Cleveland City: The Screenplay

Nothing is what is seems. That's the premise of every single Noir story.  The characters - they're full of secrets, lies, past lives, multiple identities, mysterious backgrounds and dubious professions. The one thing they all share is that there's a duplicity that holds them together - it's what keeps so many of them alive. Ultimately, it's all about the facade - that thick or thin layer that the public gets to see - a veil behind which our favorite characters do their business and live their lives. While not a traditional Noir, Martin Scorsese's take on The Departed offers perfect example of this. Matt Damon's Colin Sullivan is both police agent and crime son, chasing his own tail. Leonardo DiCaprio's Billy is both cop and acting criminal, chasing Sullivan. Vera Farmiga's Madolyn, the cop psychiatrist, sleeps with both of them. And Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello is the big mob boss who it turns out is also the FBI informant. In the end a...

In film noir, we rarely see mothers. And when we do, we see them as tragedies.  Mildred Pierce is a divorced working mother whose daughter sleeps with her lover. Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity is the evil step mother who plots to murder the only living parent her step daughter still has. The most tragic Noir mother, of course, is Evelyn Mulwray in Chinatown . Raped by her own father, secluded with her daughter/ sister, and then murdered in the end, there's absolutely nothing but horror in her short and brutal life.  In Cleveland City , we meet several mothers. There's Esti, the Jewish society-page widow, real estate powerhouse and mother of two grown sons. And then we also meet Colleen. Colleen is a 30-something young mom of one son. Her husband was groomed by her own dad and being provided for was never her concern. Colleen did not go to college. She did not aspire to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything that required any level of schooling. It wasn't t...

When we sit down to watch any Film Noir, we already make a couple assumptions: 1. This isn't going to end well for anyone. 2. No one is innocent. However, when a Noir story first begins, there's usually someone who appears to have some sort of ethic. Some level or morals and decency. In Something Wild , a 1986 neo-noir directed by the late Jonathan Demme, Jeff Daniels, as Charles, meets a Lulu-esque Femme Fatale named Audrey. Melanie Griffith portrayed her character with the mastery of a surgeon. The second Audrey spotted Charles at the New York City diner, she marks him, and before he knows it, this vanilla suburban husband and office drone embarks on the journey of a lifetime. Not only does Audrey take him home, to her small town, a massive contrast to the urban jungle where they first met, but he then meets her mother, childhood friend and, at Audrey's 10 year high school reunion, they encounter Ray, Audrey's menacing ex. Ray Liotta exuded that bad boy villa...

The men we meet in Film Noir live on the dangerous edge of life. They typically have "just one more thing" they need to do.  One more robbery to score, one more deal to pull off, one more delivery they need to make. Typically this "one more" becomes the last thing they do before their lives flip over. In the 2014 Norwegian Noir In Order of Disappearance , a commercial snow plower and local mountain town man of the year Nils Dickman discovers his only son was murdered simply for being in the wrong place at the just the right time. The young man wasn't supposed to be killed, but by association, by simply knowing the wrong people, he meets his fate. Stellan Skarsgård , who plays Dickman (masterfully, as always) then spends the rest of the movie deductively figuring out who is responsible for his child's death and quickly goes from man of the year to a paternal vigilante, who won't rest until he confronts the last of those associated with the crime. It...