Noir is a product of an era so specific that identifying the tendencies of the form seems an almost insufficient way to go about understanding it.

The most appropriate definition, or at least the most appropriate in light of this year's Noir City Festival, is that Noir is an ethos. And we know the Noir ethos like we know "common sense": high contrast black and white; shadows that tell us the hero's no hero; mirrors and Venetian blinds; cold cityscapes that prove you're alone; femme fatales and weak but well meaning veterans; voice-overs from the grave; "hot guns with black eyes waiting to wink you into oblivion"; downward spirals; and questionable Detectives.

We know the scoop, but we don't know it enough. Fortunately, there are number of clubs, screenings, orgs and festivals that aim to fix that problem.

Noir City is an annual fest in its 4th year. Put on by the newly formed Film Noir Foundation  the fest offers a fantastic run starting at the Palace of Fine Arts and finishing at the Balboa. Headed (or I should say "hosted") by Eddie Muller, the City's "Czar of Noir", the festival plays like a screening party on mass scale. Complete with each ticket (always $10) the Opening Night Festivities included a complimentary cocktail, a live Jazz Band, mingling with the widest array of cineastes in town, a double bill including Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train and Nicholas Ray's directorial debut They Live by Night, and finally, the onstage appearance of Farley Granger himself! Most weddings are not so opulent!

Introducing the inaugural film of the festival, Eddie Muller, takes the stage. "The other night I went to a bar and I thought to myself, maybe I'm getting a little too ambitious. Then, I got my tab. A tab for one Maker's Mark Manhattan: $10. And I thought "we're offering a double bill, a cocktail, live jazz and Farley Granger for that". Then I felt okay."

Muller's Noir Foundation has the esteemed agenda of rescuing and restoring relics of the American Noir Heritage. After noticing a deficit in the studio archives and libraries, Muller realized the need to restore these dwindling emblems of American Cinematic History for a new audience. This new audience could make this restoration profitable in the eyes of the Studios. Though this audience has a vested interest in DVDs, the Foundation's interest emphasizes the film "experience". "Films", as Muller says, "should be seen projected, in a theatre, with an audience". The Foundation's ultimate goal is to ensure that 35 mm prints of all noir era films exist and endure for patron use.


The evening's moment of note, Farley Granger's onstage appearance, was both heartwarming and inspiring. Though older, he's just as handsome as he was in Rope. Granger reminisced about his love of the stage, his time in Hollywood and Hitchcock's devout attention to "homework". "You could go into his [Hitchcock's]office and there would be pieces of paper on the wall, going up to the ceiling, along all four walls. On the paper were drawings, and that would be the film. It was taken down and put into a big book and a man would sit next to the camera with the big book and he'd look over at his notes. He did more homework than any other director I worked with and in his good movies it really shows. He was really funny. If he liked you he'd really like you and sometimes he's snooze and I'd ask him if he was alright, and he'd say "yes. It's only a moooovie".

Attending to the rumor mill, Granger mentioned "Hitchcock didn't give a lot of direction to you if he liked you. If he didn't like you, you were in trouble." When Muller probed him for an example, Granger said "Ruth Roman. He didn't like her at all. He wasn't bad to her but..." and Muller interrupted "...but she wasn't blonde".

Of the most endearing moments in the interview was the botched set-up, pitched by Muller to get Granger to tell the story of an interview they held in Los Angeles a few years back. During this earlier interview, the two discussed the genius of Robert Walker's performance in Strangers on a Train, when, during the Q&A Robert Walker Jr. reportedly stood up said "I have a proposition for you". Spoon-feeding Granger the set up, Granger didn't concede to recalling the event until the last moment, and Muller finally said, "It was obviously a memorable moment." If the content of that proposition ever came up, no one heard it over the laughter.

This year's festival promises more of such marvelous offerings and experiences. In addition to the meaty array of Noir contributors (James Ellroy, Colleen Gray, Sean Penn, to name a few), the festival stands to offer a rich and filling assortment of Rare and Ultra-Rare Films. One of these Ultra-Rare marvels, The Man Who Cheated Himself, is co-presented by San Francisco Film Society. This Ultra-Rarity is exemplary of the sort of needful merrymaking the Noir Film Foundation lives to make possible. The Man Who Cheated Himself will also play in a double bill with Thieves' Highway, again, making possible the kind of generosity we only see in old movies.

One final note about the festival: not 5 minutes into my stay in the comfy furnishings placed across from the band did I meet two distinguished members of the "Danger and Despair Knitting Circle" and two more knowledgeable bodies on the subject of Noir one is not likely to find in any other locale. This group of willing film lovers meets weekly at the new North Beach Recreation Center to view Noirs (on film) to hear lectures and to fraternize. I include this addition because what appears to be the most notable contribution of this evening is the degree of community building that the escapade induced. People from all walks of life mingled under the influence of cool jazz, dark dames and Eagle Rare Single Barrel, and the festival accomplished what film festivals were once famed to accomplish: it reinforced the movie loving community. Not every festival, no matter how many celebrated guests or premier film screened, can boast that.

http://www.noircity.com/