Report from Noir City 2014 - Part V

Alright then...Though the Noir City Festival isn't quite over yet, my wife and I are back home. We couldn't stay for the entire week and a half of the festival, so we found two nice ladies to pass our passes off to, and we hopped back on Amtrak to head home. Though I'm sorry to not to be seeing some of the films in the days we'll miss, it's good to be home.

The festival itself was unique and enjoyable overall, and I'm certainly glad we went. I will give detailed reviews of some of the films in later posts, to try and give you an idea of what the festival had to offer.



As stated in earlier posts, my disappointments with the experience as a whole had little to do with the films chosen, and everything to do with the way things were run. I've already talked about how the too-lengthy introductions often were filled with filler, and did nothing but stretch time to the breaking point. Our last night there, we skipped the second film of the evening (which we had already seen, but not on the big screen), because we knew, after a week's worth of experience, that between the intros and the slightly longer running times of the two movies that night, it would have meant that we'd have missed our last bus home if we'd stayed.

So, please, noir folks, rein in your urge to talk and talk and talk. Less really, really is more - as in, more time for the actual films. Also, showing commercials for some Australian noir comedy web series might have seemed like a good or amusing idea, but as a paying customer, I'm here to tell you it added nothing positive to the experience. We bought full passes to see movies, not commercials.

On the plus side, I do appreciate the purist approach in terms of showing the films on film whenever possible. Film is different from video, and film is better than video. Out of over two dozen films in the festival, apparently only two were scheduled to be shown on video - and only then because there was no other way to show them. Having once had my own film series, and having dealt with the many and varied problems that can come up with securing prints of American-made films, I have a great appreciation for the efforts that went into finding and shipping prints of the many older foreign films shown this year.



And speaking of older foreign films...Perhaps I'm naïve, but I have an image of the audience for such films. Given their age, and their non-domestic provenance, I envision the audience for them as being more intelligent, more refined, more cultured, than the average American movie audience. But that image was most surely tested during this festival, when day after day we witnessed these supposedly refined and cultured people trashing the historic theater we were all inhabiting. Judging from the great mountains of popcorn that often littered the floor, many members of the audience had great difficulty getting their popcorn from the bag to their mouth without major spillage. And given that almost everyone just walked out of the theater without taking their popcorn bags (or cups or wrappers) with them, it seems like an awful lot of people in San Francisco are very used to having "someone else" clean up after them. (Did anyone else other than my wife and I notice the nice Latina lady cleaning up the theater after, say, Border Incident? Somehow I don't think so.)

Though I was never a Boy Scout, I have always followed their rule for camping - leave the site better than you found it - when it comes to going to the movies. If you packed it in, people, then pack it out. To do any less is shameful and rude.

But it's entirely possible the audience was simply reflecting current San Francisco norms and mores. The city is clearly awash in money, with lots of construction and gentrification occurring at a rapid pace. Downtown and Market Street are taller than ever before. The private (and controversial) Google Buses were a regular sight. And where there used to be coffee shops and record stores everywhere, they have now been greatly pushed out by expensive bars and even more expensive day spas and salons. So yeah, it's entirely believable that a lot of people attending Noir City 2014 were well-to-do and used to letting-someone-else-do-it. If so, how nice for them. But still, despite the obvious and unmistakable influx of tech money into San Francisco, never before has the entire city smelled so much of urine to me. I mean everywhere. It doesn't make for a particularly film noir experience, but it sure does smell bleak.



Anyway, despite the current flush of big tech money into town, it was barely on display at the festival itself. The crowd was very much an older crowd (present company included), with those who looked under, say, thirty being a very small minority. I can count the number of actual kids I saw there on the fingers of one hand.

So, in terms of longevity, I don't know that the prognosis for Noir City is very good. Without efforts to engage newer, younger audience members, I don't know if there will be a Noir City in ten years. Can San Francisco still be the Noir City once it's all lit up with bright cash and splash? And can old movies on a big screen attract a younger audience that's used to watching whatever's new, new, new on a screen the size of a postage stamp?

I don't pretend to know the answer to these questions. But as someone who was born in San Francisco, and has always viewed it as a cinema-centric place, I will be interested to see how things play out.