Neo-Noir: The Literary Adaptation Tribute
Matthew Libassi

            Film noir’s detective-gangster explosion of B-rated films during the 40’s and 50’s was a time period in film history with very distinct characteristic: dark, wet, hard boiled, gruesome, downright disturbing.  Many of noir’s greatest masterpieces stemmed from literary work including The Killers and The Maltese Falcon. Neo-noir or modern noir gives tribute to the film noir period and encompass most noir attributes utilizing the same adaptation techniques as its predecessor, creating contemporary literature fit for film.  Films like Fight Club and Sin City not only epitomize the neo-noir genre but also are prime examples of the modern adaptation with pertinent social commentary.

            Film noir is a revolutionary form of film, taking all pre-noir morals and values (production and socially) throwing them out the window.  We sympathize with the murderer.  We root for the gangster to get away.  We thrive on the grainy, dirty, sub-par production of the film noir.

            Raymond Border and Etienne Chamberton in their article “Towards a Definition of Film Noir,” saw film noir as a new genre, strictly adhering to a new and very different set of conventions (19).  They saw film noir as a new brand of film aimed toward the alienation, and confusion by the moviegoer who now post-war is thrown into a world of violence ambiguity.  “The aim of film noir was to create specific alienation” (25).

            Film noir often deals with gangsters, the underworld, with criminals fighting each other and the world itself.  It takes the form of a police drama, emphasizing from the gangsters’ point of view, their escape from the police, or a private eye’s search for twisted justice.

            Paul Schrader describes the film time period of noir as a style, and more specifically a “transdirectional style.” Schrader makes his point most clearly in his article “Notes on Film Noir.” As he focuses on film noir based on aesthetics, mise-en-scene, as a set of films utilizing and focusing on such elements as nighttime, lines, shadows, as well as compositional tension as opposed to direct action, obsession with water, romantic narration, and complex plot chronologies to underscore a sense of time being lost.

            Look at an example of film noir film adaptation to later compare to neo-noir.  Ernest Hemmingway’s The Killers was based off of his short story. There are a two film versions of The Killers, but Robert Siodmak’s 1946 version with Burt Lancaster pulls from Hemingway’s story more closely than the other. 

            In the written story, Hemingway opens with two men entering a diner, and simply being wise guy gangsters.  The reader only knows what the characters of diner know- that two men are looking to kill a fellow named ‘Ole Anderson.  We don’t know why, we don’t know how.  The opening scene of the film mimics that of what Hemingway envisioned, especially the dialogue but because of his Hemingway-esque minimal physical descriptions, the film viewer must rely simply on Siodmak’s creativity on the mise-en-scene and visual appearance.  Hemingway’s dialogue however shows a perfect adaptation set from story to screenplay with the remainder of the film riddled with Hemingway’s famous noir one-liners:

‘You’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?’

‘Sure,’ said George.

‘Well, you’re not,’ said the other little man. ‘Is he, Al?’

‘He’s dumb,’ said Al. He turned to Nick. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Adams.’

‘Another bright boy,’ Al said. ‘Ain’t he a bright boy, Max?’

‘The town’s full of bright boys,’ Max said.

            The adaptation from short story to feature length film resembles that of what Alfred Hitchcock did to Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds.  Siodmak’s increased the story, pulling from Hemingway’s originality the same as Hitchcock expands on characters, plot, and overall mood.

            But what does such film noir have to do with neo-noir, and more importantly what does it prove for modern day adaptation from literature to film? Neo-noir is the term given to the modern trend of incorporating film noir aspects into film.  It is simplistic in it understanding; by taking those elements that make the film noir genre/style what it is and applies it to the films of today.  Experimental angles, low key lighting, the presence of polygonal shapes in the shadows, and most importantly the narration and characters presentation, including the often morally ambiguous lead male (often a private eye) and the deceptive and sexy femme fatale. 

            We come to the period known as neo-noir when film noir began to die out around the late 1960s.  It was the social attitude and mood, which was the cause and success of film noir, and as new codes and new expectations were upheld in the film industry it so began to lose popularity.  As Todd Erickson writes in his article “Kill Me Again: Movement becomes Genre,” “By the mid fifties, filmmakers as well as moviegoers had come to rely on these new codes that were peculiar to a particular type of crime film, which endowed the viewer with visual and psychological access” (310).

