Poems About Neo-Noir--Final Project Re'Nae

Crime

Black and white now red all over.
Violent, vulgar, voluptuous schemes.
This type of noir, is the newest I’ve seen.
It started as sound effects,
obvious stage fighting that
turned to blood splatters,
busted skulls, and splattered brains
That was one thing that also changed
Out of the Past
and into the darkness.
A gunshot wound to the groin,
but not visible.
Unlike when
all those times in
Pulp Fiction.
Tragically there was a scene.
A scene of a man losing his masculinity
but
Bruce Willis, shot his enemy in the dick.
Making sure he let the image stick
in our minds as the camera showed
the bad guy rolled
on the floor, holding himself.
Followed by Ving Rhames was
getting his revenge on his wrongdoer which
isn’t something you say to your friend.
You can’t just rape a Black man
and expect to get away with it.

Now we have
Sammy jack who pulled the trigger
(before his favorite bible verse
about being his brother’s keeper)
on the kid on the couch.
and the mouth
of the next victim
open
Hoping he’s not next,
But the words from Ezekiel 25:17
Came out
So we already know what that mean

Femme Fatales
Don't forget how, Easy
`didn’t really have it so easy
on the search for Daphne,
his road to success, was all but smoothe.
He had to bow to the boss,
yes sir, no sir.
I don't even know her.
She doesn't even know her.
Oh wait that’s Ruth.
to tell you the truth

The devil in a Blue Dress was a victim in a
dress that gave her the courage to change herself
She was assaulted
Instead of those,
lustful desires that once
 held the hearts of detectives
Femme fatales aren’t so fatale just
no longer very effective.

But let’s talk more about,
the change in femme fatales
See Laura was adorable,
And Kathy was powerful.
But Daphne was confused.
And Mia was a abused.
Not wait
She was the abuser
of drugs.

See the difference between then and now
is not the beauty
cause they are all pretty good looking.
It's the new roles of femme fatales.
A danger to others now
more than to themselves
An exaggerated version of
the ladies we love.
Used to love.

American Dream/America

We see them in color now, and the colors show
Samuel L Jackson showing just how far he’ll go to
Save not just himself, but save John Travolta’s career since we all could see
He was on strike 3 with TV

The abundance of Black characters
In this White American Dream
Set the scene for
Racism, colorism,and stereotyping

Easy was a Black man
that was dealt a bad hand.
He just wanted a house.
But a what cost?
Getting jumped in the street?
Looking for a girl who changed her identity?
His american dream
to be seen
without his skin being an issue.
For Daphne too.

Hard Boiled Detectives

Victims
Of this addition of color behind the scene
And back to Jackson
He had something to reference,
His witty comebacks, yet only this time full bible verses
Rehearsed
(Neff didn’t need to do that)

“English mother f*cker, do you speak it”
The line that made this a hit,
it kinda had some wit,
Cute banter
"Don't be tellin' me about foot massages.
 I'm the foot f**kin' master."
But not compared to
Jeff It was the bottom of the barrel,
and I was scraping it.

Really “on your toes shenanigans”
Neo noir needs to get back
to those quick,
not too deep
lines of speech.

Doing a series of poems was much more difficult than I expected it to be, but this is fun for me. I started to write a very long poem, but I decided to break them up into sections. The topics I want to focus on are femme fatales, the hardboiled detectives, violence, and production. My references include Pulp Fiction, Devil in a Blue Dress, Out of the Past, and The Killing. With these, I will discuss the similarities and differences in order to further explain the idea of neo noir verses classic noir. I chose 2 books and 2 novels to discuss the stylistic approach, descriptions, and characters. Putting these into separate categories made it easier to flow and focus in on one topic, that way it the reader can also keep track of what is happening. Poetry itself is a difficult art when trying to be as academic as possible. Poetry has too many emotions, too many feelings, too much of what academic papers do not have.

 To start, the differences between the violence in classic noir and neo noir is such a switch. It has gotten more gory and gruesome. Especially with the addition of color in these newer films, blood and violence is more visible. In classic noir, the black and white effect makes the violence less noticeable.Pulp Fiction did not hold back with the theatrics. There was drug abuse, an abundance of bloody scenes, and even more vulgar language. There has definitely been a shift. Some may say that there is no difference between classic noir and neo noir, that noir has different variations the same way comedies and action movies do. So the idea of neo noir can easily become an evolution of noir. So there has be an evolution of the display of violence. I used Pulp Fiction because this movie took violence to a new extreme in comparison to the earlier versions of noir films such as Out of the Past. In Out of the Past there were scenes of shootings and violence, but compared to Pulp Fiction, it was a drastic change. An example is when Kathy shot Jeff in the groin. It was evident that it happened, but we only saw the motion of Jeff holding himself. However, Marcellus shot the man that raped him in the groin as well, but the details that were shown were very gruesome. It was then followed by the implication that things would be getting worse for the rapist. The violence level throughout the progression of film noir has gotten worse.

            Next are the femme fatales. We used to see femme fatales as these beautiful, seductive women who were almost like the detective’s side kick or partner. They were considered a danger to themselves and other because the seduced people into getting what the wanted. Sometimes, they’d put themselves in danger at the same time. As noir progressed, writers and directors knew there needed to be a female character that was similar to the ones in classic noir. It seems as if now, the femme fatales are over done in movies, which makes the idea of a femme fatale less significant, and that character is just a female that wants something, but doesn’t possess the knowledge to obtain it. These newer femme fatales are just different. Devil in a Blue Dress, has a confused femme fatale. She is having an identity crisis due to childhood trauma. Then Pulp Fiction’s Mia was a drug abuser. So between the two of them, I’m not sure if they should even be placed in the same category of the classic noir.

 Finally, our hard boiled detectives have also progressed. Originally, our hardboiled main characters have a handsome look, very charming. They are also quick witted and on their toes with comebacks. In Devil in a Blue Dress, Easy, to start isn’t very quick witted until later. Because of his race and the time period of the novel, he feels the need to not be as aggressive and assertive as the classic characters we have seen. However, as time progressed, our hard boiled detectives are definitely more aggressive, but not as witty. In Pulp Fiction we see several times between Samuel Jackson and John Travolta how they have a partnered wittiness. Their cometary is smoother when they are together rather than separate. In the classic noir, detectives were individual and strong.

 Overall, the neo noir is definitely newer than the classic.It’s not just the addition of color that makes it new. It is the characters, violence, and dialogue that have changed. The neo noir seems to be a more exaggerated version of the classic noir. By taking the character types, themes, plots and actions, it then was taken to new levels of acting. Because of this, classic noir and neo noir are on different sides of the noir scale. Though both fall under the category of noir, there are definitely differences between them.