some very dull books have been written about God, and some very fine ones about how to make a living and stay fairly honest.”

Here's another;

“There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.”

I'm not going to quote the whole thing at you in chunks. At least not tonight.

The world Chandler lived in and the one we live in are very different. The basic day to day facts of our lives would be the things of speculative fiction to him. But there are things that haven't changed, and will never change, and they are the things that are truest to his essay, to fiction, and to life.

When he said that Hammett 'gave murder back to people who did it for a reason' , he was touching a truth greater than crime fiction. We live in a world that has rules. We may not like or understand the rules, but we recognise them.

Good writing, good fiction, recognises this.
I'm not saying good fiction is only that fiction which takes place on some gritty crime ridden streets. I'm not saying that all. I'm saying we live in a world that has a certain dna, certain walls and rules. So for anything to have a feeling of truth to it, fiction has to take place in a world that recognises this.

I'm reminded of the two hours i wasted watching the sequel to THE CROW.
There's a scene where the hero drives his motorcycle through a concrete wall.
Now......okay.
See, i've never died, i have no idea what happens once the light goes out, so i can accept that someone can be sent back from the dead to finish something. For the sake of a story? okay. I'll buy that.
But i know motorcycles.
And i know concrete.
And that film was bollocks.

By this rule, fantasy is okay. It can still, and should still, be intended to be realistic.
Dragons? cool, okay. Dwarves? Magic? Knock yourselves out.
But the story takes place in a world. That world has to seem real. It has to have rules, walls and consequences. No cheap tricks.
No characters doing things for no reason, or things that don't make sense.

To paraphrase Chandler, which i am ashamed to be doing, he took issue with a certain style of crime writing. One where the sole function of the characters and the plot was to revolve around the crime. Some bizarre, meticulously planned, and overly detailed theft or murder. Something that is only believable because the story exists to make it believable.

Crime fiction should contain characters. That should be the starting point as it should be with every fiction. The crime should grow naturally out them, out of what it is they want to achieve and the simplest way to achieve it.

So with fantasy fiction, the spells, the magic, whatever the drug of choice, should grow out of the characters, and the resolution of any situation should grow out of the characters and their understanding of the world around them. Not whatever magic potion the writer needs to get everyone from z-a for the start of the next chapter.

Film students have a term for it.
In their slavish devotion to French cinema, they call it verisimilitude. It means feeling of truth, and basically amounts to the simple principle; be true to your audience, your characters, and the world they each live in.

Don't cheat, because it cheapens the work. Don't be lazy, because it cheapens the writer.
Art has to have a basic feeling of truth to it, even a totally fictional world needs to feel like one we could plant our feet on solid ground in. And the people in it, be they humans or small furry things from the planet gibby-hop, need to feel like people we can understand, people who have motives and blood running through them.

Without that feeling of truth, that 'realism', what is the point? And where is the art?

THE GRIFTERS

2008-01-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

In writing about THE X FILES i really kicked off a much larger look at modern film noir.
There are many film historians who would take issue with that sentence, 'Film Noir' being a cinematic movement limited to the 40's and 50's, with everything since then being some sub-genre or other, 'post noir', 'neo noir', and so on.

Its my belief, though, that something like Film Noir loses its impact if you put it on the shelf as a historical moment, if you bookmark it and give it unnegotiable boundaries.

Film, and television, is both story telling and art. And those two things are constantly evolving, going both forwards and backwards.

In the essay on THE X FILES i mentioned that i saw three different approaches to modern noir. THE GIRFTERS highlights this perfectly. The first approach, which I'll call the Grifters approach, is to stick to the rules. To find the camera shots, the editing, the performance style and the tone that defined those old noir's, and to make one in the present day.
From the way director Stephen Frears' picks his camera shots, to the muted timeless colour scheme, and the retro clothing of the main characters; This is a 1940's masterpiece set in 1990.

A large part of that probably comes from the source material. Jim Thompson's body of work is such a towering presence over crime fiction, that it would take some kind of crazy radical to feel the need to mess with it.

Jim was the master of immorality. The characters in his book simply showed no connection to the ideas of 'good' and 'evil', they were simply what they were. Crime, murder, incest and violence were carried off as matter-of-factly as if they were a BBC fly-on-the-wall about a school canteen. No mess, no fuss and certainly no attempt to redeem or justify anything.

His other trademark was endings. You read the last page of a Jim Thompson book and you're liable to be caught shouting 'No way! I didn't know you could do that!'. I'd be tempted to call it a contempt for traditional endings, except i don't think it was. I think Thompson just didn't know you weren't allowed to end books the way he did.

So if the source material is one sign that this film was steeped in the noir and hard-boiled tradition, it doesn't end there. The screenplay was written by Donald Westlake, who is another of crime fictions towering influences. His own series of novels, told from the point of view of the criminal Parker, influenced a generation of writers and films. In fact, the stone classic Lee Marvin film POINT BLANK, was adapted from a Parker novel.

It doesn't stop there.