            The adaptation process from literature to a neo-noir undergoes the same creative changes that take place in a film noir adaptation, bringing something new to the audience under each change as well as the important social commentary that film noir did for its time period. An example of neo-noir literature adaptation would be Frank Miller’s graphic novel Sin City.  Although slightly a different style then your typical novel to film adaptation, the 2005 Sin City film was as genuine as the novel itself.

            Miller writes on his admiration for the crime genre in Sin City: The Making of the Movie:

            I have always loved crime stories, since I was thirteen years old at least.  I’ve loved the romance of the big city, the tough guys and beautiful women, the cars and guns, and all of that.  But mostly what keeps me involved in crime stories, the reason I go back to them is that under the surface, these are all morality tales. Times of great stress are clarifying times, and the crime genre, because it is so much about good and evil, delves s deeply into evil…Hitchcock said ‘melodrama was real life with all the boring parts taken out’…it’s also the motif of crime fiction- a la Chandler, or Spillane, or Hammet- that these characters are disguised. They look like dirty knights (11-12).

            Taken as the storyboard backbone from the graphic novels, the film is based on three Sin City stories: The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard.  What makes Sin City such a solid adaptation would be Miller’s, and primary director Robert Rodriquez’s attention to composing the shots as exactly seen in the novel, from the lighting to even the sounds as well as the attention to keeping original dialogue. 

            Visual effects producer, Keefe Boemer said in Babara Robertson’s article The Devil’s in the Details, “We wanted the film to look as much like the books as possible…Sometimes the blood is in color, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it glows white in the shadows” (2).

            Some say such fidelity from comic novel to screen leaves the audience wanting more, and as Ethan Alter writes in his article, Sin City:

            “…the film winds up retaining many of the problems that plague the Sin City books, including the overripe narration, the adolescent depiction of women and the author's own peculiar brand of machismo. At a certain point, you have to ask yourself whether faithfulness alone is a virtue ... or a sin” (2).

            The question of adaptation and how creative the director should be with what they are adapting was always an issue- too much and the film is unfaithful, too little and the film failed to tackle anything new and shouldn’t have even been made. Something like Sin City proves to all fans, whether film or comic book connoisseurs that a graphic novel can come alive and prove successful.

            Take for example the opening sequences of when the audience was introduced to The Hard Goodbye, the character Marv.  First observe the film adaptation incorporating film noir characteristics.  We simply hear a voice over starting with “The night is hot as hell…” The black shadow of an arm and a bottle are projected on a wall.  Miller then cuts to a silhouetted object drinking a bottle through a windowsill marked with horizontal window slats.   These images are close to what Miller drew out, with slight camera angle differences and more detailed scenery.

            With the next shot, the genre of neo-noir comes alive.  The colored bed and full colored sexy female burst visually to the forefront, signaling to the audience beauty when compared to this rough and cold gray man next to her.  Miller never had color throughout his novels, and such an addition helped set the mood of that single room, before any other information was relayed to the audience. 

             Miller eventually cuts to a close up of this beautiful women’s face, with a strong backlight giving her a halo appearance.  Her eye-light makes her eyes sparkle and shine with deep shadows covering her from the neck down accompanied with slight Rembrandt style lighting on her face.  Her golden hair shines and accentuates her beauty especially when compared to the dark red of her lips, matching the bed in the earlier shot.  The only difference from a classic noir would have to be the soft focus on the femme fatale.  How does this help tell Miller’s story?  Not only is this close-up of Goldy an insert from the original graphic novel, the incorporation of the lighting and shadows capture the mystery and ongoing motif of ambiguity.  Such shot additions are seen through the novel, helping the audience from scene to scene. 

            Once again, pulling from film noir history- and for a basis of comparison in The Maltese Falcon where Samuel Spade is in the office with the Fat Man.  Projected on the wall is the shadow of the window, of horizontal shadows skewed- during the sequence of Marv’s intercourse with Goldy, slanted shadows are seen on the highly white/black contrasted wall. Followed up with Marv smoking a cigarette, with a simple key light on his face and back of the head- film noir’s signature. 

