I was just thinking in my head what to call my style n came up with a few terns n neon noir was 1👌 1at it was pink noir then neon... Kinda sux bc i was googling it to see if i just created a new thing but still happy i found it. Basically i use blk n wht film with bright transitions n text
What I love about Noir than other genres is how you can dive into the film's atmosphere and character's psyche without being spoofed. It depicts the realistic portrayal of everyday life with the perfect amount of cynicism and nihilism.
Not shocked. Megan Fox was also nominated for Worst Actress in Jennifer's Body. The Shining racked up a couple noms too. As funny as The Razzies are, they have some collateral damage to apologize for.
This movie inspired the underground movement of synthwave in the early 2010s. What a time to be alive, it was the golden Era of the retro throwback, with artists coming out bangers on the reg. I still have perturbators albums on my laptop.
Neo noir films are great for the following reasons. 1. You see the struggle of masculinity. A man wants to be left alone to do what he likes. But he has an inner pull to help those in need. Think Logan, Spaghetti Westerns and Heat. 2. You see the dark side of humanity. The good and the bad of the shadow. A place amongst the pines. 3. There is generally a sense of impending doom that is inescapable and yet we hope this time it will work out.
This was so well done. I happened to finally see 'Drive' a couple months back and have been telling everyone I know about it like an evangelist, it's one of the best films from a time of so much high dollar nonsense, I think I previously assumed it was some 'fast and furious' assclownery, thank god I was waaay off...
I've been running through the streets telling anyone I can that 70s Blaxploitation was the Film Noir of its time. People look at me like I'm crazy and say things like "sir, this isn't Arby's" or "where are your pants?" Still, I think it's true.
Another Master piece, makes me love Drive that much more. Drive was the first Arthouse film that I truly fell in love with. It had all the conventional makings of a summer blockbuster( Action, romance , a really dangerous bad guy, stakes) but the director alleviated it with his unique style. Good times that movie.
Hello! I know I present a pretty limited amount of neon noir movies (two lol), so I'd love to hear about any - maybe some non-Western ones- that you guys really like!
Couldn't think of many examples of non western neo noirs. Suzhou River comes to mind and some films from Wong Kar Wai's filmography like Fallen Angels and Chungking Express. I also really love Memories of Murder and The Vanishing but although they have elements of the genre I don't know if they can be classified as such.
Broey Deschanel Le Samourai, The Long Goodbye, Cruising, Blue Velvet, Fallen Angels, Cure, Mulholland Drive, Oldboy, Spring Breakers. Not sure they all meet the criteria but they’re good enough for me. Neon lights. Characters that learn a lesson (or don’t) the hard way.
In my opinion, the 80s visual elements are more important than plots in order to define Neon Noir movies, such as shots of city skylines, glass bricks, half opened mini blinds, streamlined furniture, art deco artwork, black grid, palette of pastel colors, glamorous women with cutting edge fashion and of course the use of neon lights. My favorite takes on this genre are: Body Double, To Live and Die in L.A., Someone To Watch Over Me, American Gigolo, Fear City and Less Than Zero.
so pumped. ur def one of my favourite tubers. Broey, idk if u are gonna mention it but, Siew Hua Yeo's "A Land Imagined" is an interesting addition to the 'dream-noir'/'neon noir' category. plus it's on Netflix! and it won a Golden Horse and a Golden Leopard too! animal awards!
I have spent several hours pausing scenes in Michael Mann’s films, hoping to catch a glimpse of Los Angeles and how he portrays it. In spite of living here for over 20 years, the mystique of this town remains unchallenged. No one expresses it more dramatically than Mann. I saw the same fabric in The Driver (Ryan ONeal) as you have mentioned and then in Drive. I also credit Heat and Collateral with this same texture of film making where the city scape rises like an alter-ego to the protagonist. I thoroughly enjoyed your video. Its exceptionally informative and well documented. Thank you for sharing your talent with us, Broey! 🙏🏽
As someone who is obsessed with this niche little sub-genre and loves your content, I am so excited to watch this! I personally think this cinematic style has the potential to transfer well to video games that utilize motion capture, especially more narrative-focused or story-based ones. Then again, that might just be my love for Tony Skeor's digital art talking lol
You just earned a sub with this one. I love Drive and the genre it represents but it's the first time I've seen it compared to Thief, which I've never seen but now will probably have to.