Anjelica Huston plays Lilly, a very unusual femme fatale, and while nothing at all should be taken away from her talent and her performance; its worth noting in this context that her father was John Huston.
Huston, the visionary director, was the man who took on a studio head on with his creative vision. The result of his battle of wills was the film version of THE MALTESE FALCON, the Humphrey Bogart vehicle that is one of the building blocks of film noir.

This was a film that was very self conscious of what it was, of what tradition it was steeped in, and where its loyalties lay.

Its somewhat at odds with other films of the era, and of the last 20 years. There have been many noir films, many attempts at love letters to the movement. But most of the rest attempt a form of hybrid, to have a foot in both era's. THE GRIFTERS, boldly, ignores that idea entirely.

THE X FILES, as i wrote before, applied the underlying themes of noir to a new age. There has always been a creeping paranoia at the heart of all noir, the idea that something is happening somewhere, and you're going to catch hell for it. THE X FILES tapped into that feeling in a different era, and then brought many of the strongest and purest noir traditions to play.

THE GRIFTERS sought instead to transplant the thing whole, bringing the old and making it old again. Throughout the film there are visual clues to the sense that everyone in the story is keeping just ahead of their fate. John Cussack's Roy Dillon personifies this. Young, seduced by the legend of the grifter, he now see's how he is trapped in a world he won't survive in. He's trying to get out while he can. We see him often tossing a coin, playing the odds. At the same time, a reference to his profession, and to the fact that everyone is marked. Play the odds often enough and you lose.

It has the 1940's and 50's built into its DNA so much that, aside from the recognisable actors and picture quality, you could think you were watching a film made in that era.

As such, it could probably be a difficult watch for someone only schooled on films of the past decade. THE GRIFTERS, in its pace, its performances and its editing, makes no concession to a modern crowd.

Its a brilliant love letter to a lost era.

You could argue that such an approach stifles creativity, that film brings nothing new to the table because it is so firmly focused on what is looking back on. They would be fair points. This is not a film that will ever be looked back on as revolutionising anything, or pushing any artistic boundaries. But that's fine. Not every story needs to be doing that. Not every work of art has a responsibility to be something brand new, it just has a responsibility to be something good.

The blog starts here

2008-01-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

I've built up enough things to write about now to get going with consistency.
I've re-watched THE GRIFTERS, thanks to a well chosen christmas present, and been getting through THE WIRE like it was crack. Look out for essays on both of them in the coming weeks.

One of the earliest ideas i had, following on naturally from the early blogs, is a look at the private eye in crime fiction. And probably a look at one of the writers i often overlook, Mickey Spillane.

I'm currently working my way through volume one of the new comic book SCALPED, and will have a number of good things to say about it in a very biased write up. Speaking of comics, i have a few ideas for some free web based comids/graphic novels, but i'm still looking for/pleading for/offering bribery to anyone with the slightest artistic bent (and an internet in exploring the potential of web comics)

On a far less interesting note; I'm currently fighting through printer cartridges at an alarming rate trying to print off my manuscript, due to it being requested by an agent. I've written an entry for the SCOTSMAN's crime fiction story competition. I can't put it up on here for obvious reasons, but if anyone wants a preview, drop me a line.

Comic Book Death

2007-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:00

Comic Book Deaths

They're very much a pop culture reference, slang for 'cheap death', byword for 'temporary'.

In the right hands, and the right use, they can be just about the most impactful death in modern media. Partly becayse of the cliche.

Yes, we know the Joker used to die quite often, but you never saw the body and nudge nudge wink wink, isnt that funny.

But because death has become so cheap in the medium, when its used to affect, when its done to last, it has huge impact. So big that i put it in bold.

Huge also, because of the very demands of the format. Many of these books gave been running for over thirty years, some for over seventy. There is a lot invested in the characters, even the supporting ones. If one dies and stays dead, it has an effect. The writers have a responsibillity to not do it very often.

Take a look at Karen Page. Daredevils girlfriend. Normal, no superpowers, recovering junkie. She died in the space of three panels, saving Matt's life, and has not come back. She's dead; thats it.

The following 90-odd issues have had this grief hanging over them, the slow unravveling of Matt's mind, the subtle character development that comes from good dramatic writing. Does a TV show, a film, or a novel, get to explore grief in such a way?

This blog was boguht to mind my CAPTAIN MARVEL. That is, the marvel comics version, returned from the dead during CIVIL WAR.

Marvels death was one of the meaningful ones. An alien with superpowers who came to live among -and defend- humans; he died of cancer and stayed dead. He wasn't human but he chose to live as one, and died of a human disease. Shit, they never do anything that bold with Superman.

Then last year, among all the hype and bad writing of CIVIL WAR, they ressurected him. And the fans went ape shit. I dint go apeshit, thats not my style these days, but i did change my facial expressions a little bit.

CAPTAIN MARVEL ISSUE ONE hit the stands recentley, and i just read it. And i think it could be great. could be, because you have to let these things play out for a few issues before you know.

The writer has taken this head on. Brave.

By some plot device that doesn't bear dwelling on, he has been plucked out of time, from a moment in the past, and found himself in the present. He is not 'back from the dead', he just hasn't died yet. He still has the cancer in him, he's still destined to die in that hospital bed in the past. And even worse, he now knows about it.

