A more systematic neo-noir project is definitely called for, but it requires a viable "Top 500" to have any significant value--and separating the wheat from the chaff, as demonstrated by the long & winding road of the neo-noir thread (before Mike went over to the other side), remains a daunting task...
--->Generalized observations about the substructural differences in neo-noir: Acting, whether understated or flashy, subtle or dynamic [feel free to insert your own dualistic pair of opposites here] is far more foregrounded in neo-noir as it goes along.
If there is an "artistic evolution" (which was what prompted my assertion that we have a more overtly "templated" form that's being worked on/from in neo-noir than ia the case in the classic phase...) it would be an increase in this actorly foregrounding in terms of how the story is structured and conveyed. That would explain the structures by which "binge" TV is "determined" by adding (what often seem like endless) details to what are otherwise "stock" characters. So the "evolution" is a kind of "devolution" that gives ground to the actor, who must carry all the narrative and emotional baggage.
I don't think there's "evolution" in a form that is built from an impersonation of something that originally existed (we're talking about classic noir now) in separate but interlocking elements that were combined intuitively (and with certain censorship parameters still imposed). I think there are neo-noir films that capture a variation of that anxiety which reverberated around a world-wide war and that left variable lingering effects everywhere afterward. The whole point of suggesting that classic noir ends when the form of politics changes and Cold War tactics become psychologically internalized is that what follows is always ruptured from the original sense of alienation and has moved into various "meta" phases which are either more literal (either more political, less "noir" or more "genre" and less realistic) or more flamboyantly stylized (art films and hybrid genres like BLADE RUNNER).
---> Applying some of the above to GONE and STRAIGHT TIME: Re a film like GONE: it's a story that rises or falls via the reception of Seyfried's acting. How much is paranoia and how much is reality in what she sees and does and how does that manifest in how she interacts with the other various characters (which I think Dan would agree tend to take sides for/against her based on gender, reflecting a continuing backlash against feminism and sexual liberation). She is such a focal point and becomes so intensely central to the highly fraught emotions on display in the story--which are intensified further by the film's backstory--that some folks who might be sympathetic to her plight in the abstract might be turned off by the film's relentless approach to its subject matter. That's where much of neo-noir begins as a operating principle! Of course it's not 100% that way, but it is heavily tilted in such a direction.
So for such films, we should ask if the lead actor(s) is burdened by having to carry off more than just acting his/her role due to the other structures we can sense in the film's narrative.
Is that burden part of a better approach to filmmaking, or is it the product about how the artform has changed and that it's a pervasive aspect of neo-noir that is now "baked in" over time?
How much of that do we see in what Hoffman must traverse to create his character arc in STRAIGHT TIME? How much does the script "over-determine" to make accessible his character flaws? Are those "over-determinations" viable or do they undercut our ability to suspend disbelief?
Conjecture: the neo-noirs that manage to do this with the most success may be the ones that should be at the top of the list.
And in response to how to differentiate neo-noir from classic noir:
IOW, many respond viscerally against a mash-up of old-style narrative techniques and post-modern bombast.) Let's also consider revisiting the neo-noir-o-meter that you devised and how it differs from the one devised for the classic period. The differences you traced may help to explain some of that dissonance...
If you are looking for neo-noirs that operate more like classic noirs, we will be throwing out almost all of the neo-noirs eventually.
As to gangster/criminal bio-films, one has to determine if they are providing a straightforward, semi-factual narrative, or whether they are presenting instead (or in addition to the former) a psychological or sociological panorama of forces that have warped the characters. A film that probes those workings, even if it doesn't provide the lead character a chance to comment directly (a classic noir narrative device: think of the voiceover of the Caryl Chessman surrogate character played/voiced by William Campbell in 1955's CELL 2455, DEATH ROW), has landed in the noir universe.
Here comes that term again--the one that sustains a thread (however slender it might get) between noir and neo-noir: alienation. If one is alienated from the world to a large enough degree, one slips into dysfunction...and one outcome of that is criminality.
As for MONSTER, let's examine one account of the underpinnings of the Wournos character, as taken from Roger Ebert's review of the film:
The crimes themselves are triggered by Aileen's loathing for prostitution -- by a lifetime's hatred for the way men have treated her since she was a child. She has only one male friend, a shattered Vietnam veteran and fellow drunk (Bruce Dern). Although she kills for the first time in self-defense, she is also lashing out against her past. Her experience of love with Selby brings revulsion uncoiling from her memories; men treat her in a cruel way and pay for their sins and those of all who went before them. The most heartbreaking scene is the death of a good man (Scott Wilson) who actually wants to help her, but has arrived so late in her life that the only way he can help is to be eliminated as a witness.
Look at these words and phrases: loathing, shattered Vietnam veteran, a lifetime's hatred, lashing out against her past, revulsion uncoiling from her memories.
In a word: alienation. Those are noir constructs, embedded in a crime bio.
[...] Keep in mind that neo-noir is increasingly an actor's medium--meaning that their tonality and presence is significantly more foregrounded now than was the case in the classic era.
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