            On top of visuals, the dialogue used in Sin City was that pulled directly from the graphic novel.  Exchanges between characters might have been shortened or adapted, but like Hemingway’s poetic one-liners and snappy conversation, Miller created his own script from literature to film.  Alter disagrees in his article Sin City once again, “I've never found Miller's Hammett and Chandler impressions to be entirely convincing; while some of the narration captures that hardboiled style, other passages sound like entries in a teenage boy's diary” (3).  Whether such a statement is true or not, one cannot deny the similarities from old noir to new, as well as pure adaptation from one medium to another.

            Film noir was know for it’s gruesome portrayal of violence, and giving the audience something it has never seen in cinema.  Neo-noir on the other hand thrives on perpetuated violence, taking each scene to a new level, wowing audiences with each punch.  To continue with the story of Marv and his opening scenes, he literally explodes out of the room- giving more than a simple “SKREKK” (20) to the page.  The film’s ability to adapt and transform the sounds corresponding with the action brings the story to new level. 

            To further the idea of neo-noirs continuation of glorified violence, take for example Chuck Palahniuk’s neo-noir Fight Club (1999), and film directed by David Fincher.  This modern book seems to have been written with the same poise and dark creativity that Hammet wrote his novels.  Fight Club is a prime example of literature being produced that is fit to be made into a film, with perfect characters, tone and script.

            Fight Club, although not a film involving your typical private-eye, still fits into the neo-noir format.  The dark underworld, the male based lead characters, the theme of social unrest and existentialism.  The most obvious of the characteristics is the dark overtone of the film. Fight Club is mostly set at night or in shadows. Another characteristic of neo-noir is the voice over narration by the protagonist, Edwards Norton’s character known as Jack and his involvement with a mysterious man and friend, Tyler. And of course who could forget the leading lady, the femme fatale is Marla Singer.

            Take for example the scene from the film compared to the novel where Jack blackmails and self-abuses himself in front of his boss in order to extort his company for financial funding.  Jack and Tyler created a group called Project Mayhem in order to expose the societies faults and corporate exploitation and wanted funding to keep their underground activist group running.

            This scene varied from book to film and is a prime example of Fight Club’s adaptation.  Take for example the scene with his boss as presented by the book.   Jack works for a hotel as a catering waiter.

            In the office of the pressman Hotel, I asked the hotel manager if I could use his phone, and I dialed the number for the city desk at the newspaper.  With the hotel manager watching, I said: Hello, I said. I’ve committed a terrible crime against humanity as part of a political protest.  My protest is over the exploitation of workers to the service industry…the manager said he didn’t want me to work here anymore, not the way I looked (107).

            After this exchange, setting the scene, Palahniuk details the gruesome actions of Jack beating himself.  “I roundhouse the fist at centrifugal force end of my arm and slam fresh blood out of the cracked scabs in my nose” (107). Palahniuk uses such strong imagery that the reader can feel the slam of jacks fist against his face.  Words used like “doofus,” “clowning around,” and “giggle” underscores Jack’s jovial mood and intentions during his self-induced fight. 

            The exchange continues as he grips his boss, or as he calls him, the “monster’s” pant leg and begs for money. The blood “bubbles” out of Jack’s nose, and he simply utters “please.”  “Please comes out in a bubble of blood…the bubble plops blood all over.”  Palahniuk’s writing touches upon all senses; sound, sight, feel, and even taste, poetic like film noir, “…the blood falls out of my nose and slides down the back of my throat and into my mouth, hot” (108).  

            Then just as Jack was clutching to the waistband of the hotel manager, the security guards decide to walk in.  Such a scene shoes the gruesome, dark, sick, sadistic side of Fight Club, of the alter egos and manipulation.  This scene varies from that of the movie, but such changes help consolidate the novels chapters and ideas.

            The scene in the film opens with Jack walking into his boss’s offices with a very jovial lighthearted non-diagetic sound in the background, once again proving Jack’s unstable mind.  The boss however is not the hotel manager, but instead his boss at the Department of Transportation, Jack’s main profession. In the film instead of picking up the phone and trying to contact a newspaper, Jack explains to his boss how he will be still be getting a consistent paycheck and doesn’t have to show up to work.  For his compensation, Jack would not go to the authorities about the fraud that goes on within the department. This is where neo-noir continues its gruesome portrayal of violence, as we finally get visual added to Palahniuk’s written description of the fight.  From the “roundhouse fist” framed at a low angle with a soft background, focusing on the aggressive hand clutch and shutter.

