With a genre like film noir, everyone has these assumptions and expectations. And once all of those things are in place, that's when you can really start to twist it about and mess around with it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think a film noir demands a beginning and an end.
I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.
I always feel that a viewer has an expectation about every moment of the film and where it's going, so if I act against that, I've created a twist. In fact, it becomes a kind of game with the expectations of the viewer. This is the superficial appearance. In the layer beneath, there is a hidden theme.
I got into reading a lot of noir and a lot of thrillers as well, and I really admired the plotting about those and the way that they can surprise you. And obviously to surprise people and to have twists in the tale, you have to plan quite carefully.
Genre expectations can kill creativity. If you do something different, it will get hated. The best filmmakers can do everything on the approval list and knock it out of the park. For me, I have a hard time being creative when I have to color in between the lines.
Nowadays people don't know how to handle it if all the ends aren't tied up and they're not told what to think in films. And if they're challenged, they think it's something wrong with the film.
I'm not saying anything that's unknown, but movies are always cut down and there's a lot of complexity within the film that is not always widely accepted by the general audience, which is just a reality; a movie of a certain size, they don't want people to be too - it's a balance of how deep to keep going with these ideas.
The filmmakers have a story they want to tell, and they go get the material they need for it. The film either exceeds or fails to meet up to their expectations or it's different.
Noir focuses on the criminal mind, not a whodunit: more why they did it and will they get away with it. The abnormal psychology is what fascinates me rather than the puzzle-solving aspect.
There comes a point in your moviegoing life where you look at the screen and then you look at the world and you ask, 'What is going on?' You want the movies to show you the chaos and mess and risk and failure that are normal for a lot of us. Generally, the movies hide all of that.
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