Inherent Vice is the best noir of the 21st century
What else from the past 15 years even compares?
"Repo! The Genetic Opera".
Today is the day to say I love you to your best friend - chinese proverb
What.
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MovieChat Forums > Inherent Vice (2015) Discussion > Inherent Vice is the best noir of the 21...
Then you haven't seen such movies as:
Mulholland Dr.
Collateral
A History Of Violence
and many others.
[ Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. ]
Then you don't know what noir is. 2/3 of those films aren't noir.
Mulholland Drive is a worthy competitor though.
Then you don't know what noir is. 2/3 of those films aren't noir.
Aaaand we're dealing with an idiot.
[ Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. ] share
Well, one of the defining characteristics of noir is a femme fatale. I haven't seen either in ages, but does Collateral have one of those? or A History Of Violence?
shareLoved Inherent vice, only seen it once though. I feel that it gets better with each viewing.
Here are some noir movies, some are neo noir, or have alot of elements from Film Noir.
Shutter Island,
Lucky Number Slevin?
Memento,
The Usual Suspects,
The Machinist,
Drive,
In bruges,
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,
Kiss kiss bang bang,
Oldboy (korean),
Training day,
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (korean),
Sin city,
harsh times,
Dark City,
Zodiac,
The Departed,
Eastern Promises,
Brick,
Well, I'm thinking that 'Inherent Vice' is incomparable. The tone reminded me of 'The Big Lebowski' , but it was considerably more serious. Of the top of my head though there are 2 overt 'film noirs' that I enjoyed even more, and both were quite serious; the first being Noah Buschel's 'The Missing Person' in which Michael Shannon plays a PI who is assigned to follow a 'missing person' who allegedly died in 9/11 but is spotted. Various parties, including his wife, want to see him again, and they are curious about his motives. Another is Jay Anaia's 'Shadows and Lies' starring James Franco as a video editor, William, who has actually taken on another identity after being reported killed in a plane crash he was not in. He is a talented pick pocket which he does for fun and a mobster who witnesses this enlists him in his gang, to William's peril. But really 'Inherent Vice' has no peers in my view, maybe 'No Country For Old Men' might come close, and someone mentioned 'Eastern Promises' which is reasonable. Was 'The Usual Suspects' post 2000? Another likely suspect.
shareRather than just 'noir' movies, I'd compare it to LA movies.
Better LA movies:
Night Crawler (2014)
Repo Man (1984)
The Scenesters (2009)
The Big Lebowski
All four of those were more culturally interesting, and also a lot more engaging and entertaining at the same time. Inherent Vice is certainly beautifully made though. Inherent Vice is however neither very engaging, entertaining, or culturally interesting.
But that is just my opinion.
Not culturally interesting???
It examines THE critical turning point in U.S history of government - population relations.
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What turning point would that be? American history has a lot of turning points.
And how was it represented in the film?
I just remember a meandering story with characters I didn't really care about, one really utterly bizarre sex scene, and a lot of over-used narration. At its heart it felt like Inherent Vice was about lost love. I don't remember anything significant about government-population relations.
Repo Man has a good bit of '80s government-population relations in it though. Night Crawler has media-population relations.
Bizarre sex scene indeed - a lost love being pimped out and not even the do goody hippie can resist. Hippies act like their 60's were 'taken' away from them...in reality it was sold, and they bought it, the so called 'baby boomers' (and proud of it mob).
It has many layers, as any great art and PTA is 'the master' now. Cointelpro is what I'm getting at, and Coy's role in the film. The book also has a scene that PTA didn't include about the state of technology at the time but the key 'government-population' relations themes are the golden fang (who does the drug trade off with Doc again?), Coy's glass house routine, surveillance, insurance trap via inherent vice (think about that - insurance trap ala donny darko)and the 'keeping them coming and going' youth bit...escaping the 'american dream'.
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride
Not sure 'pimping' is the right word to use to describe the interaction going on in that sex scene. Also not sure if I agree that hippies act like their 60's were taken away from them.
I'll agree that the movie was multi-layered. The multiple layers I took more as a noir 'ever deeper' plot construct than bearing on any kind of poignant commentary on the greater world at large. The Asian girls were bizarre and not particularly convincing, the cop character was probably the only character in the film that had a little bit of interest and vague plausibility. The labyrinthine layers were kind of an obstacle to be endured; the primary focus to me was still Doc and his strained, odd, love.
From what you say it does sound like an important element regarding technology may have been stripped out.
I recall the term 'bought and sold whore' being used...?
I think, friend, you've got things backwards. The 'strained, odd love' is the sugar coating to the actual 'goings on'.
Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride
Night Crawler has a similar feel to me. I don't think it's truly noir, but it has a dark creepiness to it that is hard to define. I need to rewatch them both, now that I think of it!
shareThe Man Who Wasn't There. But Inherent Vice was awesome.
Of course many compare to The Big Lebowski too