Film Noir at the Cinematheque; Blue Velvet and After Hours (after hours!) at the Rio, plus Barry Gifford and David Lynch

1. Of Barry Gifford and David Lynch

I have not kept many film books. I have a section on Cassavetes, a book apiece by Robin Wood, Carol J. Clover and Jonathan Rosenbaum, a few autobiographies (Ernest Borgnine, William Friedkin, Alex Cox), a few tomes on Yakuza movies (two by Chris D.), Cox's spaghetti western book, and a book I keep meaning to read about the whole sorry Twilight Zone affair and subsequent trial (I refer to the John Landis segment of the film, during which a helicopter explosion killed actor Vic Morrow and two children cast in the film). Many books on film noir have come and gone, but at the moment, I have only one, the sole constant since the early 1990s: The Devil Thumbs a Ride. It's a series of highly descriptive "reviews" of classic films noir as seen by novelist/ poet/ Kerouac biographer Barry Gifford, who writes in a slightly hardboiled vein himself, but with a subtle ease and playfulness. Fans of, say, John Armstrong's Guilty of Everything would get a kick out of Gifford's film reviews; you figure that if John wrote capsule descriptions of his favourite noirs, they'd come out a bit like this (Gifford is less personally revealing when it comes to tales of debauchery, mischief, and excess, however; he prefers to put that stuff in his fiction).  

Now, my favourite piece of writing in this book, the one I refer back to the most, is Gifford's review of Blue Velvet (which screens Saturday, late at night, at the Rio Theatre). It's highly unflattering, even insulting, though it does pul its punches a little -- before delivering new ones. The stories you read about how Lynch and Gifford first collaborated -- like this good one -- do not ever mention this review playing a role; in fact, I'm the only person I've yet to see speculate about this publicly. But the review predates the collaboration, even presumably predates Gifford's writing the novel that Wild at Heart is based on; which raises interesting questions. Had Lynch read the review? Was he aware of it when he was hot-to-trot to adapt a Gifford novel? Did he read the Gifford novel BECAUSE of the review? Did he and Gifford ever talk about any of this and if so, how exactly did that go down?

For the following fantasy re-enactment, if you like, you can picture the conversation in the voices of Robert Blake and Robert Loggia from Lost Highway.

"I really want to adapt your novel as my next movie!"

"Did you read my review of the last one?"

(I really hope Barry Gifford isn't cringing somewhere, reading this, going "shh, shh, he hasn't read it, just... shhhh!" I cannot imagine that being the case, however).

For you inquiring minds out there, Gifford's unkinder remarks are amplified a bit by being taken out of context, but some of them include that Blue Velvet is  "one cut above a snuff film" and "a kind of academic porn," which observation he follows by remarking that "pornography, as such, simply bores me; as soon as I know what it is, I lose interest." But while that sort of sums up his personal reaction to the movie -- it's not for him -- he acknowledges that nonetheless Blue Velvet "seems important" and is "worth discussion," and writes -- like he is actually impressed -- that it is interesting "that I can never imagine things as depraved as those that occur here, and I've always thought that I could get pretty low in that department" (pp. 21-22). 

So it's a respectful review, also looking at the film through the lens of Bunuel and Hitchcock, finding it closer to the latter (the work of "a pure voyeur.") But its summation is equally quite harsh, maybe the second-rudest image I've encountered in a film review, after Roger Ebert comparing the rough cut of The Brown Bunny to his colonoscopy: Gifford's final three word sentence is, "Real phlegm noir." 

As it works with movie reviews, this was all written and presumably published at the time Blue Velvet came out, in 1986, when Gifford had a column in Mystery Scene magazine; the review's publication in book form dates to 1988. This takes us right up to the publication of Gifford's next book, and the release of Lynch's next movie. 

As best as one can determine -- this was early enough in Wild at Heart's history that the book was in manuscript form, still, but not so early that Lynch's adaptation is mentioned on the dustjacket or anything. Sometime in 1989, Wild at Heart was shown to David Lynch; the novel came out in April of 1990, while the movie came out in May. Things happened very fast -- again, this is told at greater length here. But I would love to know specifically where Lynch reading Gifford's review of Blue Velvet came into play, how he responded to it, and when Gifford found out that he had read it. These are questions I will probably never get to ask, but I would love to hear either man's versions of the conversation. 

