http://www.hitfix.com/news/how-disneys-zootopia-went-from-spy-movie-to-noir-film
Maybe I shouldn't jump into this.
This is probably how someone becomes a Noir prude, where slowly, time after time, the annoyance of seeing things which clearly aren't Film Noir be called the same turns into anger and revulsion, and all of a sudden my world starts shrinking. If I can't call new works Film Noir, then the only things which qualify are things which came before, and even then there isn't much agreement on the true meaning of the genre.
To be fair, the above looks like a fun 3d talking animal movie, well done and funny. It looks like a fun film and I would probably enjoy the heck out of it.
But as a Noir film?
I'm not feeling it, honestly.
Maybe if the talking animals experienced a complete shutdown of society as the decade after the Wall Street crash of 1929 where America turned into a near third-world nation, and were forced to deal with the detachment and bleak outlook of a place once so hopeful that was turned into a dark, violent, uncaring place where the rich partied and poor lined up for bread twice around the block.
Let's take the color and humor out of the film as well, and have the sly talking fox played by Jason Bateman be doomed from the start by his past, knowing his fate is seals before he even takes a step onto the screen. Let's have our cute talking female rabbit be a schemer who manipulated the fox into an even worse fate, only herself to be double-crossed in the end.
I know, the bunny rabbit is too cute for that, but I 'm trying to make a point.
Noir is not "detective movie", nor is it "hard boiled private eye." It is not talking like Sam Spade over the film like a narrator, nor is it flashing a couple scenes inspired from Noir on the screen and then getting back to the silly 3d humor.
To me, Noir is a feeling and a uniquely hopeless and pessimistic outlook. The word means "black" in the most literal sense of psychology and mental outlook, a dark outlook of a pointless and hopeless existence in a world which does not care. The world goes on without you, uncaring in its machine-like ways, people reduced to meaningless players in a passion play that is ultimately passionless in the world's view of it and meaningless in what the participants were trying to achieve.
Yet living in this bleak time, principle does account for something, a fight against the humanless system of meaninglessness. Heroism in this world means standing for something, even though you know you are doomed. And for villainy, to the victors go the spoils, but the long shadow of justice is always creeping up from behind, and there is an almost puritanical toll the grim reaper demands by the end. Evil is its own worst enemy.
Honestly? I feel the hopeless and lost world of Noir has a lot of appeal today as it did in the 30's and 40's. A lot of the same ingredients are in place. A heartless and exploitative Wall Street crowd of super-rich recovering from a crash, and a population not feeling any relief from the damage caused. A huge population of people out-of-work who have given up on the dream. A sense of distopic hopelessness that anything will get any better. A paranoia about unseen enemies and threats to a society many no longer believe works; with Communists, immigrants, and Fascists back then, and immigrants, foreigners, and religious extremists today. An unknown but certain war looming on the horizon. A changing in how the world works, with the move from a farm economy to an industrial one back then, to an economy moving from an industrial one to a information one today.
People are as lost then as they are today. In essence, we live in the same world, which is why Noir speaks to us today.
We have returned to this dark and foreboding world, and our past has caught up to us.
We just can't see it because we have never left it.
So go ahead, call Zootopia a Noir film. I am letting the marketers have this one because I can't fall into the trap of becoming a prude or a soapbox critic against something intended to be lighthearted fun, but I do know what the genre means to me. I still believe new works in the genre can be created and stay true to the original feeling and spirit of the genre. I believe in today's creators who feel the same way as I do, who can avoid the pitfall of parody or tribute, and who can take this feeling and mood and create things which really speak to our feelings and distinctly dark outlook.
I do believe new Noir works can be created, so I cannot condemn a film for even trying or sharing the same inspiration. To do so would be to damn all new creators, because the form Noir takes today could be something totally unexpected and new. We cannot fall into the trap of elevating the past above today, but we must respect and analyze what came before to understand what the appeal of the genre is and how we can make it work in the world in which we live today.
Great Noir created today will be different, but it will share the same origins and outlook of the classics. But we can't be such critics we deny others the chance to express themselves in the same way the original film and radio shows have, before us.
It is hard though to cut through all the distractions, and the pop-culture Sam Spade voice-overs that pretend to fly the black banner of Noir but all they do is pay tribute to one limited form of expression during that time. True Noir is the feeling and the outlook, and it is much more than the hard-boiled private detective sitting in an office under the neon lights. True Noir reflects the darkness in our souls, and that almost psychological battle each one of us have with that darkness.
How would we react? Faced with the same uncaring and uncertain fate, are we good people or bad people?
Noir is darkness, and in this genre, the darkness always wins.
But more importantly, the genre sings when it reflects how we as people deal with it. In uplifting sacrifice or the grim toll of the reaper these stories end, and we validate who we are as people against the struggles of those who live in this world of black shadows and uncaring light.