He has to face up to the fact that he knows he dies, he knows the exact moment, and everyone around him knows it to. He's in a world that he literally doesnt belong in. A world that has already lost him and grieved.

As a super powered soldier, he is struggling to deal with the fact that he dies a 'wrong' death, lying in a hsopital bed. Faced with that, he is determined to do something in the time he has left, before being pulled back to his own time, to make a real difference to the world and to his own ego.

Thats a very interesting take on death, in an industry that is considered a joke when it comes to the issue.

EXIT MUSIC

2007-10-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

It took me a long time to read EXIT MUSIC.

I kept putting it down mid-chapter, or looking to pick faults in its story and pacing. I think the key, is that as a grumpy bastard, i was having difficulty reading the possible swansong of one of my favourite grumpy bastards.

That’s really a key to the book, Rebus defining himself in terms of old relationships that he doesn’t want to let go of. Cafferty, Shiv, his city, his job. It’s an element that has built over the series and dominates the 'final' novel. Added to this is the political talk, a country seeking to redefine itself, to either break free of an old relationship or to decide it would be to scary to do so.

Never more are any of these points made more clearly than in the books epilogue.

There is an underlying fear at breaking those relationships for Rebus, whether the relationships grew out of love or hatred, they have become who he is.

The book itself is much like the series as a whole. Rankin’s strength over the novels has been in judging what to resolve and what to leave hanging. Book for book, the plots would generally be tied up, whilst the characters relationships and issues would be left unresolved. That’s the hook that drew people in, that created the series.

While the identities of the guilty are reliant on facts Rankin holds back on, meaning you don’t find out whodunit until he wants you to, you are also given enough information to have figured out the vague ideas of how, why and when. Overall its a bundle of pretty satisfying mysteries, although for my tastes to much of the book is a conceit of red herring. I feel that, if it hadn’t been the swan song for DI Rebus, the book would probably have been titled PARCEL OF ROGUES.

As for the big questions that everyone has been asking throughout the series; the real question isn't whether or not Rankin resolves them, but instead, whether or not you really wanted him to.

It’s hard to tell whether this does mark the end of Rebus. Is Rankin mulling the urge to return to the character, or is he finishing the series with the perfect amount of loose ends? Time will tell.

ch-ch-changes

2007-10-14T12:04:00.000-07:00

Its time to start doing something more regular with this blog.

The original intent was quite narrow, a look at noir -or my version of it- in various formats. Books, Films, comics and music.

My problem, is that when i sit to write on a specific subject, my brain wanders into everything else thats even remotely shiny looking. Although 'noir' will still be the most common theme, i'm going to open it up a bit.

It will still be focusing on books, films, music and comics; but its not going to be an essay on noir each time. Its just going to be rants, comments and reviews. I'll write about things i've loved and things i've hated. Anything inbetween will be ignored.

Things that have often ended up over on my main blog will more often find their way here. Sport, politics, and general silliness will still be the job of the eejut soapbox. Many of the other things will turn up here.

Look for a few changes in the next few days to refkect the new focus, or should that be new lack of focus?

Also, one of my main flaws -and strengths- can be my opinions. I'm right and screw anyone who differs. So if anyone else wants to write guest blogs, feel free.

Chandler, Miller, and...Clive Owen?

2007-06-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

Various news sites are reporting the new Philip Marlowe films.
What we already knew was that Clive Owen is attached to produce and star. The news is that Frank Miller is onboard.
Some places are saying he's on to write AND direct, some say he's just scripting. The truth of those two will robably set my opinion.

I'm still not convinced by the casting. I seem to be the only person, in a world now full of headlines like 'noir heaven', and Maxim's blog on the guardian yesterday (Maxim who runs my favourate shop in all of london town, MURDER ONE). Everyone is making the lazy link. Miller gets linked with Noir. Owen is linked with brooding. Brooding = noir. Woohoo.

Not to me, and i'm prepared to be the only one. Owen was the weakest point in the brilliant SIN CITY. More specifically, his voice over, the driving force of the narrative for the whole middle third of the film. It was dull and monotone. It failed to deliver some of the best one liners in the book. His best moments in the film were a million miles from Marlowe, they were dark, driven, and almost crazy.

Owen has the personality of a wet fish, or a depressed dog. He's very good at eating up the screen with his dark looks and a solid brood. He would be excellent in many a film role. But Marlowe is something else. Despite the almost constant imitation over the past 60 years, Marlowe is still a unique figure. He's batterd and world weary, but carries the haert of an honourable schoolboy. He overthinks, and is tend to brood, but theres allways a sparkle in his eye, and an edge to his smile. He needs to be played with a mix of tough, attitude, defeat and humour that i've just never seen from Owen.

I'll go and see it. Of course i will. I'll almost certainley buy the dvd, and every step of its production will be greeted with geeky blogs from me. But until proven wrong, i just can't see Owen as Marlowe.

