Typical Neo-Noir--Paul Bodera

Typical Neo-Noir

When did film noir evolve into neo-noir? The term neo-noir can be used to describe any film or novel that came after the noir time period and embodies characteristics similar to its predecessor, such as the femme fatale, a confused hero, and a negative, pessimistic view of the world. However, neo-noir is also used to present and describe more modern, contemporary noir films and novels with added themes of paranoia and other mental problems, revenge, and ruined relationships. That is why if our semester was a week longer, the addition of the film The Last Seduction, would fit perfectly with the neo-noir theme.

So where do we start seeing neo-noir films? Chinatown (1974), is a good place to start, as such movie marked the start of the neo-noir era. Chinatown contains noir elements, from the classic noir detective/hero, private detective Jake Gittes, to the gloomy, pessimistic view of its setting, the city of Los Angeles. It was the first film we watched in class that introduced us to the neo-noir genre.

            Also in the neo-noir genre, we have the novel Devil in a Blue Dress, with femme-fatale, Daphne Monet. Daphne is a black woman who appears and acts as if she’s white. Throughout the novel, Daphne changes and manipulates her appearance and the way people view her, which is why she’s compared to a chameleon. “Daphne was like the chameleon lizard. She changed for her man” (Mosley, 230). Throughout the novel, we see her facial expressions, eye color, and even hair color change. Easy would see the look in her face change. Sometimes she would have a loving, sweet look and other times her face would have a harsh, cold look. It is often mentioned that “Her eyes flashed green...Her eyes turned blue,” and “Her nose, her cheeks, her skin color- they were white. Daphne was a white woman” (Mosley, 248). This makes Daphne a femme fatale because she is given the ability to manipulate the way others perceive her. Furthermore, Daphne is also a femme fatale in the sense that not only does she play mind games with Easy and takes advantage of his love for her, but she also takes advantage of Todd Carter and steals $30,000 from him. The characteristic of being manipulative is a key element to the femme fatale because it shifts the typical  power dynamic between men and women, where the man is usually seen as the most powerful of the two, to the noir power dynamic, where the femme fatale has a one-up over the male characters.

            We are introduced to a similar femme fatale character, Bridget Gregory, in the film The Last Seduction. In The Last Seduction, telemarketing manager Bridget Gregory convinces her husband Clay to sell cocaine, steals the money he makes from selling the drugs, and flees New York in order to escape her unhappy marriage. She stops in the small town of Beston on her way to Chicago, where she is forced to stay for some time so her husband doesn’t track her down. In Beston, she meets Mike Swale, Bridget’s “designated fuck”, whom she uses for sexual pleasure during her stay in the town. She gets a job at his his insurance company and makes a plan to sell murder to cheated wives. She tries to get Mike involved in it, saying that if he really loves her he will work with her and help her. At first, Mike opposes, but he later complies and Bridget even tricks him into helping her kill her husband. Bridget’s wicked character is able to commit murder, deceit, and theft without second thought, which makes her a very excellent femme fatale. She is cold and heartless and is even perceived as crazy by Mike, who feared her thirst and drive for murder.  “I am a total fucking bitch,” she says throughout the movie. At the end of the movie, she ends up killing her husband and accusing Mike of rape. Just like Daphne in Devil in a Blue Dress is seen as having a lot of power over Easy and the other men, we see how Bridget comes out as the clear “winner” of the movie, having been able to control Mike and manipulate both him and the crime scene.

