From the 1958 soundtrack to Louis Malle's Ascenseur pur l'échafaud, which I'll get into in a minute below.
Watch:
Big Noir weekend. Here's the playlist:
I started Friday night with a film my good friend and Horror Vision cohost Prof. John Trafton recently put on my radar - Louis Malle's 1958 Elevator to the Gallows, or, properly in French, Ascenseur pur l'échafaud.
I knew nothing about this one; I basically took a list of films John had mentioned on the most recent episode of The Horror Vision - our Noirvember episode, which you'll see posted in the little widget to the right - and started looking them up on the Criterion Channel. When I hit this one and saw a pre-Kind of Blue Miles Davis did the score, well, I didn't really need any more convincing. Also, I've been trying to watch a few French and Japanese Noirs this month, but haven't really had any luck. This proved to be precisely what I needed.
We start with a love triangle not unlike the one found in Blood Simple. Employee and the boss's wife, boss needs to be taken out of the picture for the other two to be happy. Only where Blood Simple takes a somewhat straight-ahead path - somewhat - Elevator to the Gallows has all kinds of interesting twists and turns that include grand theft auto, stolen identity, and multiple senseless homicides. Can't recommend this one enough; it really set the vibe for our weekend.
Next up, a British Noir made at the famous Pinewood Studios back in the early '60s. Basil Dearden's 1962 All Night Long caught my eye because of the cast, which includes Charles Mingus, Tubby Hayes and Dave Brubeck. Yeah, that's right, and they all perform on screen throughout the film. The film takes place in a swanky London loft where a whole scene of professional Jazz musicians gather to celebrate the first-anniversary party for two of their own. Only one of their number is a jealous bastard who manipulates everything and everyone to try to break them up. Patrick McGoohan - whom I inadvertently got back to on Sunday with a rewatch of David Cronenberg's Scanners - schemes to break up the marriage for his own devious reasons. McGoohan is a phenomenal cunt in this - his performance is fantastic and really anchors the film in a different kind of Noir than we're used to.
Saturday night was Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton in what I still say is probably the most beautiful black and white film I've ever laid eyes on. Carol Reed's 1949 masterpiece, The Third Man, filmed among the bombed-out ruins of post-war Vienna, uses shadow in ways that leave me speechless. Robert Krasker's Cinematography burns the city onto your retinas, and even though this one takes a little while to really get going, it's easy to see why this is the BFI's "Greatest Film of All Time." I don't know that I'd go that far, but as I mentioned up top, The Third Man is by far the best black-and-white film I've ever seen.
Next, Seijun Suzuki's 1966 iconoclastic Japanese Crime Noir, Tokyo Drifter. This is another film I'd heard John mention previously, way back on an old episode of his podcast This Movie Saved My Life, where he and cohost Miles Fortune discussed it as a film featuring elements of the Yakuza film spiced up with elements culled from the classic Western and Secret Agent genres as well.
This one lives up to all that and has a main character who sings his own theme song throughout the film, to boot.
This is my first film by Seijun Suzuki, but it will not be my last. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that, if, like me, you're a Cowboy Bebop fan, this film will endear itself to you just by how much it obviously influenced Shin'ichirô Watanabe in the making of that.
Playlist:
The Rolling Stones - Some Girls
Patti Smith - Horses
John Cale - Fear
Sharon Tandy - The Best of Sharon Tandy
Ashes and Diamonds - Are Forever
Pepper Adams - Encounter!
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Peter Peter & Julian Winding - Copenhagen Cowboy OST
Pessimist - Burundanga EP
Spotlights - Rarities
Miles Davis - Ascenseur pur l'échafaud OST
Ell Fitzgerald - The Best Of (Vol. 2)
Bohren & Der Clob of Gore - Sunset Mission
Tubby Hayes Quintet - Down in the Village (Live at Ronnie Scott's Club1962
Charles Mingus - Blues & Roots
Oliver Nelson - The Blues And The Abstract Truth
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Hangman's Chair - Saddiction
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Patchouli Blue
• XIV: Temperance
• IX: The Hermit
Restrictions come from feelings of imbalance caused by isolation. Isolation is good, but can often perpetuate at toxic levels in our culture today.
I'm not really sure what this means at the moment. I am pretty isolated sometimes, even from the people in my everyday life. I'd imagine this is a reminder to 'get out of my head' a little more often.