Who could i see? well, there are a number of people, and it would depend on which age i wanted the character to be (i'll save my theory on Bill Murray playing an old, tired, but sarcastic as hell, Marlowe for another time). Nathan Fillion, a cult to me if nobody else, would be perfect. But he's not a 'box office name', so he wouldnt get a studio backing in the way Owen has. Its a shame that the studio's have forgotten, this is Raymond Chandler. Cast 'known' names in supporting roles. George Clooney understands this sort of casting, he uses his own name and star power to push other peoples careers and films in a way that no other 'star' does. Just look at WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD, a wonderful film thats been missing from my collection since i left West Brom. That films star, Sam Rockwell, is still waiting for a break out performance. Though i would argue he'd be better suited to FLECTH or Gambit in an X MEN sequel. Cast a well known, and man-popular female lead. FILM NOIR, y'know?

As for Miller, i dont know. If he's directing, i have reservations. If he's writing, i still have reservations. But they're mixed. He's an unknown. We've never seen what he can really do as a director to material other than his own, over the top, pastiche of noir. We've never seen his directorial take on anything other than a visual that he's had in his own head. As a scriptwriter, i have worries. Miller the film script writer is an unreliable source. His BATMAN script, abandoned by Warners in favour of David Goyers BATMAN BEGINS, was a nasty and dark affair. It totally missed the character and made changes that would have had even the most casual of fans demanding vengence. He once wrote a script for Daredevil, that didnt get picked up because it was too epic, and had too many ninjas. He wrote a script for ROBOCOP 2, that the studio messed around and turned into two dire films, because it was...stop me here if things are getting familiar...too dark and too epic. And it had too many Yakuza.

'Subtle' is key to Marlowe. Its something that Frank Miller hasn't gone near in a very long time. He has it in him. His original, genius run on DAREDEVIL was full of it, mixed in with men in tights, greek tragedy, and lots of ninjas. His BATMAN YEAR ONE was greatness, as full of subtle character moments as it was iconic imagery, its some of the ebst writing i've ever seen. Even better, DAREDEVIL:BORN AGAIN is, quite possibly, a moment that changed my life. My birth as a comic geek, as a wannabe writer, as someone vaguely obsessed with broken characters and religious imagery, could track back to that. So Frank Miller is someone i've worshipped for 20 of my 26 years. He's been a force. The strange fact that, for all of my teenage years, i kept raving to people about Frank Miller, and how he was the answer to all of hollywoods problems, is that now the mainstream is catching on. And i'm not sure.

I love SIN CITY the film, and i've allways loved SIN CITY the books. Most of them anyway - THE BIG FAT KILL and HELL AND BACK leave me cold- but at the same time, thats not the noir of Chandler.

Millers dark, twisted noir is a pastiche. Its the noir of Mickey Spillane, men and women turned into dark and vengefull gods. Twisted humour, cliched hardbitten one liners. Big guns. Big cars. Big fat kills. To see Miller taking on that type of material, again a Spillane or the like, would be amazing. Hell, Frank Miller doing James Ellroy would be just about the most perfect match i could think of (and far better than DePalma's fucked up effort).

But i've seen nothing, at least in the last 15 or so years, to sugegst that Miller can do Chandler. A chandler movie should be directed the way John Cussak acts. Subtle, human. Comfortable with words, dry of wit and with a slight nod to the camera.

That said, Miller is enough of a god for me, enough of a force in my own mind, that i have to give him a chance. I have to wait and see what his script would look like.

DONKEY PUNCH, Ray Banks

2007-06-06T11:47:00.001-07:00

I fight authority,
Authority allways wins.
I've been doing it since i was a young kid,
I come out grinning*

A year ago, i gave SATURDAY'S CHILD a very strong recomendation. It was Ray Banks' second novel, the first featuring british (but dont tell him that) Private Eye-ish Cal Innes. It was a damn good crime novel, both playing to and subverting the genre it was written within.

(wow, i used big words there, i must be drinking rum)

Im going to go one better, and say his third novel, DONKEY PUNCH is a must read.
Its not so much a crime novel, as a novel that has crime elements in it. In fact, anyone who likes stories about the vaguely seedy side of travelling america -but is scared to venture into the section of the shop given over to 'crime'- will love this book.

Its basic plot is this;
Cal, who has decided he's no good at the PI lark, and is finally free from probation, travells to LA to chaperone a young boxer. The kid he's with has an outside shot at making it as a pro fighter, if he can find his big break. Cal just, as allways, wants to pick fights that dont really need fighting and find any way of not owning up to a drug habit.
Throw in a look at the underground of LA, lots of alcohol, some painkillers, and some boxing; thats the novel.

Last year i compared Innes to Jim Rockford. It was a joke based in truth. More so this time round. Maybe the setting helps, seeing Cal trying to play it fast and witty in the same criminal-fringed world that Rockford drove through (in much snazzier-and more checked-clothes). They both share the same characteristics, really. Both living one day to the next, both fast of wit and fast to get into trouble. Both operating to some sort of moral code, but one that puts themselves front and centre.

