![]() ![]() The topic of race makes many uncomfortable it often goes unacknowledged due to a purposeful lack of range or a debilitating defensiveness. Meanwhile, 1995’s Dead Presidents uses noir, among other genres and styles, to depict the extremes a group of Black veterans resorted to after being neglected by a country they risked their lives for. Each adheres closely to the noir format, while race colors how characters are perceived, the obstructions they face, and how they navigate their worlds as a result. 1992’s Deep Cover and One False Move, along with 1995’s Devil in a Blue Dress, do exceptional jobs of highlighting how race and racism function in society. Still, each of the Black neo-noirs of the ’90s have the unavoidable subject of race at their core. But, at least in hindsight, they don’t seem like a cohesive set of films.” “By the time you get to the early ’90s, I think there’s an awareness and these neo-noir films benefit from that awareness. “I see it as a broader awareness around Black film and Black filmmakers specifically to that time, even though don’t necessarily reflect the same thing that, say, some of the more popular movies like Boyz n the Hood and New Jack City would have represented,” says Todd Boyd, who studies the intersection of race and popular culture at the University of Southern California. That led to a wide variety of approaches and results, especially as it concerns noir. New opportunities ( however short-lived) arrived with the 1990s, as Hollywood slowly began acknowledging the financial viability of films about Black people helmed by Black directors. That changed in the 1990s.Īfter the Blaxploitation film bubble burst toward the end of the 1970s, Black cinema was scarce until the middle of the 1980s, when Spike Lee’s success sparked new interest from studio executives and gave rise to a new generation of Black filmmakers. But even as noir established itself as an effective vehicle for examining the sociopolitical zeitgeist of the time, the genre largely avoided race and racism, two core elements of American society no matter the era. Think Eddie Mars, an enterprising goon with his hands in all of the dirt in 1946’s The Big Sleep, or the villainous Noah Cross, hoarding resources and dark secrets in 1974’s Chinatown. The noirs of the genre’s prime often featured specific archetypes: hard-boiled private dicks seeking the truth, cunning dames with ulterior motives, and power brokers pulling strings from the shadows. Join The Ringer as we revisit the surprising reemergence, unexpected fracturing, and profound impact of the neo-noir movement in the ’90s.īecause of its identifying characteristics-antiheroes, shady figures oozing with duplicity, massive conspiracies-noir is one of film’s most incisive genres, eternally striving to hold a light up to society and expose how ugly it can be. Confidential, from Devil in a Blue Dress to Basic Instinct. From late 1989 to early 2001, noir made a stunning return to Hollywood, splitting off into different subgenres and producing some of the most compelling films of the era-from The Usual Suspects to L.A. And no-we’re not talking about the film noir era of the 1940s and ’50s. There were dead bodies, stolen goods, knotty plots, amoral protagonists, and irredeemable villains. ![]()
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