Back to The Devil Thumbs a Ride, and film noir. Understand, if you are intrigued and contemplating seeking out this book, it's not hard to find, but you should realize that the vast majority of films in the book are from the 1940s and 1950s, and that generally, Gifford mostly just recaps the plot details, though in a delightfully terse way (Elmore Leonard, in the blurb at the top of the book, writes that "The essays are better than some of the films he writes about"). The Blue Velvet review is exceptional -- a contemporary movie, and a review that focuses more on Gifford's opinions than the things that happen in the film itself (which Gifford does mention and comment upon, but it takes a backseat to his rejection of the movie; it's by far the most "critical" capsule in the book). 

2. Film Noir at the Cinematheque

I am not sure who my reader for this piece is, since most of my actual friends and regular readers are likely schooled in film noir -- but in case you happen to be someone new to classic cinema, it's a term for a style of film, usually in the crime genre, that prevailed in post-WWII America, often featuring doomed or defeated protagonists facing an unjust society, navigating an unforgiving, dark urban landscape, sometimes attempting to get their own back or to impose some human justice on the world (which attempt usually fails; noir heroes tend to be tragic ones). The name comes out of the writings of French film critics who recognized the value and common elements of these films, but some of the most noted proponents of the form, people like Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Max Ophuls, Edgar G. Ulmer, Robert Siodmak and Fritz Lang, were actually filmmakers who had left Austria and Germany in the 1930s, emigrating to Hollywood, often to get away from what was brewing there politically (some of them were Jewish, too). So while the French do play an important role here in the critical regard these films are held in, there is a direct influence of German expressionism on the look of film noir that is more important. There's also a powerful, American modernist literary antecedent, an anchor in Hemingway (whose "The Killers" was made into a stellar noir with Burt Lancaster) and hardboiled crime and detective fiction (Chandler, Hammett, Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, etc), some of whose books directly inform noir.  

You know all that, most likely. But whenever the Cinematheque's summer noir series comes around, if there's a film I don't know, I turn to Barry Gifford to see what he has to say about it. His reviews are seldom spoiler-free, but they're very entertaining, and often his having written about a film is argument enough for seeing it, and his writing an interesting point of reference for subsequent thought about the film. For instance, while having admitted that the plot of Out of the Past, screening tonight, is "wildly improbable," he writes that

some of the scenes are absolutely brilliant and don't fade: most notably the Mexican sequence with Greer wrapping Mitchum around her finger, seducing him like an elegant reptile, repulsive but fascinating, swallowing him whole. Mitchum is a decent enough big lug, his sleepy expression disguising his excitement until Greer gives him the big bite and takes him down for the count. She's a spiky little vixen, sharp nails, eyes, edges. She sets up the picture so well, presenting herself as the sweetest piece of pussy in the western world, when its obvious she's a super illusionist, doing more fucking with her mind than her body. A bad-news woman. No wonder Mitchum gets so disgusted, both with her and himself.

Sounds great, right? (Though is Greer really as bad news as Gifford makes out? I'd have to see the film again to decide). 

But in fact the stronger film on the double-bill tonight is Angel Face, a noir I have only seen once. Dave Kehr, on the Cinematheque website, is quoted as describing it as "One of the forgotten masterworks of film noir … A disturbingly cool, rational investigation of the terrors of sexuality." Sadly, Gifford doesn't treat it -- not even the kick-in-the-head last scene -- nor does he do another classic (though very weird) noir that I'm keen to see screened, The Big Clock (which oddly blends in elements of screwball comedy, and features husband-and-wife cast members Charles Laughton, of Island of Lost Souls/ Hunchback of Notre Dame/ Night of the Hunter fame, and Elsa Lanchester, best known now for The Bride of Frankenstein. She has giddy fun with her role, playing an eccentric painter). While the 80's remake of Out of the Past, Against All Odds, is probably not worth revisiting, The Big Clock was re-made into a pretty great 80s thriller co-starring Chris D. of the Flesh Eaters (!), and fans of that film who have not seen its inspiration will be quite delighted by it (and vice versa, people who are fans of The Big Clock should seek out the remake, because it is a superb piece of craft in its own right).  