Maybe I shouldn't jump into this.
This is probably how someone becomes a Noir prude, where slowly, time after time, the annoyance of seeing things which clearly aren't Film Noir be called the same turns into anger and revulsion, and all of a sudden my world starts shrinking. If I can't call new works Film Noir, then the only things which qualify are things which came before, and even then there isn't much agreement on the true meaning of the genre.
To be fair, the above looks like a fun 3d talking animal movie, well done and funny. It looks like a fun film and I would probably enjoy the heck out of it.
But as a Noir film?
I'm not feeling it, honestly.
Maybe if the talking animals experienced a complete shutdown of society as the decade after the Wall Street crash of 1929 where America turned into a near third-world nation, and were forced to deal with the detachment and bleak outlook of a place once so hopeful that was turned into a dark, violent, uncaring place where the rich partied and poor lined up for bread twice around the block.
Let's take the color and humor out of the film as well, and have the sly talking fox played by Jason Bateman be doomed from the start by his past, knowing his fate is seals before he even takes a step onto the screen. Let's have our cute talking female rabbit be a schemer who manipulated the fox into an even worse fate, only herself to be double-crossed in the end.
I know, the bunny rabbit is too cute for that, but I 'm trying to make a point.
Noir is not "detective movie", nor is it "hard boiled private eye." It is not talking like Sam Spade over the film like a narrator, nor is it flashing a couple scenes inspired from Noir on the screen and then getting back to the silly 3d humor.
To me, Noir is a feeling and a uniquely hopeless and pessimistic outlook. The word means "black" in the most literal sense of psychology and mental outlook, a dark outlook of a pointless and hopeless existence in a world which does not care. The world goes on without you, uncaring in its machine-like ways, people reduced to meaningless players in a passion play that is ultimately passionless in the world's view of it and meaningless in what the participants were trying to achieve.
Yet living in this bleak time, principle does account for something, a fight against the humanless system of meaninglessness. Heroism in this world means standing for something, even though you know you are doomed. And for villainy, to the victors go the spoils, but the long shadow of justice is always creeping up from behind, and there is an almost puritanical toll the grim reaper demands by the end. Evil is its own worst enemy.
Honestly? I feel the hopeless and lost world of Noir has a lot of appeal today as it did in the 30's and 40's. A lot of the same ingredients are in place. A heartless and exploitative Wall Street crowd of super-rich recovering from a crash, and a population not feeling any relief from the damage caused. A huge population of people out-of-work who have given up on the dream. A sense of distopic hopelessness that anything will get any better. A paranoia about unseen enemies and threats to a society many no longer believe works; with Communists, immigrants, and Fascists back then, and immigrants, foreigners, and religious extremists today. An unknown but certain war looming on the horizon. A changing in how the world works, with the move from a farm economy to an industrial one back then, to an economy moving from an industrial one to a information one today.
People are as lost then as they are today. In essence, we live in the same world, which is why Noir speaks to us today.
We have returned to this dark and foreboding world, and our past has caught up to us.
We just can't see it because we have never left it.
So go ahead, call Zootopia a Noir film. I am letting the marketers have this one because I can't fall into the trap of becoming a prude or a soapbox critic against something intended to be lighthearted fun, but I do know what the genre means to me. I still believe new works in the genre can be created and stay true to the original feeling and spirit of the genre. I believe in today's creators who feel the same way as I do, who can avoid the pitfall of parody or tribute, and who can take this feeling and mood and create things which really speak to our feelings and distinctly dark outlook.
I do believe new Noir works can be created, so I cannot condemn a film for even trying or sharing the same inspiration. To do so would be to damn all new creators, because the form Noir takes today could be something totally unexpected and new. We cannot fall into the trap of elevating the past above today, but we must respect and analyze what came before to understand what the appeal of the genre is and how we can make it work in the world in which we live today.
Great Noir created today will be different, but it will share the same origins and outlook of the classics. But we can't be such critics we deny others the chance to express themselves in the same way the original film and radio shows have, before us.
It is hard though to cut through all the distractions, and the pop-culture Sam Spade voice-overs that pretend to fly the black banner of Noir but all they do is pay tribute to one limited form of expression during that time. True Noir is the feeling and the outlook, and it is much more than the hard-boiled private detective sitting in an office under the neon lights. True Noir reflects the darkness in our souls, and that almost psychological battle each one of us have with that darkness.
How would we react? Faced with the same uncaring and uncertain fate, are we good people or bad people?
Noir is darkness, and in this genre, the darkness always wins.
But more importantly, the genre sings when it reflects how we as people deal with it. In uplifting sacrifice or the grim toll of the reaper these stories end, and we validate who we are as people against the struggles of those who live in this world of black shadows and uncaring light.
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