Rockford survived each case with nothing more than a few bruises and a witty comeback. He survived because he was James Garner, that easy charm, the humour, the style. Garner saved Rockfords ass on more than one occasion. If Rockford had been anyone other than James Garner, he'd be Cal Innes. Broken and bruised, but with a dumb grin. Cal is fast, and funny, and clever, and tough. But he's not faster, funnier, cleverer or tougher than the world he mixes in; it allways finds a way to catch up with him.

And he continues to listen to great music. In fact, one of the joys of reading this book was coming up with my own soundtrack album for it (it had SLOBBERBONE's 'josephine' on it for one scene in particular. )

Buy the book, or i'm going to release the photos to the press.

You know the ones i'm talking about.

* Yes, i quoted John Mellencamp. So what?

The Maltese Falcon

2007-02-21T14:18:00.000-08:00

THE MALTESE FALCON was published on valentines day 1930. That seems to strike a chord, its brilliantly fitting for the novel.

The other thing notable about that date, is how wrong it feels. To read the book in 2007 is to read something that feels modern, thoroughly modern.

Sure, its contains some dated references. It takes place in a world that nolonger exists. But at the same time, it reads almost as if one of the great contemporary writers have written a ‘preiod piece’. The approach to the narrative, the characters and the dialogue, the total lack of morality, seem to come out of our modern psyche.

The private detective genre is one filled with clichés and traps; some writers fall into them, some subvert them or ignore them. Nevertheless, they are all aware of them.

THE MALTESE FALCON was written before these clichés existed. To lay credit for inventing them soley at Hammett’s feet is false, as the genre had been growing for the previous decade in the pulp crime magazines that Hammett and Chandler ‘graduated’ from, but he certainly gets the credit for bringing them to the mainstream. His books were something bold and new.

But, rather than reading something that came before the clichés, it feels like you’re reading a post-modern destruction of the private eye myth; that’s how good Hammett was, he turned the genre on his head even as he created it.

At no point in the novel does he take the reader into any of the characters heads, at no pint does he tip the hat or give any motivation or plot details away.

His characters work a different trick to the other great names of hardboiled fiction. Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe is the cliché, the standard. He faces every situation with the best dialogue ever written, the finest in dry wit. Behind all his bravado and wit, lies a broken heart. There is the dissatisfaction bubbling beneath the service, knowing that the world will hurt you. Marlowe is an anti-hero not because he lacks morality, but because the world does. He holds true to whats left of himself.

Sam Spade, Hammett’s central character in THE MALTESE FALCON is a whole other character. Perhaps best adapted as Clint Eastwood’s character from the dollars trilogy, he is the true anti-hero. At the outset of the book, we find that he is having an affair with his business partners wife, and through the various twists and turns of the novel, the only thing we are ever sure of, is that Spade is looking out for himself.

There is no bruised hero here, none of Marlowe’s damaged knight in shining armour. Humphrey Bogart played both characters on the silver screen, which gives a good example of the difference between them. Rick in CASABLANCA has a place In film history as the oman who did the right thing, at the cost of a broken heart. He put the woman on the plane. Marlowe, too, would put the woman on the plane, and end the story with a cracking one liner to hide the pain. Spade, by turn, would find some way to twist the story to his own ends, and damn the greater good.

It’s a strange ending to the book, which grows out of that brilliant characterization. Though in many ways the greater good is served, and the ‘good’ has triumphed over the ‘evil’, there is a tonal lack of triumph.

In the end, Spade is doing the right thing not because he wants to, or because its right, but because its ‘good for business’ and keeps him out of jail.

More than the invention of modern crime fiction, this is also the departure point for much of mainstream American cinema. An influence that has bled through into television and music.

This book is an important part of our cultural psyche.

