home/movie/2006/film noir bringing darkness to light
Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light
Not Rated
Documentary
7.1/10(14 ratings)
Film Noir burrows into the mind; it's disorienting, intriguing and enthralling. Noir brings us into a gritty underworld of lush morbidity, providing intimate peeks at its tough, scheming dames, mischievous misfits and flawed men - all caught in the wicked web of a twisted fate.
07-18-2006
1h 8m
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Roger Alexander Deakins, CBE, ASC, BSC (born May 24, 1949) is an English cinematographer. Often cited as one of the greatest and most influential cinematographers of all time, he is known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve. He is the recipient of five BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography, and two Academy Awards for Best Cinematography from sixteen nominations. His best-known works include The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Fargo (1996), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Skyfall (2012), Sicario (2015), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and 1917 (2019), the last two of which earned him Academy Awards.
John Debney (born August 18, 1956) is an American composer and conductor of film, television, and video game scores. His work encompasses a variety of mediums and genres including comedy, horror, thriller, and action-adventure. He is a long-time collaborator of The Walt Disney Company, having written music for their films, television series, and theme parks.
Debney has been the recipient of three Primetime Emmy Awards, and an Academy Award nomination for his score for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004).
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Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.
Although born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada, Dmytryk grew up in San Francisco when his Ukrainian parents moved to the United States. At the age of 31, he became a naturalized citizen.
His best known films from the pre-McCarthy period of his career were film noirs Crossfire, for which he received a Best Director Oscar nomination, and Murder, My Sweet, the latter an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely. In addition, he made two World War II films: Hitler's Children, the story of the Hitler youth and Back to Bataan starring John Wayne.
The late 1940's was the time of the Second Red Scare, and Dmytryk was one of many filmmakers investigated. Summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), he refused to cooperate and was sent to jail. After spending several months behind bars, Dmytryk made the decision to testify again, and give the names of his fellow members in the American Communist Party as the HUAC had demanded. On April 25, 1951, Dmytryk appeared before HUAC for the second time, answering all questions. He spoke of his own Party past, a very brief membership in 1945, including the naming of twenty-six former members of left-wing groups. He explained how John Howard Lawson, Adrian Scott, Albert Maltz and others had pressured him to include communist propaganda in his films. His testimony damaged several court cases that others of the so-called "Hollywood 10" had filed. He recounted his experiences of the period in his revealing 1996 book, Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten (Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, IL).
For a time, Dmytryk moved to England, and Stanley Kramer hired him to direct a trio of low-budget films before handing Dmytryk The Caine Mutiny. He made films for major studios Columbia, 20th Century Fox, MGM and Paramount Pictures, including, among others, Raintree County, The Left Hand of God, The Young Lions, a remake of the Marlene Dietrich classic The Blue Angel, and The Carpetbaggers. Later into the 60' and 70's, he directed Where Love Has Gone, Anzio, Alvarez Kelly, Shalako, and his final film Bluebeard. The films which he directed featured stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gene Tierney, Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Robert Mitchum, Richard Burton, Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda.
After his film career tapered off in the 1970s, he entered academia and taught at the University of Texas at Austin, and at the University of Southern California. He wrote several books on the art of filmmaking (such as "On Film Editing") and lectured at various colleges and theaters, such as the Orson Welles Cinema. Dmytryk died from heart and kidney failure on 1 July, 1999, aged 90, in Encino, California.
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James Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), White Jazz (1992), American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001), and Blood's a Rover (2009).
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Jane Greer was a film and television actress who was perhaps best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past.
A beauty-contest winner and professional model from her teens, Greer began her show-business career as a big-band singer. She sang in Washington, DC, with the orchestra of Enric Madriguera. She "sang phonetically in Spanish" with the group.
Howard Hughes spotted Greer modeling in the June 8, 1942 issue of Life, and sent her to Hollywood to become an actress. Hughes lent her to RKO to star in many films (another source says Greer's husband, Rudy Vallee, "helped her get out of her contract with Hughes and secure another pact with RKO Studios") including Dick Tracy, Out of the Past, They Won't Believe Me, and the comedy/suspense film The Big Steal, with Out of the Past co-star Robert Mitchum. Hughes refused to let her work for a time; when she finally began film acting, she appeared in You're in the Navy Now, The Prisoner of Zenda, Run for the Sun, and Man of a Thousand Faces. In 1984, she was cast in Against All Odds, a remake of Out of the Past, as the mother of the character she had played in 1947. In 1952, Greer obtained a release from her contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. She said, "When there is a good role at MGM, the producers want Lana or Ava. There is no chance for another actress to develop into important stardom at the studio".
