It's Noirvember, Shweetheart

Since 2010, NOIRVEMBER has been observed for a full month each November by film lovers to celebrate the film noir genre. If you're not familiar with film noir, this video is a great introduction. And of course, Noirvember also celebrates noir crime fiction as well. While Noir originated in the early-to-mid twentieth century as a distinctly American take on crime stories and movies, these days it has become a global phenomenon -- for example, in the staggeringly popular Nordic Noir genre of contemporary books, movies and TV series.

As a longtime Noir fan myself, I couldn't let another Noirvember pass without a meme post homage!

It feels criminal not to include the third panel

And it goes without saying that Her Royal Highness the Cat is a huge Noir fan too!

World of Noir -- The Occult

The Occult is a favourite trope in the Noir genre. Plots will often feature mystical objects, superstitions, grifters pulling cons like card/shell games, mind reading, hypnosis or seances, and fortune tellers reading palms, crystal balls, or tarot. Nightmare Alley, both the original movie and the recent remake, is a good example of this -- its plot includes mind reading, hypnosis, communicating with the dead AND tarot!

Which brings me to my most recent tarot deck purchase . . . .

This delightful deck mimics the art-and-design style of classic pulp fiction covers once common in action/adventure, horror, romance and crime/detective novels. It's a fun deck to use or even just to look through. (Martha of Mystical Empowerment blog has posted video reviews of this deck if you want to see all the cards -- click here for a full length review or here for a quick flip through).

Nine of The Pulp Tarot cards in particular scream NOIR to me. Here they are in all their shadowy, decadent, demi-monde glory --

Incidentally, I highly recommend both versions of Nightmare Alley, if you haven't seen them. The 1947 original is shown from time to time on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) channel. Guillermo del Toro's 2021 remake is currently streaming on Disney+ in Canada or Hulu in the States. Nightmare Alley is heavy on its use of the occult trope because it is a classic of the sub-genre known as "carny noir" -- films/novels set in shabby/shady carnivals, circuses, amusement parks or other such seamy entertainment venues.

World of Noir -- In the Shadow

My recent foray into detective literature in my short story The Big Sleazy showcased how much I adore the Noir genre, whether written or filmed.

One of Noir's most classic visual tropes is, of course, shadows, whether cast by objects or by people. If you love that Noir aesthetic too, I hope you'll take 7 minutes of your time and watch this wonderful little film called In the Shadow. Using classic footage from more than sixty Noir or horror movies (listed in the credits at the end), it tells the story of an individual "Shadow" and his evil human "Wearer," whom the Shadow decides one day to kill in order to be free. It is in French with English subtitles.

Thanks to Miss Cellania on whose blog I found this gem!

Interestingly, a film clip appears at the 2:12 mark which is the ultimate source for an art piece I did for a previous film noir post -- 

At the time I did this illustration, I based it on another artist's work found on the internet and didn't realize its film origins!

[Art and photo of art © Debra She Who Seeks, 2021]

How Every Film Noir Ends

After I posted about Film Noir last week, Miss Cellania posted this hilarious little video on her blog. The comedian and star is the brilliant Alasdair Beckett-King. He has absolutely captured the essence of every Film Noir movie ever made, LOL! 

My favourite part is the deathless line: "You can't learn to have knees, Doris. You either got 'em or you ain't." So, SO true!

Thursday Art Date With Rain -- "Film Noir"

a private dick's door is always open

ushering in an unending,

unappetizing parade of gutter trash

shadowy denizens of the demi-monde

calculating dames, hard eyes, fake tears

unsavoury criminals, sweaty and shifty

desperate femmes fatales, red lips full of lies

untrustworthy, twitchy homosexuals

sooner or later, they all show up

sitting in his dimly-lit office

begging for his help

hard-boiled and hungover

always in need of cash

of course he takes their cases 

heading out once more to

decaying urban streets 

night-time steam from rusty grates

grey fog and yellow smoke

grimy back alleys with no escape

cross / double-cross / triple-cross

who can he trust?

no one

not even himself

the smoking gun

the sharpened stiletto

the pool of blood

Rain really inspired me with this week's Art Date theme! I adore Film Noir movies. When I first moved to Edmonton, there was a local film club which held weekly public screenings of classic black-and-white movies and I saw many of the great Film Noir masterpieces there.

As you can tell from the photos, I have both vertical and horizontal blinds at my place. OMG, I live in a Film Noir movie set!

The first art piece was done with a white Prismacolor pencil on black paper. The second piece was done with a white and a black Prismacolor pencil on grey paper. Both are based on other artists' original work that I found on the internet.

[Poetry, photos and art all © Debra She Who Seeks, January/February 2021]