The Draft

2007-02-16T15:46:00.000-08:00

THE DRAFT

The Phone isn’t supposed to ring at three in the morning. It’s not natural.
It rings louder at three in the morning.
Fletch ignored it for as long as he could. He buried his head under the pillow, he pretended to be asleep so that maybe the Phone would be fooled and stop ringing. He started at the ceiling, and the ceiling stared back. He sighed, rolled onto his side, and answered the phone mid ring.
Fletch knew a lot of people, and more of those people than he would have liked knew his number. But he knew exactly who it would be as he put the receiver to his ear.
“Prescott”, he said, leaving off any greeting.
“Hey Buddy”, Prescott on the other end, sounding loud. And very awake. “What you doing?”.
“Sleeping”, Fletch replied, rubbing sleep from his eyes so that he could look for his cigarettes.
“No you’re not”, Prescott had a real knack for deduction.
“Yeah, true I guess”.
“Yeah, so you’re awake?”
“Would you believe me if I said no?”
There was a pause, when all Fletch could hear was the humming of Prescott’s cell phone connection. He imagined it to be the cogs turning in his brain.
“Yeah, so, you still out of work?”
“Between work”
“I’m about to be your best buddy. You’re going to love me”.
“You’re going to hang up?”
“No, listen, im just back from the kitten club with Tony…”
“You took Tony to a dancing club?”
“Yeah, serious”
“And?”
“He didn’t dance”
“Okay”
“It’s a shame. I got right in there, you know me. Showing my stuff. But Tony? Stands at the bar with his hands in his pockets. The same way, all night. It’s a shame; everyone likes to see a fatman dance. He’s just one of those guys I guess, every club I’ve been in anywhere it’s the same, you got the girls in the middle dancing, all the players trying it on with them, then all the losers stand round the edges watching. Like they know they should be doing something, but don’t know what it is. It’s like a Cat looking at a fencepost after he’s had his balls cut off. Man, Buddy, if only you coulda come with us….”
“You didn’t invite me”
“I didn’t?”, Prescott seemed genuinely surprised by this, “Shit, you know me, inconsiderate fucker. But still you should’ve been there. It was like an all you can eat Pussy buffet. There were these two sisters, god…….one of them was having a birthday but I don’t remember which. I tell you; it was like the fuck up of my life. I was dancing with them for ages, moving in, then they disappeared. So I gave up and starting kissing the ugly girl instead. But you know what?….”
“The sisters came back”
“Yeah”
“They’d been to the toilet”
“Okay, so I’m the only guy in the world who doesn’t get that. So anyway, they come back, see me with this ugly girl and fuck off. Still, at least I got somewhere”
“You’re making me cry here. You with you’re three girls. I remember seeing a girl naked once…”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“I think so. It was a long time ago, its all a blur now”.
“We’ll have to hook you up with someone, get you sorted. Can’t have my new best pal drying up.”
“So you’re my pimp now?”
“I was thinking of maybe a Porn empire. Reader’s wives and all that shit. You interested?”
“My whole life”, Fletch not missing a beat. It was one of his life ambitions.
“Cool, what’s your porn star name going to be?”
“Fletch”, he’d always been high on imagination.
“No, its gotta be a made up name, something corny”.
Fletch thought for a second, “Fletch”, he said.
“Like”, Prescott not letting this one go. Here was another human being who had put as much thought into this as Fletch had, “like a pun, like ‘Buck Naked’ or something, ‘Al Fresco’, buddy i'm on a roll here….or its like your moms maiden name and your street name or…..”
“Fletch”.
Prescott sighed, and the line went very quiet for a minute as if he was walking through a tunnel, so Fletch missed most of what was said next. The volume came back up as Prescott was talking about the club again.
“…..back from the toilet to find Tony talking to Claire Gaines”.
Fletch really woke up at this, “God, THE Claire Gaines”.
“Yeah, she was out on her leash again, but not to far because I could see her minder standing at the bar”.
Claire Gaines was the daughter of one of the scariest guys this side of the Krays.
Prescott carried on;
“we danced for a bit, seems she’s aloud to drink with me. So we danced and drank and talked, she offers me a job. One of her old man’s drivers had an accident, she says he’s not going to be driving any time soon, so it’s all mine if I want it. But since I can’t actually drive, and I got my stuff lined up, I told her I knew a young strong guy with a clean license…”
“You told her about Fuller”
“I told her about Fuller. But she says Fuller and Gaines have a beef, the little shits not in the good books, remind me to stay away from him for a while, but anyway, I told her about you. Said you’d take the job…”
“What? Wait, I never said….”
“C’mon, Gaines is expecting you, you going to say no?’
“Good point”.
“So you start at 11 tomorrow morning, that gives us enough time to catch a bite to eat. The least you can do is buy me lunch”.
“Yeah, I suppose”, Fletch wondered how much money he’d got in his pockets, maybe enough for a McDonalds.
“So what are you talking to me for?” Prescott whined, “You should be asleep getting rested”.
The hum of the cell connection stopped abruptly as Prescott hung up.
Fletch put the phone back on his cradle, counted the cigarettes he had left, and then lay on his back. The ceiling was still staring at him, and he was working for the mob.

THE X FILES: Film Noir for the modern age?

2007-02-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

I’m going to talk about a show that, for a while at least, I think of as a noir masterpiece. THE X FILES.

First I have to explain my relationship to the show, where I’m coming from as I talk. I saw, and loved, the first two seasons. I’m sure I saw all of season three but, without an episode list, can’t be sure. All I really know is that at some point I drifted away from watching it every week, because I had a lot of distractions and the show perhaps wasn’t resonating with me as it did, and then the show built its own huge mythology that made it impractical to pick up the thread again until later. The final two seasons were very accessible, perhaps deliberately or perhaps not, it seemed to be trying to get in touch with what it had been doing to begin with; I saw most of these two seasons, and enjoyed them, but it wasn’t what it had been.

Though, soon hopefully, I will be re-educated on the whole series.

Anyway, back to the point.

The early part of the X FILES run, lets say the first two seasons or a little more, were very much an updating of noir. Lets be even more specific, it was FILM NOIR for the nineties, in a way that nothing else, I feel, really managed.

There are, for me, three moments that have to be talked about from this era, three attempts at bringing FILM NOIR kicking and screaming, or mumbling quietly into the modern era.