Greer's noteworthy roles in television included guest appearances on episodes of numerous shows over the decades, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Quincy, M.E., Murder, She Wrote, and a 1975 gig with Peter Falk and Robert Vaughn in an episode of Columbo titled Troubled Waters. She even got to make fun of Out of the Past in a parody with Robert Mitchum on TV's Saturday Night Live in 1987. Greer joined the casts of Falcon Crest in 1984 and Twin Peaks in 1990 in recurring roles until her retirement in 1996.
Greer was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1634 Vine Street for her contributions to the motion picture industry. The star was dedicated on February 8, 1960. Greer died of cancer on August 24, 2001, at the age of 76, in Bel Air, Los Angeles. Her body was interred at Los Angeles' Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
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Christopher McQuarrie (born October 25, 1968) is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film The Usual Suspects (1995).
He made his directorial debut with the crime thriller film The Way of the Gun (2000). He is a frequent collaborator with Tom Cruise, having written and directed the action films Jack Reacher (2012), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023), and an untitled eighth Mission: Impossible film (2025). He was also a part of the writing and/or producing team on the films Valkyrie (2008), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016), The Mummy (2017), and Top Gun: Maverick (2022), the last of which received Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American comic book artist, comic book writer, and screenwriter known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on Daredevil, for which he created the character Elektra, and subsequent Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.
Miller is noted for combining film noir and manga influences in his comic art creations. He said, "I realised when I started Sin City that I found American and English comics to be too wordy, too constipated, and Japanese comics to be too empty. So I was attempting to do a hybrid." Miller has received every major comic book industry award, and in 2015 he was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.
Miller's feature film work includes writing the scripts for the 1990s science fiction films RoboCop 2 and RoboCop 3, sharing directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, producing the film 300, and directing the film adaptation of The Spirit. Sin City earned a Palme d'Or nomination.
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Sir Christopher Edward Nolan, CBE (born July 30, 1970) is a British-American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was born in Westminster, London, England and holds both British and American citizenship due to his American mother. He is known for writing and directing critically acclaimed films such as Memento (2000), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005-12), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017). Nolan is the founder of the production company Syncopy Films. He often collaborates with his wife, producer Emma Thomas, and his brother, screenwriter Jonathan Nolan.
An American actor, poet, and photographer. He has starred in central roles in such films as Reservoir Dogs, Free Willy, Donnie Brasco, and Kill Bill, in addition to a supporting role in Sin City. Madsen is also credited with voice work in several video games, including Grand Theft Auto III, True Crime: Streets of L.A. and DRIV3R.
Nicholas Pileggi (born February 22, 1933 in New York City, New York) is an Italian-American author and screenwriter.
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Sydney Irwin Pollack (July 1, 1934 – May 26, 2008) was an American film director, producer and actor. For his film Out of Africa (1985), Pollack won the Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture. He was also nominated for Best Director Oscars for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) and Tootsie (1982).
Some of his other best-known works include Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and Absence of Malice (1981). His subsequent films included Havana (1990), The Firm (1993), The Interpreter (2005), and he produced and acted in Michael Clayton (2007). Pollack also made appearances in Robert Altman's Hollywood mystery The Player (1992), Woody Allen's relationship drama Husbands and Wives (1993), and Stanley Kubrick's erotic psychological drama Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
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Eddie Muller is an American writer based in San Francisco. He is the founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation and hosts the weekly film noir showcase "Noir Alley" on Turner Classic Movies.
English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the BSFA award.
John Ottman (born July 6, 1964) is an American film composer, director, and editor. He is best known for collaborating with director Bryan Singer, composing and/or editing many of his films, including Public Access (1993), The Usual Suspects (1995), Superman Returns (2006), Valkyrie (2008), and Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), as well as the X-Men film series. For his work on Singer's 2018 Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, Ottman won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing.
Ottman was born in San Diego, California. Growing up in San Jose, Ottman made many amateur films garnering local attention in the community. He attended De Anza College and then transferred to the School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California, where he graduated in 1988. One of his first assignments was to provide original music for the computer game I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. In 2007, Ottman appeared in the documentary Finding Kraftland for his agent Richard Kraft.
He is best known for his multitasking as editor and composer for Bryan Singer's films and, on a few occasions, producer roles to boot. The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X2, Superman Returns (including adapting themes originally composed by John Williams), Valkyrie, Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and X-Men: Apocalypse. Other notable films he worked on as a composer are Snow White: A Tale of Terror, the 2005 remake of House of Wax, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Fantastic Four and its sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Invasion, and Astro Boy.