Thief is a masterpiece. The cafe scene in that is far superior to the one in Heat. Caan bares his soul in a way that is still kind of unheard of these days. It's a raw, violent statement about the toxic paradox of living by a loveless code.
I'm so excited to see terminology for the thing. Up until now, I have been calling it technicolor noir to describe the narrative focus on the subjective experience. I thought of Miami Vice, fear and loathing, and Tarantino films. How the "high" of the technicolor is usually subjective to the saturated perspective of the protagonist (usually aided by drugs), and the noir is the dark contrast of the mundane and is the depressing objective reality that the protagonist tries to escape from. The tension in the stories are a constant contrast between those two desires of accepting reality and escaping from it. I really think it's becoming more and more of a theme that the bladerunner esque type movies are exploring and would love to see an essay on it.
Excellent video. My father showed me Thief right after we watched Drive because it gave him similar vibes, and I agree wholeheartedly. I lost my dad in July, so these movies will always be close to my heart, and this video reaffirmed that it wasn't just my dad and I that felt this way about the two films. Subscribing!
This was so eye-opening and inspiring! I think there are probably many more of these films to be found outside of the English language, but I hesitate to mention them before I've had a second look. Maybe the nordic crime thrillers to begin with. None of them are nostalgic, that's for sure!
Thief was/is Michael Mann’s signature film, much in the same way that Blow Out is DePalma’s. Both little known, but upon further analysis, represent a defining moment in storytelling for both.
Miami Vice (show not movie) is the mother of this genre. It has occasionally been tagged as “sunshine noir,” but it is THE archetype of classic noir-gone neon. MV doesn’t deserve its shallow legacy of just “80s fashion,” because in reality has it all: - Contemplation of how a job will inexorably link with a person, tear down their better nature, and ultimately drive them away from friends and family. - fundamental rewriting of the cop show format, writing stories that reflect reality in that the good guys don’t always win, criminals skate, and most investigations aren’t neatly tied up in an hour. Also, the protagonists can and do develop ugly habits, and are not the pious heroes of cop shows previous. - THE NEEDLE DROP. MV practically invented it. Careers were made off a song’s appearance in Vice, and Mann would often choose acts that were heating up but had not yet attained mainstream success. - Prestige cinematography and a consideration of visual aesthetic that previously would only be seen in film, used in a basic cable tv show. I feverishly submit that, if Neon Noir is to be considered a genre to be celebrated and analyzed, then Miami Vice is its coked up, nihilistic, good-looking father. If anyone reading this loved noir, and is too young to have watched the show back in the day, find it. Seasons 1-3 will blow your mind.
I’m so excited to see someone acknowledge the Miami Vice wasn’t just a show about cool cars, cool dudes, and hot women. It’s refreshing to bring up these important points of the show. (side note: season 4 imo was more enjoyable than s3 for reasons like: no continuation of Tubbs storyline from the finale of s2, the fashion (pointedly Sonny’s fashion) takes a dip in quality as well as the camera quality (why does it look so fuzzy), there’s very little joy it’s like they forgot how to be funny for the majority of the season, and Sonny is a jerk for some reason. Perhaps it was just the decision of Dick Wolf to make his character to change that way, but it came out of NOWHERE! I wouldn’t have minded if it were explained. And one other thing I forgot to mention is that Sonny and Rico don’t seem as close as they used to be? Only in the final episodes of the season they seem to be making their way back to that.. _warmness_? I mean, c’mon s4 was the beginning of the _very_ obvious color matching between them (see “Amen, Send Money”). And for the quality of s5.. well. With everything that happened it just felt lackluster, the Burnett arc being so short, the finale of the Burnett arc feeling rushed, Sonny and Rico’s relationship not being quite _complete_, etc. It could’ve been so much more, and I will say the Sonny therapist sessions scenes are far more interesting than whatever mission they got going on at the OCB. I could talk about it forever, and I wish the fandom was bigger so I could have more of these types of conversations 😭
i absolutely loved thief when i first saw it and despised drive, i think because of the differences in presenting violence you mentioned. the driver eventually enjoys the violence in which he partakes, frank only sees it as a means to an end.