Before that, lets cut the baggage. I’m not talking about Tim Burtons BATMAN, that kicked off a pop culture boom in noir for my age bracket. That had all the clothes and the smoke, but wasn’t at all an actual film noir. I’m not talking of the many attempts at using the iconography as a quick pass, at the style of many films from the time. And I’m not talking about L.A. CONFIDENTIAL or UNFORGIVEN, which I will do at some point, because they were both period pieces.

Now, for actually bringing film noir into the modern era, and making it a viable, modern day, idea I look at three points.

THE GRIFTERS, THE X FILES and RESEVOIR DOGS. The former, a brilliant and almost forgotten film starring John Cussack, was homage. Based on a classic hardboiled novel by Jim Thompson, it was set in the modern day (1990?), but used timeless sets, and was a very conscious attempt at making ‘then into now’. It worked very well, and hopefully its influence will be recognised someday.
RESEVOIR DOGS wasn’t really an obvious film noir, though it is being repackaged and remarketed as one now. What it did do brilliantly though, I feel, was to take many of the themes and precepts of the genre, and twist them in a new way, literally remaking noir for its new audience. I’m sure I will write about both of those films at some point.

THE X FILES, I feel, sits perfectly between the two, and in that balance is the best updating of the recent times; something that can get lost amongst all the aliens and beasties.

As I said in my very first blog, ‘what is noir’, I look for something that can fit the modern day. As the original movement, and here I’m still talking very specifically about film noir as a particular moment in time, captured the fears and paranoia of its time. There is something wrong with the world, somewhere above us or below us, and we can’t see it.

Also, taken from the novels on which the era was largely based, came another idea. That the things that are happening, that the things we fear, the things we can solve and the things we can’t, are done for a reason. There are people making decisions…somewhere.

Look at the often-used quote, of Raymond Chandler praising Dashiell Hammett;

‘Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse’

The truth is out there, in the world of film noir and detective fiction. Its not always pretty, and you often won’t find it, but it is there. Into this world, or this worldview, step people like Sam Spade, or Philip Marlowe. They usually operate alone, they hold to a particular ideal that, while neither honest nor legal, is true. They ask questions others won’t, and they see the criminal and the legal world as interchangeable; both the same shades of grey. They make their way through the morally corrupt ‘modern’ world with nothing but a very fast, dry, wit and some of the best dialogue known to man.

Has there been a better modern take on this than THE X FILES?

A show that at times showed the influence of both of the two, sometimes very separate, branches of classic noir; the style and the substance. The often lampooned image of the protagonists searching dark rooms with torches, the use of lighting, the framing of so many of the shots; all tied directly into classic film noir in a way I could write thousands of words about, if that was the focus of this site.

But lets look at the substance. The modern era has seen a shift in paranoia from the classic period, its more knowing, wearier, and infinitely more afraid. If the paranoia that helped shape film noir was a subtext, a knowing thought at the back of the mind that bad things happen, and for a reason, modern paranoia is very specific. Bad things happen, and we know, because we’ve seen it. Time and time again. In the classic sense, far more in film noir than its literary cousin, was the idea that victories can be snatched. That, though the larger world will always be there to outlive us, (and in the case of CASABLANCA, to come between us), it is possible to claim victories along the way.

Since then, our cultural psyche has been constantly beaten down, to the point where, we know the truth is out there, and we know we won’t find it. To the point where, ‘life’s a bitch, period’. A world where this paranoia has gone from something we don’t talk about, and explore through subtext in art, to something we talk about at the dinner table.

Into this steps not Marlowe or Spade, but Mulder.

In fact, has there ever been a better portrayal of Philip Marlowe on screen?

Whilst there have been many great Marlowe’s, from Bogart, through Garner and Gould, and (soon) Owen, they were great as an on screen invention. None of them came close to being the literary character, certainly not as close as Fox Mulder did.

Lets also look at my idea that the noir protagonist is “holding onto some part of their past, or some self delusion, that won’t let them go”, and look at Mulder. Then look at the analysis of Spade and Marlowe, that is true to both film and book, that they “make their way through the morally corrupt ‘modern’ world with nothing but a very fast, dry, wit and some of the best dialogue known to man”.

The truth is out there, as the show told us often, and he feels like the only person looking for it. This aspect of the show was, as has been recognised, also influenced largely by the TV show KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER, which, in its portrayal of a cynical yet crusading reporter into the supernatural, owed a large debt to noir. Right down to its pulp-influenced title. Now, of course, Mulder wasn’t alone. He had Scully. Scully was the voice of the audience, often, she was our ticket into the world of the show. Given the shows usual subject matter, it was needed, but the dry cynicism she initially showed was also present in the older noir’s both in the lead characters and the supporting cast. While she was certainly a twist away from the expected noir roles of the Femme Fatale (something the show had often anyway) she had her antecedents.

For a blueprint of the self contained stories, the ‘monster of the week’ tales that featured more in the shows early years, watch the great 1942 film CAT PEOPLE. The film centred around its plot a mystery that was half ‘whodunit’ and half supernatural, it never made a firm stance on which column it fell into, allowing the audience to make up its own mind, even at the films ending nothing is decided. The believers have their ‘were cat’, whilst the cynics have their ‘femme fatale’.