He also directed (in addition to editing and scoring) the 2000 horror film Urban Legends: Final Cut. He won a BAFTA Award for Best Editing for The Usual Suspects, as well as two Saturn Awards for Best Music for The Usual Suspects and Superman Returns. In 2019, he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Editing and won the ACE Eddie Award and the Academy Award for his work on Bohemian Rhapsody, a film Ottman saw through on his own after both directors' departure (Bryan Singer being fired and Dexter Fletcher beginning pre-production on "Rocketman" shortly after finishing the shoot). Ottman navigated the film's development in post and the tricky waters between the filmmaker and studio, working with producer Graham King and Dennis O'Sullivan. Upon Bohemian Rhapsody getting nominated for and winning its Best Editing awards, a scene of the band outside a pub went viral online after a post by Youtuber Thomas Flight, who was critical of the editing style. Ottman, aware of the clip, explained that for a test screening, a heightened pace for the first act was asked for by the studio. After the test, Ottman returned the scene to its original pace and design. Ottman regretted that he missed returning the scene outside the pub closer to his original version. The scene (directed by Fletcher) contained no master shot of the band at the table.
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André George Previn, KBE (born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-born American pianist, conductor, and composer.
Starting by arranging and composing Hollywood film scores for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Previn was involved in the music for over 50 films over his entire career. He won four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings (and one more for his Lifetime Achievement).
He had been the music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Oslo Philharmonic, as well as the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Graeme Revell (born 23 October 1955) is a New Zealand musician and composer. He came to prominence in the 1980s as the leader of the industrial rock/electronic rock group SPK. Since the 1990s he has worked primarily as a film score composer.
Some of Revell's best-known film scores include Dead Calm (1989), The Crow (1994), Street Fighter (1994), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), The Craft (1996), The Saint (1997), The Negotiator (1998), Bride of Chucky (1998), Titan A.E. (2000), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Daredevil (2003), Freddy vs. Jason (2003), and Sin City (2005). He is also known for his frequent collaborations with director David Twohy, having scored Below (2002) and the Riddick franchise. He is an eight-time recipient of the BMI Film Music Award, including the Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award, and an AACTA Award winner.
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Henry Rollins (born Henry Lawrence Garfield; February 13, 1961) is an American singer-songwriter, spoken word artist, writer, publisher, actor, radio DJ, and activist.
After performing for the short-lived Washington D.C.-based band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore punk band Black Flag from August 1981 until early 1986. Following the band's breakup, Rollins soon established the record label and publishing company 2.13.61 to release his spoken word albums, as well as forming the Rollins Band, which toured with a number of lineups until 2003 and during 2006.
Since Black Flag, Rollins has embarked on projects covering a variety of media. He has hosted numerous radio shows, such as Harmony in My Head on Indie 103, and television shows such as The Henry Rollins Show, MTV's 120 Minutes, and Jackass. He had a recurring dramatic role as a white supremacist in the second season of Sons of Anarchy and has also had roles in several films. Rollins has also campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including promoting marriage equality for LGBT couples, World Hunger Relief, and an end to war in particular, and tours overseas with the United Service Organizations to entertain American troops.
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Theresa Russell (born Theresa Lynn Paup; March 20, 1957) is an American actress. Russell made her film debut in The Last Tycoon (1976), followed by a lead role in Straight Time (1978). She was then cast in Nicolas Roeg's controversial thriller Bad Timing (1980), which earned her critical praise. After marrying Roeg in 1982, she appeared in many films directed by him, mainly arthouse and experimental films, including Eureka (1983), Insignificance (1985), and Cold Heaven (1991).
Russell starred in Whore and Kafka, both released in 1991. Russell appeared in the box-office hit thriller Wild Things (1998), starred in the critically acclaimed drama The Believer (2001) and, in the later 2000s, appeared in HBO miniseries Empire Falls (2005) and had a minor role in Spider-Man 3 (2007).
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Paul Joseph Schrader (born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader has also directed 24 films, including Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Cat People (1982), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017); the latter earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts troubled men struggling through an existential crisis that is then punctuated by a violent, cathartic event.
Raised in a strict Calvinist family, Schrader attended Calvin College before electing to pursue film studies at UCLA on the encouragement of film critic Pauline Kael. He then worked as a film scholar and critic, publishing the book Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer (1972) before making the transition to screenwriting in 1974. The success of Taxi Driver in 1976 brought greater attention to his work, and Schrader began directing his own films beginning with Blue Collar (co-written with his brother, Leonard Schrader). His three most recent films have been described by Schrader as a loose trilogy: First Reformed (2017), The Card Counter (2021), and Master Gardener (2022).
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Talia Shire, born on April 25, 1946, in Lake Success, New York, is an American actress. She gained widespread recognition for her role as Adrian Pennino, the wife of Rocky Balboa, in the iconic "Rocky" film series. Shire's portrayal of the timid but resilient Adrian earned her acclaim and a place in cinematic history. Beyond "Rocky," she also starred as Connie Corleone in "The Godfather" films, further establishing her as a versatile and talented actress. With a career spanning several decades, Shire's contributions to film have solidified her as a respected figure in Hollywood.
Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC (born August 1955; sometimes credited as Tom Sigel) is an American cinematographer best known for his collaborations with director Bryan Singer on films like The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie, and the X-Men film franchise. He has also worked with filmmakers like Haskell Wexler, Mike Newell, David O. Russell, Terry Gilliam, Alan Ball, Robert Redford, and Nicolas Winding Refn. He is a BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, Critics' Choice Award, and Satellite Award nominee.
Sigel was born in Detroit, Michigan, and studied painting in New York City, becoming an artist-in-residence at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He began his career working with experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger as a camera operator. Becoming a documentary filmmaker, he shot a number of projects, including El Salvador: Another Vietnam, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His photography caught the attention of DP Haskell Wexler, and the two spent several years developing what would become the 1985 film Latino, his first feature film as director of photography.
Sigel worked mostly on television films and as a second unit DP throughout the 1980s before shooting the comedy film Rude Awakening. He regularly served under Robert Richardson on films like Platoon and The Doors. Starting with The Usual Suspects, he has become the regular cinematographer of director Bryan Singer.
Sigel is Jewish and married to Lisa Chang. His father, Irving Sigel, was a psychologist who worked for the Educational Testing Service. His mother, Roberta Sigel, was a professor at Rutgers who studied gender and politics.
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Known For
Carol Littleton
Carol Sue Littleton, ACE (born October 23, 1942) is an American film editor. Her work includes Body Heat (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Big Chill (1983), Places in the Heart (1984), Silverado (1985), The Accidental Tourist (1988), and Wyatt Earp (1994). She won the Primetime Emmy Award for the ABC movie Tuesdays with Morrie (1999). In January 2024, she received an honorary Oscar for her work.
Carol Littleton was born in 1942 in Oklahoma City, but her family later moved to Miami in Northeastern Oklahoma, where she grew up. She attended the University of Oklahoma College of Arts & Sciences, obtaining her bachelor's degree in 1965 and her master's in 1970.
Her obsession with film editing started in France, when Littleton became acquainted with French New Wave cinema. During the 1970s, Carol Littleton owned a production company that made commercials. She moved into working as a film editor with director Karen Arthur on Legacy (1975). Other films were to follow, and Littleton received an Academy Award nomination for editing Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Commencing with Body Heat (1981), Littleton had an extended collaboration with the director Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan hired Littleton for Body Heat not only for her skill but specifically because she was a woman. He believed only a woman editor could bring the eroticism he wanted to the film.[5] Of the 11 films that Kasdan has directed, Littleton edited nine.
In the late 1980s, Carol Littleton was elected to and served as the president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. Littleton served as president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild from 1988 to 1991 and as vice president from 1994 to 2001, as well as from 2005 to 2007. Littleton has been elected as a member of the American Cinema Editors and has served as ACE vice president since 2019. She is also a current member of the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Film Editors Branch). Littleton is one of the editors that author Gabriella Oldham interviewed for her book First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors (1992).
Carol Littleton was married to cinematographer John Bailey from 1972 until his death in 2023.
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Janusz Zygmunt Kamiński is a Polish cinematographer and director of film and television. He has established a partnership with Steven Spielberg, working as a cinematographer on his films since 1993.
Audrey Mary Totter (December 20, 1917 – December 12, 2013), was a captivating American actress celebrated for her compelling performances in film noir during the 1940s and 1950s. A former MGM contract star of Austrian-Slovene and Swedish descent, her distinct husky voice and magnetic presence made her a standout femme fatale in classics like "Lady in the Lake" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice." Totter's versatility extended beyond noir, showcasing her talent in various genres, including dramas and thrillers. Her ability to portray complex, strong-willed characters left an indelible mark on Hollywood. Totter's legacy endures through her impactful contributions to the silver screen, forever remembered as an iconic figure in the golden era of cinema. Most references cite December 20, 1918, as her date of birth, although Intelius indicates the year was 1917.
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Gordon Hugh Willis, Jr., ASC (May 28, 1931 – May 18, 2014) was an American cinematographer. He is best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather series as well as Woody Allen's Annie Hall and Manhattan. Fellow cinematographer William Fraker called Willis's work a "milestone in visual storytelling", while one critic suggested that Willis "defined the cinematic look of the 1970s: sophisticated compositions in which bolts of light and black put the decade's moral ambiguities into stark relief".
When the International Cinematographers Guild conducted a survey in 2003, they placed Willis among the ten most influential cinematographers in history.