A Quick Review of Film Noir

I've been chewing on this in my mind* for a little while, ever since renting and watching the movie Brick (2005) in mid-November. Brick was the debut film from Rian Johnson, or at least was the first full-length feature movie he finished after completing a short called Evil Demon Golfball from Hell!!! (1996) in film school. You can see that it took Rian the better part of a decade to find a producer or distribution company to support his debut film, which speaks more to the glut of new movies produced annually by Hollywood than it does to his talent.

* Initially, I thought I would create a top five list of my favorite film noir movies. Then, I thought stopping at just five would be silly; why not fill out a full top ten list? Then, I worried that any top ten list would by necessity unfairly exclude some great noirs out there. Plus, I have to admit I haven't seen that many of the classic film noirs, so any list I pulled together would be incomplete. So I scrapped that idea.

Brick, simply put, is nothing short of brilliant! As I watched it for the first time, I could tell instantly that it was a debut film. There's something about watching a really good movie that often marks it as a director's first movie. I can't even artfully describe those indicators; perhaps it is the movie's outstanding dialog; perhaps it is the cinematography that borrows shots from classic movies and great directors; perhaps it is simply a gut feel that says the director poured his or her heart and soul into the film. A parallel exists in the world of novels: the debut novel from an author often surpasses any subsequent work, no matter how excellent the following books may be.

Ah, so what makes the movie Brick so excellent? Here is where I wanted to compare it to other film noirs I love. Brick contains all the essential ingredients for a film noir: in the cast of characters, it has the intrepid detective (our hero!), the informant, the cops/authority figure, the femme fatale, the equally brainy antagonist, and the antagonist's muscle; it has the snappy, quick-witted dialog derived from the works of Dashiell Hammett*; it has the requisite dark settings and interesting interplay between light and shadows; and it has the twisting, turning plot that includes a mystery our hero must unravel. It does have the intrepid detective getting beat up by the muscle, a characteristic of most but not all film noirs. It does have the long reveal at the end of the movie, where our hero exposes the true criminal mastermind behind the plot.

* By the way, I know that many people give Wikipedia a hard time, and no encyclopedia should be used as the only reference for source material. No less a reknowned blogger than Curt Schilling advocates all bloggers refrain from using Wikipedia links in posts. To which I say, find other quick-to-grab reference material on the Web that is any more trustworthy than Wikipedia, and I'll use it.

As I thought more about Brick and other film noirs, I knew that I've been a fan of film noir for a very long time. Brick is similar to another noir that was the debut feature from my favorite film makers, Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen Brothers: Blood Simple (1984). Like Blood Simple, Brick can be rapid-paced at times, while also being maddeningly slow-paced at other times. I was always very impressed with how the Coen Brothers allowed the storyline to develop in Blood Simple, and how the characters in the story never knew fully quite what was going on, not completely.

That characteristic set up the final line of Blood Simple by M. Emmet Walsh (who played a PI, yet wasn't the intrepid detective of the story), and also played a huge role in another film noir by the Coens, Miller's Crossing (1990). Brick probably borrows more from Miller's Crossing than Johnson would like to admit. Much of the dialog is very similar ("dangle," for please excuse us), the interplay of suspicion and distrust between the antagonist and the muscle is the same, and the intrepid detective gets a little lucky when facing his accusers and imminent death. If anything, the hero in Brick solves the riddle quicker than does Gabriel Byrne's Tom Reagan character in Miller's Crossing; Reagan ends the movie by being better lucky than good.

Brick even borrows heavily from Blade Runner (1982) which, although it is a sci fi movie first and foremost, is also a film noir in the best definition. I remember the very first time I saw Blade Runner, and how impressed I was that the hero got the snot kicked out of him in every single fight*, no matter the opponent. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's (the teen kid from "3rd Rock from the Sun", who looks surprisingly like a young Heath Ledger in this movie) Brendan also gets beat up by the muscle in most scenes, even though he has an early victory against the stud football player, Brad Bramish. I can't prove it, but I also swear that Johnson used the same music in Brick for a scene between Brendan and Laura, the femme fatale, as Ridley Scott used during a scene in Deckard's apartment with his femme fatale played by Sean Young. It's a lilting little jazz number, and it sounds like the same song in both movies.

* That might seem funny, but think about it: how often did John Wayne get physically beat up in his movies? How often did Clint Eastwood? Sylvester Stallone? OK, bad example; Rocky (1976) was all about getting beat up. But given that most Hollywood heros can fight off hordes of goons without a scratch, and that the Stormtroopers in Star Wars (1977) couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, the simple fact that Deckard in Blade Runner had his butt handed to him by the replicants was significant, even if replicants had super-human strength.

Johnson also borrowed heavily from the classic film noirs, and specifically mentioned Hammett in his discussion of deleted scenes on the DVD. He wanted his dialog to be witty and snappy, like the works of Hammett, who gave us Sam Spade and Nick and Nora, the heroes of the Thin Man franchise. What's funny is that I recently read The Thin Man the novel, after which we watched The Thin Man (1934) the movie, all because of the movie that started the successful rebirth of Robert Downey Jr. as an actor. No, not Iron Man (2008). While that was a great movie, and while Downey Jr. was an inspired choice for Tony Stark, the movie that resurrected his career was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). What a great film that was! The actors specifically referenced the great pulp fiction novels that served as the basis of film noir without actually giving credit to Hammett, but the reference was clear.

In terms of the classics, Johnson borrowed heavily from Orson Welles' seminal movies, using low shots looking upward at the actors for dramatic effect (borrowed from Citizen Kane [1941]) and the general look and feel of Touch of Evil (1958).

Given that Johnson borrowed heavily from other film noirs for Brick, what makes Brick stand out on its own? Why did it win eight awards from such notable film festivals as Sundance and the Independent Spirit Awards? The answer is that Johnson set all of these classic film noir staples mentioned above in a high school setting! The premise is brilliant, and it's hard to believe no one thought of it before. All of the main characters save for the cop/authority figure Assistant Vice Principal (played by none other than Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft!) are high schoolers, although they certainly aren't shown attending classes. Notes are passed between lockers. Who eats lunch with whom and where plays a significant role in the plot. All the usual teenage drama and histrionics that go along with high school heighten the danger and suspense of the plot line. Brendan has to navigate the treacherous waters of band geeks, drama queens, dopers, jocks, and brains, all while being an outsider and loner. It's brilliant!

As a coworker of mine told me after I let him borrow the DVD, he and his wife were smiling all the way through the movie. It's a very simple concept, setting a film noir in high school, but executed to perfection with this movie. What's old is new again. There are sequences of dialog between characters that could only happen with high schoolers.

Oh, and for all the drama and intrigue that goes along with film noir, there is also room for levity. I laughed my butt off when the high schoolers faced off over the kitchen table while the quite clueless suburban mom served up country-style orange juice in the same country-style juice glasses my grandmother had at her farm! Simply brilliant.

Given that the box office numbers listed on IMDB are quite low for Brick, it is clear that not many people have seen this movie. I "discovered" it when I rented The Constant Gardener (2005), another film from Focus Features that had the trailer for Brick on the disc. Ever since we saw Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (2003) from Focus Features, they have been one of my favorite movie distributors. Up soon on my Netflix list will be another Bill Murray film by Focus, Broken Flowers (2005). Here's hoping it is as good as the rest.

If you get the chance to rent or watch Brick, take it. It is well worth the time.