I was not, dear readers, completely honest in my assessment of myself in the last entry. While I do, for the most part, enjoy each genre fairly equally, there is one standout in my mind. For me, the noir genre has produced the very best that cinema has to offer. It fully grasps the ideas of escape and realism. It utilizes some of the most influential lighting and cinematography ever. And, perhaps most importantly, it is cool. Very, very cool.
It is for this reason that I tend to enjoy films revolving around the more noir-like themes more often than those without. I enjoy many of David Fincher’s movies for this reason, as I discussed in my review of his works. I do not enjoy noir simply for the sake of the genre, however. I simply find that some of the best movies I have seen are noir or reflect noir in some way. I dislike bad noir films just as much as I dislike bad romantic comedies, but I find there to be more of the latter than the former. And now I’m rambling.
The point is, noir is a fun genre to watch, and because of this I have found my directorial soulmate. His name is Rian Johnson and he is legitimately perfect. In his directorial debut, he gave us Brick, a remake of The Maltese Falcon, updated for modern cinema, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (this is the movie that made me take him seriously as an actor after Third Rock from the Sun). And with all the characters in high school. It is difficult to explain just how perfectly this film apes the traditional noir narrative. Even little details, like the sound the shoes make during a chase scene just screams of noir. Rian Johnson said of it "Teen movies often have an unspoken underlying premise in which high school is seen as less serious than the adult world. But when your head is encased in that microcosm it's the most serious time of your life." That explain the utter seriousness of the film better than I ever could. Oh, and he made it without the assistance of a studio, with only $500,000. Tommy Wiseau’s The Room was made with more money than that!
His second film was The Brothers Bloom, starring Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, and Adrian Brody in the only role I ever liked him in. Its a fabulous story about con men that, again, screams noir but is much more light-handed with it than brick, even acknowledging the various noir twists that it uses. As it is a story about con artistry, it doubles as a story about stories, about lies, and about perception. It’s really quite a fabulous comedy, with serious gripping drama and incredibly likable characters. A well-made movie if there ever was one.
His upcoming film is a picture called Looper, which will probably get a lot more attention than his previous film, by sheer dint of having Bruce Willis in it. He and Gordon-Levitt will be playing the same character in a story involving crime and time travel. Is noir going sci-fi? Well, they certainly have before. One can only hope this film is as good as Ghost In The Shell.
Because his credits are so short, there is little we can conclude about Rian Johnson. According to an interview with Indy Mogul, Johnson places a lot more emphasis on his characters than anything else when making a movie, and it shows in his films. We get strong emotions and motivations from even the smallest of characters in Brick. In fact, Brad Bramish only appears for three scenes, and only speaks in two of them, but he has a large effect on the plot and is a memorable character from the movie despite not being a major character nor having a standout performance (though Brian J. White does a great job).
Rian Johnson also has a great deal of skill with screenwriting. I found both his movies to be finely tuned masterpieces that kept the plot tightly wound, with the audience always able to understand what was going on while still being kept in suspense what would happen next. He also has a deft skill for dialogue, with Brick being the major example. The characters speak in twenties slang the entire time, but the audience has no trouble understanding what they’re saying because of simple contextual clues both in the dialogue and in the shot. The dialogue of The Brothers Bloom is witty and fast-paced, with good comedic and dramatic timing.
While Rian Johnson has many influences, it seems clear to me that the classic crime and noir films have greatly augmented his works. Most importantly, he does not simply mimic the works he influences, nor does he attempt to make the movie an in-joke for film buffs. His films are both accessible and unique. While one may look at Brick and call it the same movie as The Maltese Falcon, it is so fundamentally different in its execution and beauty that one can easily justify its existence. Moreover, one does not need to be familiar with film noir to enjoy it, and indeed a lack of knowledge may even make the movie more enjoyable.
I love his movies. I sincerely believe that he is the greatest up-and-coming director today (apart from maybe Duncan Jones), and more than anything I want to be filthy, stinking rich so that I can give him lots of money so he can keep making movies for me to enjoy. Hopefully, he’ll keep up with the level of quality of the movies he’s put out so far, and not turn out to be a major disappointment (I’m looking at YOU David Gordon Green). If you have the opportunity, go and rent Brick and The Brothers Bloom. You’ll thank me later.
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