on 12/16/2024, 1:37 pm, in reply to "Re: From 2021 (2017-18): The Noir Top 25 Poll--Results of a Revision(ist) Effort (Carl's 2021 reply)"
Posted by Don Malcolm on 6/28/2021, 6:16 am, in reply to "Re: From 2017-18: The Noir Top 25 Poll--Results of a Revision(ist) Effort"
Thanks, Carl. You may find a few interesting elements in the ongoing thread as it is reconstructed--mostly between Mike (Solomon) and myself--that attempts to apply other approaches to the 2015 "repurposing effort" which was designed to get around the fact that we'll never again be able to mount a large-scale ranking poll here. (The second phase of the "repurposing effort," which was to create a framework for overlaying foreign noir into the poll, is even more daunting.)
I think the "way in" for foreign noir is for folks here to take a crack at listing their conception of a "Top 25" for those films on their own. This will result in too many votes for a certain subgroup of French films that I've suggested elsewhere need recontextualizing, since they tend to reinforce a form of "American exceptionalism" regarding noir that is in increasingly desperate need of revision, but such an effort should be undertaken in a thread of its own. (This might be a good exercise for folks such as ChiBob and ChiO, who've pushed more deeply than most into this area--and such an effort might get folks to seek out these films rather than settle for what the NYC purveyors--Kino, Rialto, etc.--dictate as the "creme de la creme" of foreign noir.)
Here are a couple of observations regarding your thoughts about the changes in the poll as regards the films you referenced:
--Some films (IN A LONELY PLACE, THE BIG HEAT) will always remain high in the popular imagination because of the presence of iconic actors (and directors). As critics, we honor those folk--in particular, Gloria Grahame--for creating indelible characters that transcend what is now (a bit too) conveniently summarized as "genre expectations." I think the participants recognized that THE BIG HEAT is a bit threadbare dramatically when you get beyond Grahame, which explains its descent in the revised rankings.
--In terms of the poll/revision, IN A LONELY PLACE was unanimously judged to have been graded accurately in the first poll, but lost ground due to unanimous determinations that films such as RAW DEAL and THE BIG COMBO had been seriously underrated.
--The revision in rankings that emerged here clearly reclaimed the 1950s as a decade, showing that the "noir cycle" had more staying power than is often acknowledged.
--DETOUR actually moved up a couple slots in the revision; looking at that list, I can't really see any film above it on the list that it could leapfrog.
--One participant was not keen on THE BREAKING POINT, and that was enough to keep it from moving into the Top 50. A similar issue affected BORN TO KILL, causing it to drop a bit. I would agree with you that it's a Top 25 noir for the reasons you state and for one you don't: Claire Trevor.
--We had a very good group in 2005 who were as collectively advanced WRT to film noir as anyone at the time; sadly, that fractured due to time and circumstance. Perhaps some other nuances will still emerge from the materials that followed in the thread: I'm going to pull that together in the next day or so, as all of it is getting too close to the "edge of oblivion" that exists out there at the board's back pages (!).
Responses