I'm making a podcast in Farsi to explain games to non-gamers. Doing research on Max Payne I came across this video, wanted to thank you for making it, there were a lot of new things I learned that I hadn't heard in other videos on the subject. ❤
Philippe Garrel did some movie with this atmosphere and theme. Les Amants réguliers is a masterpiece. This make me also think of Nocturnal Animal by Tom Ford.
The protagonist in noir storytelling never gets what they truly want. They might solve the mystery and get the villain but the object their soul desires most is always out of reach. Politics have no influence.
The best example of subverting the sensuousness of violence in recent memory was You Were Never Really Here. So many people at my showing were pissed that the film just cut away from the acts of violence, robbing the audience of the catharsis or indulgence of it, leaving only the empty, horrible consequences.
Thank you for this...It is beautiful! I've always been a huge Michael Mann fan, Manhunter is number 1 for me. That fact that you did a video essay on him and Drive...perfect! 👌
I fucking love Drive. One of my favourite unknown movies. The non-normative romantic elements and the depth of Oscaar Isaac‘s character particularly stood out to me.
Hi. I got here from your new Sofia Coppola video. Your content is excellent. Compared to the generality of cinema-related RU-vid video essays, yours are striking in that they somehow feel like they have more of a raison d'etre. Not to say that other RU-vidr's interest in topics is not authentic, but your authentic interest in the topic comes across very well - there is no glibness here. I clearly remember when Drive came out. I had still relatively recently become interested in cinema and was most intensely interested at that time. Drive was extremely hyped -- far, far more than Blade Runner 2049, for example. Gosling's profile was then so high -- his future career was just a vision of unlimited potential. A review of Drive mentioned Mann's Thief and put it on my radar. Drive's style is very Thief, but Gosling's character remains more of a trope or abstraction (like Hill's Driver), whereas Caan's character is presented more conventionally, as, comparatively at least, a more psychologically relateable individual, with backstory and unambiguous motivation. I see a lot of interesting recommendations in the comments above already. Nothing really springs to mind to add, but I will say the suggestion of Less Than Zero is particularly compelling. Originally noir did not necessarily signify a crime film or criminal millieu - The Best Years of their Lives and The Lost Weekend are noirs. Less Than Zero is not really a crime film either, but it is melancholic, and I believe its DP, Edward Lachman (also of The Virgin Suicides), regards its style as at least expressionist-inflected. Less Than Zero shares the location of Joshua Tree with the 2014 film The Gambler. If this is a neon-noir film or not is debateable, however both it, and even more so the James Caan starring original, are decent enough films, and given the enthusiasm for Thief in the video, this pair of films is relevant enough to the topic to be worth recommending.
This is my second video I’ve watched of this channel. I felt like applauding some of your sentences. Your observations are so on point and you put it so eloquently. I also considered Drive a masterpiece after watching it. I didn’t have a grasp of the critical insight that you express so well here, but the impression it left on me was undeniable: this was truly great art. In watching your video, I found myself reliving the experience. You captured what made it so great, and I was captivated by the lineage from early 20th century Expressionistic films and hard boiled novels. It hadn’t at all occurred to me there was anything of political import in the film. But on consideration of your points, I can see something in this. Anyway, this video gave me chills - not unlike the movie itself! I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about writing a book - perhaps you already have, or are in the middle of one. But if I should find such a book, this would make for incredible reading. Thank you - again!