There were very rarely any large victories in the show, more often than not we would see fleeting ones. Small victories grasped from the larger world, that meant nothing except to those involved. And ‘larger world’ there was, one where things were very definitely happening, where decisions were being made in dark rooms. A world that perfectly captured the modern worlds fears, in a way that the classic noir structure had, all those years ago. But that did it on its won terms, neither seeking to reinvent noir, or pay homage to its clichés. It just was modern noir.

What is Noir?

2007-02-09T05:54:00.000-08:00

This blog isn't going to be simply focused on the subject of Noir. I'll be writing about comics, books, films and music. But, as noir -or my idea of it- informs much of what i read and write; it will be a returning theme in the subject matter around here.

Everybody has their own idea of what 'noir' , and they're all as valid as each other. Textbooks and dictionaries are full of definitions, and they're all just as valid also. Here's what it means to me...

What is NOIR?

What is a can of worms, and why is it open?

The definition of Noir is changeable. Film theorists will give you one set of ideas; they’ll talk about camera and lighting techniques, they’ll talk of German expressionism, they’ll talk of themes.

They also have their own family tree of Noir, they have Film Noir, they have Post Noir, they have Neo Noir. They sell a lot of books and teach a lot of classes.

The term Noir for books, certainly in the sense we tend to use it now, is a relatively recent addition. It really followed on from film noir, from the pop culture knowledge of the term, to describe a book…to sell it. Film Noir, of course, was largely drawn from books in the first place, using growing trends in cinema, and the influx of European directors, Hollywood began adapting the pulp, hardboiled, stories by the likes of Hammett, Chandler and Cain.

It doesn’t stop there though, the pop culture idea of NOIR gets applied to an ever growing array of entertainment, nightclubs, fashion, films, books, television, comics.

If we’re honest, these days it’s more of a marketing term than anything else. Slap the name onto a product, and a certain demographic is going to buy it, or at least look at it.

For example, look at the recent BLACK DHALIA film. It had a period setting, and costumes, straight out of Film Noir. It had many stolen camera shots and lighting techniques that were meant to invoke the genre. But at its heart it was empty, it was copied and soulless. It had none of the style, subtlety, or humor that (to me) makes noir.

A lot of films, such as DHALIA borrow stylistic tricks from film noir, without really having the interior meaning to justify the claim. Whilst there are other films, such as BATMAN BEGINS which (as I’ve stolen from listening to the ‘out of the past’ podcast available on itunes) have the substance and the themes of film noir, without sacrificing its own visual style.

So, is it a visual thing, or is it the themes and content? Style or substance?

I don’t claim to be an authority, and people who have the opposite view have just as much right to it as me. But, for me, and for this blog, it’s the latter.

I often read crime fiction, in fact, I’ve become something of an addict. But that’s not to say I look for a book simply because its in the crime section, or that I particularly sought out the genre. Growing up, I was always looking for certain things in the books that I read; I like ambiguity. I like simple, stripped back, prose. The writing has to flow like a rock song with a good beat, and it has to be written in such a way that the author steps back and allows the plot and characters to do the talking.

As you’ll see though, I’ve linked to the author Cormac McCarthy. Aside from NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, which I would argue is a crime masterpiece, he’s considered more of an ‘Americana’ or simply ‘western’ writer. (though to say McCarthy writes westerns is to say Chandler wrote crime. It’s vaguely true, but misses the point).

So, a definition for me, and for this blog.

Noir, as I mean it here, is fundamentally about the substance. Its about moral ambiguity. I’ve never believed in good or evil, just in people that make good and bad choices. That’s reflected in the fiction, films and music I seek out.

Its also about a lack of judgment, its rarely a simple morality play, the author steps back and presents the story. The right and wrong of the events is between the characters and the reader.

Its flawed characters, holding onto some part of their past, or some self delusion, that won’t let them go.

Its social comment, buried somewhere in the plot or the characters is a mirror to the world that produced it. Something that films like BATMAN BEGINS understand, and THE BLACK DHALIA missed. The route of noir must always be contemporary, the fears and anxieties of our time.

There's also something slightly political in the background of much of it. Not overt, not pushing buttons in anyone’s faces. Certainly never crossing the line into partisan politics and telling you who to vote for. But a large part of the work is born out of the fact that there is something wrong with the world. Not everybody gets a fair chance, or gets to have what they want. Out of that grows desire, anger and crime.

Stylistically? I love the old Films Noir as much as anyone. I love the black and white, the hats, and the smoke. The drinking, the dames…

But, as I’ve said, the accent to noir should always be on the contemporary, it should mirror the world that produced it. So the styling, the trimmings, and the trappings, should grow from that. The camera work, the writing, the drawing or the music, in whatever form we’re finding the noir, should grow out of the themes I’ve discussed above. Otherwise, it’s an empty pastiche. An echo of what was true two or three generations ago.

Capture all of that;

Simple, effective writing.
Human characters.Sex.Desire.Fear.Greed.Politics.Sex.Money.Sex.

There is something wrong with the world. Noir may not be able to fix it, but at least it's honest about that.