            A more beat driven music melody is heard, increasing the tension and action.  Jack uppercuts himself into a glass coffee table, and the raises himself to his feet and throws himself into a glass bookshelf-but before a freeze frame mid-action stops the film, with the voice over of was a direct quote from the novel “for no reason at all, I remembered the night Tyler and I had our first fight. I want you to it me as hard as you can (107).”

            The audience has the visual of a bloody, gruesome hand filled with glass hard clutch onto the aide of the sofa, as Jack crawls hand and knees with blood spilling out of his now to the, once again, waist band of his boss, and once again the security guards enter, “right at the our most excellent moment.” 

            What makes Fight Club stand out from other films, and make it a neo-noir film would be the presence of Chuck Palahniuk’s voice from novel to film.  Palahniuk writes in repetition, with key words standing out the audience as if force-feeding a personal message from author to reader. “You wake up at Meigs Field…you wake up at LAX…you wake up at Cleveland Hopkins…you wake up at Sea Tac, again” (18-20). Palahniuk’s commentary on the consumer driven world and disjointed priorities of politics and power within the country become evident when reading his novels, and just as successful in the film.

            Henry A. Giroux and Imre Szeman disagree that Fight Club productively generates such social critique, writing in their article, Ikea Boys Fight Back, how “Fight Club offers a critique of the social and political conditions produced by contemporary capitalism in a way that confirms capitalism worst excesses and legitimates its ruling narrative” (96). Later stating “While appearing to address important social issues, these films end up reproducing the very problems they attempt to address” (97). 

            By having such violence throughout Fight Club especially the political activist groups incorporating Project Mayhem, it is sending a message that the only response to the world we live in is to lash out.  This violence acted out on film is not comments on the only way people know how to fight for what they believe in but the most primitive form of self-expression and protection, revolution and Fight Club shows that.

             “What changes in Fight Club is the context enabling men to assault each other but the outside word remains the same, unaffected by the celebration of a hyper masculinity and violence that provide the only basis for solidarity” (Giroux 101).  Such statements fail to recognize the history behind such films, giving tribute to the time period of film noir.  For it was these movies’ creative standpoint to expose social injustices bringing them to public eye, asking the question why and fighting for the middle class man. 

            Films like Fight Club and Sin City are more than just a colored version of a great genre of the 40’s to 60’s, but instead a completely distinct and separate type of film.  The adaptation process, whether neo or film noir, utilizes similar techniques and emphasis in the end products.  Neo-noir makes a point to maintain a strong emphasis on shadows, but still allow for the addition of color and contrast.  Neo-noir takes film noirs violence and visualizes the action in such a way that the audience cannot but help cringe in their seats. Modern novels are being produced with a distinct flare as if produced to be adapted to the screen, and only the future can tell what literature will be converted into a successful mark in film history.

 

Works Cited

Borde, R., Chaumeton, E., (1955). Towards a definition of film noir. In Film Noir

Reader, Alain Silver, James Ursini (Ed.)

Erikson, Todd. Kill Me Again: Movement becomes Genre. In Silver, Alain., Ursini,

James (Ed.), Film Noir Reader (pp. 307-329). New York.

Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. With Bradd Pitt and Edward Norton. 1999.

Giroux, Henry., Szrman, Imre., (2001). Ikea Boys Fight Back. In The End of Cinema as

We Know It, Jon Lewis (Ed.)

Miller, Frank., Rodriguez, Robert. Frank Miller’s Sin City: The Making of the Movie.

New York: 2005.

Miller, Frank. Sin City: The Hard Goodbye. Oregon: Dark Horse, 2005.

Schrader, Paul. (1972). Notes on Film Noir. In Silver, Alain., Ursini, James (Ed.), Film

Noir Reader (pp. 53-65). New York.

Sin City. Dir. Frank Miller, Robert Rodriquez. With Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, 2005. The Killers. Retrieved November 27, 2006, from http://www.cliffnotes.com

The Killers. Dir. Robert Siodmak. With Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. 1946.

The Maltese Falcon. Dir. John Huston. With Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. 1941.

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