Manhunter introduced me to the Neon Noir genre which quickly became my favorite type of film. The style in Neon Noir movies is definitely the star. Fluorescent blues, reds, greens, pinks, along with rainy night scenes bring out such dreamy/haunting emotions in me, which I'm sure is the intent of the director & cinematographer.
When I saw Drive in the theater, something about it reminded me of To Live and Die in LA. It’s been too long since I’ve seen it to remember what. Neon pink titles maybe?
Completely agree with your words. When I watched "Thief" this year, for me was impossible to think in other main reference for "Drive": is his father, definitely.
"The Neon Demon" interestingly only has one foot in this, as it's more horror in the style of the Shining. However anyone into neon noir MUST see "Snake Dick," about 7m short film here on RU-vid. Can't wait until the feature!
I love Thief. It instantly came to mind in 2011 when seeing Drive for the first time, and I've been making the comparison to friends ever since. It's sad to find how few people have actually seen the former.
Great video. Huge fan of Drive but Thief is an absolute favorite of mine. Mann being my favorite director. I love how you attacked this topic and comparison. Excellent work.
Nice roundup for this often underestimated sub-genre......everything started with Black and White Noir Movies and it founds its way to brilliant colorful perfection in Movies like Blade Runner or Drive. And The classic film noir is not to be despised, too!
Excellent video and analysis. You're a regular Cahiers Du Cinema writer, and you have a great talent for film critique/analysis. Thanks for this video, you've certainly gained a subscriber in me.
Oldboy fits this bill very, very well. Not just the style but especially the purpose it gives to onscreen violence. I thought that was a very pertinent observation.
Tangerine Dream's Thief soundtrack is being re-released next month by Universal, it's also part of a 10-disc boxset called PILOTS OF PURPLE TWILIGHT - The Virgin Recordings 1980 -1983
I fucking love Michael Manns style I swear he was the first one really doing this whole kinda style like for instance I can see heavy influence of stuff like Theif. Manhunter and Heat in a lot modern movies.. just how everything looks like those really crisp images. Very cool video btw!
This video is ah-mazing. Absolutely love it, and will definitely be checking out your content! :) I've honestly no idea if the following counts as neon-noir (in part because I've admittedly not yet seen it): 'Miracle Mile' (1988) is an "apocalyptic thriller" supposedly totally rich in neon and also has a score by Tangerine Dream. According to Wikipedia, Roger Ebert described 'Miracle Mile' as having "diabolical effectiveness" and "real terror", but while that sounds possibly noir-ish, I'm not seeing the actual word "noir" anywhere, so I'm not quite sure that it qualifies as the kind of film you're examining. In case it's worth checking out per the kinds of films you're analyzing and discussing, here's letting you know! :)
Oh my, that movie was something, pretty crazy that the OST was panned, but yeah, we nowdays are so much more used to eletronica and loud stuff that it doesn't even make sense. Great Video, will watch more.
Thanks for this. I trace the origins of my love for noir back to the first two seasons of Mann's Miami Vice series. And though it immediately began to soften and self-caricature starting with season 3 (symbolically represented by a change from Det. Crocket's change from a BLACK Ferrari to a WHITE one), the first two were electrifying to me and remain high points of American television crime drama. His subsequent series, Crime Story, offered rather a dark view of human existence, as well.
I’ve never even heard of Thief, so I’ll have to watch it before I continue on with this video. Looks like the Criterion Collection has it, so it should be half off during their next sale (November)
I like 'Drive' as a whole but one moment of violence that took me out -- One character was shot in the face with a shotgun but the scene felt like it was shot through a beautifying lens. It was slo-mo and glittery, I couldn't take it seriously.