Bridget’s motivation for being a “total fucking bitch,” is due to her unhappy marriage. However, Bridget and Clay from the film The Last Seduction aren’t the only ones with a bad relationship. Amy and Nick from Gone Girl are also miserable in their marriage. The main reason for their toxic relationship is that Amy has been pretending to be “cool girl” Amy, someone she is not. From the moment she meets Nick, Amy faked being the woman in every man’s dreams. To Amy, being a cool girl means being “a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker and dirty jokes, who plays videogames and chugs beer” (Flynn, 312). Amy acts this way to win Nick over. However, eventually, Amy starts getting tired of pretending. “So it had to stop. Committing to Nick, feeling safe with Nick, being happy with Nick, made me realize that there was a Real Amy in there, and she was so much better, more interesting and complicated and challenging, than Cool Amy.. Can you imagine, finally showing your true self to your spouse, your soul mate, and having him not like you?” (Flynn, 316). According to Amy, Nick "didn't love me, me. Nick loved a girl who doesn't exist" (Flynn, 311). When Amy couldn’t keep up with the role of the “Cool Girl” and got sick of it, their marriage started to collapse. As a result, a toxic relationship began to form between the two. Things only get worse when Amy finds out that Nick is having an affair, and decides to teach Nick a lesson by faking her disappearance and possible death as a form of revenge. Toxic relationships seem to be a recurring theme in film neo-noir because it creates more problems and complicates the interactions between the femme fatale and the main male character. Furthermore, it escalates and resonates the mood of impending doom that we see in classic film noirs, which came before neo-noir.  

            Our neo-noir theme of revenge continues with the film Memento. In the movie, Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories, as well as short-term memory loss. His condition is the result of an accident he had, where someone attacked him when he tried to save his wife from getting raped and killed. In order to remember things and live his life to his best as well as carry out his plan of killing the man who killed and raped his wife, Leonard uses Polaroid pictures and tattoos to keep track of and store information he cannot remember. Leonard knows a guy “John G” killed and rape his wife, as it says so on his tattoo, and throughout the entire movie, Lenny is determined to find the guy and kill him. All he does with his life is basically find clues to try to find John G. Lenny holds a lot of anger and hatred for the guy who killed his wife, and when Teddy asks him “You really want to get this guy, don't you?” Lenny bitterly responds, “He killed my wife. He took away my fuckking memory. He destroyed my ability to live.” This shows that Lenny is so hurt and depressed over his loss (his wife’s death), that he will go to any extreme to avenge her death and make her killer pay for what he did. At the end of the movie, Teddy tells Lenny that he is an undercover cop and he helped him kill the man who killed his wife. Teddy thought Leonard would remember killing the real John G, but Leonard is unable to remember the event. Ever since, Teddy has made up other John G's for Leonard to kill. Teddy tells us that Sammy Jankis was a fraud, and that Leonard’s wife is the one who was diabetic. Lenny is in denial and doesn’t want to believe Teddy. “I'm not a killer. I'm just someone who wanted to make things right. Can't I just let myself forget what you've told me? Can't I just let myself forget what you've made me do. You think I just want another puzzle to solve? Another John G. to look for? You're John G. So you can be my John G... Will I lie to myself to be happy? In your case Teddy... yes I will.” This leads to Lenny writing down Teddy’s license plate number as a fact about his wife’s killer and writes “Don’t believe his lies” on the back of Teddy’s polaroid. Leonard was so determined to find his wife’s killer and avenge her death that he refused to listen to Teddy when he was trying to tell him the truth.

All of these neo-noirs encompass similar themes of ruined relationships, mental disorders, and revenge. Furthermore, they also echo key noir elements such as the femme fatale and an aura of disillusionment. Just as Chinatown started our journey with neo-noir, the film The Last Seduction is a good way to end the semester and wrap up neo-noir. Not only does it contain common neo-noir motifs such as Bridget having a failed marriage with her husband like in other neo-noir pieces of literature such as Gone Girl, but it also incorporates revenge, Bridget wanting to kill her husband and planning his murder, just like Leonard from Memento wanted to avenge his wife’s death and Amy from Gone Girl  wanted to teach her husband a lesson for having an affair. Finally, Bridget’s character and personality matches Daphne Monet’s from Devil In a Blue Dress in that they are both manipulative and make men do whatever they want and tell them to.  

Not only would the addition of the film The Last Seduction benefit the class because it connects to and is very similar to other neo-noir films and novels that we have read and watched in class, but it would also be a good ending to the semester because it also clearly has elements of classical noir, such as the femme fatale, which in addition also ties back to the beginning of the semester with classical noir.