on 1/15/2025, 11:18 am
The idea expressed in the title of this essay had some real potential to be of interest, but (as you'll see if you click through to it...) it fails rather spectacularly to follow through on the notion of "genre-bending."
This is mostly due to the fact that all of the films listed are in the "neo" time frame, where the characteristics of classic noir have morphed into something else due to the abandonment of black & white filmmaking and the streamlining of character interaction to the "action clash school" of screenwriting.
The noir-melodrama melding that occurred in the immediate post-WWII period was a unique manifestation of "genre collision" that is completely unknown to the author of this essay. Such tonal gradations are almost extinct in the "neo" phase, which mostly adds comedic elements to the pervasive, underlying grimness of the tales being told. (And even this is no innovation for "neo": that trend began in the late 50s/early 60s in France (and on US television) and quickly told hold as a way to further assimilate "noir" into the mainstream.
The last film on the list (STRANGE DAYS) is perhaps the one exception to what is otherwise an essay in "genre cluelessness." There must be more films like it, and you're encouraged to wrack your brain to identify them and post them here...
Responses