Those are my two "picks" this year, of the noir series, though do note that if you haven't seen it, Stanley Kubrick's The Killing is an amazing film, featuring very memorable roles for Sterling Hayden, Timothy Carey, Elisha Cook Jr., and (maybe weirdest, in terms of overlap with more contemporary cinema) Joe Turkel, who was Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner. A story of a racetrack heist gone wrong, it is structured around a multiple/ overlapping timeline that informs, say, Reservoir Dogs. And talk about grim psychology! Gifford: "It's basically cruelty heaped on top of cruelty; nobody can get it right so nobody gets anything." 

Anyhow, all my readers know those films, too, prolly, but I hope they enjoyed the Barry Gifford snippets. Seriously, you should buy The Devil Thumbs a Ride. It's a really fun read. 

3. After Hours

It's not noir, it's only noirish; and it has nothing to do with David Lynch or Barry Gifford, but note, a great dark comedy -- a masterpiece of urban castration anxiety -- screens tonight at 11:30 at the Rio Theatre, Martin Scorsese's 1980s film After Hours, featuring a rare star turn from Griffin Dunne (who we all love so much from An American Werewolf in London, but whom some people out there now associate with This is Us; whaddaya gonna do?). The film actually profoundly unsettled me the first time I saw it, telling a rather gleefully paranoid tale of a hapless schmo who just wants to get laid going through a punishing all-night ordeal in Soho; I was young and filled with sexual anxiety when I saw it first run, so the consequences for the main character's lusts touched a bit of a nerve; I remember being in quite a shaky state when I emerged from the cinema on Granville Street where I'd seen it first-run, which seemed even more bizarre to me in that the film is essentially a comedy.

And as some people may NOT know, there is a weird bit of backstory to the film, which again has been written about in a few places online, involving how the screenwriter rather artlessly plagiarized a radio performance by NPR's Joe Frank that I guess he figured no one else would have heard; the first half of After Hours is very clearly based on Frank's "Lies." This led to a lawsuit and a settlement in Frank's favour, the details of which are not public knowledge. See Andrew Hearst's blog about it (and hear Frank's original radio performance, to see for yourself) here. You can also read Joe Frank's own public reaction to the plagiarism, which also omits discussion of the settlement, focusing on the fact -- which Hearst mentions -- that a friend of his, Larry Block, plays the cab driver in After Hours... though this appears to have been a coincidence! Frank is somewhat coy in his comment, "What must the screenwriter have been thinking to place himself in such jeopardy?" given the jeopardy in question was Frank and his lawyers (I guess he got enough money out of it that he could look back with a smile; he seems somewhat good-humoured about the whole affair, really). Indeed, it is curious how little effort is made to cover up the traces of plagiarism, right down to the plaster-of-Paris bagel-and-creamcheese paperweights, an easy enough detail to switch, but a telltale giveaway to leave unchanged (a good topic for a "How Not to Plagiarize" writer's workshop, if such a thing were to exist; the vast majority of plagiarism I encounter as a writing tutor is actually quite badly done, given how easy it is to cover ones tracks... but then again, if something were effectively plagiarized, I probably wouldn't even notice it!). 

I believe the recent Criterion release neglects to delve into any of this, but it's unfortunate, because it is an interesting story and already public knowledge; why not talk about it? Suffice it to say, if I got a chance to pester David Lynch, it would be with questions about Barry Gifford's Blue Velvet review, and if I got a chance to pester Martin Scorsese, it would be about the moment he discovered that After Hours was based on plagiarized source material. I've seen a documentary where Scorsese talked about having a "hard time caring" about the film while he was making it; perhaps learning that it was based on a tainted source played a role in that -- maybe he knew before the shoot wrapped? Where in the production or post-production of the film was he when this horrifying detail screamed out of the sky? How derailing might that have been?

It doesn't matter, though, It's still a favourite film of mine, and perfect for a late-night screening (11:30 tonight at the Rio). Still the only place in a film where I've heard the Bad Brains' "Pay to Cum" (docs like American Hardcore don't count -- I mean a fictional feature). I wonder if there's a soundtrack album? (the Bad Brains and Peggy Lee on the same record would be quite the feat). 

(Note: yep, there is, but it's apparently a bad bootleg).