Noir: What is it Good For?

Just a scant week ago, I made the type of discovery that wouldn’t exactly spark off a successful noir film but would be an excellent start for a zany comedy: I found the film Brick in the $3 DVD bin at my local Big Lots.

At first, I was consumed with disbelief and minor rage. How could such a monumentally innovative and refreshingly well-made film end up consigned to the bargain bin at the most barginous of bargain stores? What shortsighted middle manager arbitrarily chose $3 as the ultimate value for this, one of the best films I’ve seen within the past decade? Should I logically infer by its presence here in the $3 bin that Brick’s popularity and influence had already reached its apex and would now languish in wire bins gathering dust from here to eternity?

I think I stood there, no joke, for about four minutes contemplating all of this. Then, somewhat magically, further logic set in and I realized that here, now, I could make a difference. So I found all eight copies of Brick they had and bought them, intending to give them to friends and all others in need of enlightenment and quality entertainment. Well, at least a combination of those categories, and only eight of them total. But still, it felt like a valiant crusade! And it started off well, as I talked the two bemused register girls into giving Brick a try, even though I withheld the fact that I had bought all the copies in the store and it would be rather difficult for them to actually follow through. But still: good start!

Naturally, a mere week later I can’t exactly remember who all received a copy. I know my friend Kevin in Missouri and these two girls in San Francisco and San Luis Obispo are both getting a copy and a love note (Kevin is getting a “like” note), because their DVDs are packed and ready to be mailed as soon as I finish my green tea and complete this little ‘Oh that’s right, it’s Noir Week… I guess I should contribute SOMETHING’ article. I think I gave one to my friend Chris, who loved the film but couldn’t track it down on his own (stupid graduate students!), and now I recall giving copies to two different girls I had never met but wanted to impress with free stuff. I have emotional problems.

Oh, okay, but anyway: one copy I brought to the house of this girl I’ve known and liked for a long while though never hung out with outside of our favorite bar, so that the two of us and one of her friends could watch it. Two girls and a guy and a noir film; doesn’t that sound like the best Saturday night imaginable?

A funny thing happened; literally funny as it turned out. The friend, who had never seen or heard of Brick before, found it to be really good but also totally laughable. And because of her infectious enjoyment, we quickly all tuned into viewing Brick as a Mystery Science Theater 3000 experience. We winced at some of the outlandish violence, observed the flaws and strengths of the laboriously-plotted twists, and remained the slightest tickle away from bubbly laughter at the high school setting of the film. Although we all had some pretty interesting times in our respective high schools, nothing rivaled the dames and drugs and drubbings our fateful hero faces down in Brick. Perhaps, though, that is a good thing?

Anyway, we all came to an essential observation we all held true: film noir is pretty much inherently goofy. So stylized, so serious, so utterly ridiculous. As much as you would never say as much to the hero of any masterpiece of film noir, lest your nose be broken, from the safety of the cheap seats it’s fair to say that film noir operates on a level that requires you to take it deathly seriously. As soon as you waver, or a girl you are with gets a giggle fit and you find yourself enthusiastically giving in, film noir becomes spoof. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course!

Bizarrely, I find my enjoyment of Brick to have been enlarged by that session of good-hearted mockery. Before, I think I clung to that aforementioned deathly serious approach to the film because I chose to view it exclusively as a dramatic, non-humorous feature. Now, having had my eyes opened to the humor within and without the film, I know now I’ll enjoy future viewings on so many more levels. The beauty of Brick isn’t diminished by observing its goofy elements, but rather augmented like the varied brushstrokes of a masterwork.

I guess the moral here is not that Brick specifically, and film noir in general, should be absorbed across every viewing spectrum or else the experience is incomplete. I’m saying, rather simply, that it completely okay to laugh at something even if it’s supposed to be taken so damn seriously. Mind who you’re with, of course. But don’t be surprised if seeing the humor inside something dramatic helps you appreciate the whole even more. And that’s what they call film noir aesthetic!