Film noir is not defined solely by detectives and shadows. It can also be organised around a fragile identity, a threat, or deceptive respectability.
From a specific praise to a viewing route
In his 2009 interview with Kim Morgan, recovered by New Beverly in 2017, Tarantino praised Nightfall and the modernity of its dialogue. He also highlighted Samuel Fuller’s female characters, including the one in The Naked Kiss. These are concrete starting points for exploring film noir, even if they do not amount to a declaration that everyone must necessarily watch those films.
The journey can be extended to Last Embrace, by Jonathan Demme. In Five Things, in 2020, Tarantino expressed a favourable view, albeit with reservations about its dryness. The difference between outright enthusiasm and a more nuanced appreciation is worth preserving. A viewer’s preferences are not better described by erasing their objections so that all titles seem equally praised.
The selection brings together works that do not offer the same kind of intrigue. A flight marked by the past, a woman’s entry into a community, and an investigation threaded through with paranoia make it possible to observe different forms of insecurity. The common interest lies in the gap between the appearance of a place or a person and the forces at work behind it.
Nightfall: the past inside an open space
Nightfall, directed by Jacques Tourneur in 1956, stars Aldo Ray. His character lives under the pressure of events that the film must gradually clarify. The threat does not depend solely on the audience not knowing what happened: it also matters how an explanation changes our relationship with someone we have seen behaving in a certain way.
The structure allows the past to interrupt the apparent stability of the present. An ordinary conversation can take on a different weight when we know that the interlocutor is hiding a dangerous history. Suspense arises both from physical risk and from the difficulty of deciding when to trust. Telling the truth may be necessary, but it also exposes the character to consequences beyond their control.
The contrast between urban spaces and open landscapes broadens the visual repertoire of film noir. Threat does not need to remain in a dark alley. A bright or open place can reduce the chances of hiding and make a body’s vulnerability more visible. The breadth of the frame does not equal freedom, just as the clarity of the image does not guarantee safety.
The verbal exchanges stop the characters from becoming merely functions of the plot. The way someone responds can reveal humour, weariness, mistrust or an emerging intimacy. That vitality in the dialogue helps explain why the film still feels immediate without needing to update its period. The danger becomes more intense when it affects people who seem to exist outside the criminal mechanism.
Fuller and Demme: respectability, suspicion and the legacy of noir
The Naked Kiss, directed by Samuel Fuller in 1964, places its protagonist before a community whose neat appearance is not enough to understand it. The possibility of starting a new life depends on who has the authority to accept, judge or exclude. The film forces us to observe the inequality between a visible reputation and behaviour that may remain hidden.
Its connection with film noir does not require a conventional detective. Suspicion can be organised around a woman trying to find a place, and around the criteria by which others interpret her past. Fuller uses sharp contrasts to question the comfort of moral classification: the person who seems respectable may benefit from a lenient gaze that is denied to someone else.
The viewing is especially interesting if attention is paid to the protagonist’s shifting position within each space. Being welcomed, observed or questioned are different situations, even when they occur in the same setting. The way a community distributes trust and suspicion becomes part of the action. The intrigue makes that distribution visible rather than merely solving a puzzle.
Last Embrace, released in 1979, shifts instability onto a character played by Roy Scheider, confronted by signs he must decipher while his own safety deteriorates. The suspense combines investigation and vulnerability. It is not enough to gather information: one must also decide what it means and whether the person trying to understand it is in a position to recognise a real threat.
This shift makes it possible to speak of neo-noir as a relationship with a tradition, not as a recipe for dark cinematography. The genre can recover mistrust, the return of the past or the fragility of identity and reorganise them under different historical conditions. The discussion of neo-noir and crime in Los Angeles develops one of those lines, without exhausting the term’s geographical possibilities.
The session offers three ways of looking at danger: accompanying someone pursued by their past, distrusting an apparently respectable community, and sharing an investigation that erodes the safety of the person carrying it out. The differences matter more than simply gathering detectives, guns and shadows into a list of features. Tarantino’s documented praise provides the starting point for the journey; each film then sustains its own interest through its particular choices about information, space and trust.
See the selection of Tarantino recommendations by genre.