Temptation, Heat and Erotica in Film Noir

Body Heat was very much about that for me. What happens when a guy who has personal charm and has done well with women but isn't effective in the world runs into someone who's effective in the world?" - Lawrence Kasdan

Some of the best Noir films tease us with the possibility of what may happen between men and women. The women are sultry. The men are bad boys. And the good men - once they meet the sultry women - they then go bad, too.

In the 80s and then then 90s, a heyday for Neo Noir and great cinema in general, we were blessed with many cinematic gems that, with their dimmed lighting, reserved pacing and and intense actors, forced us, the viewers, to sit in those theater seats with great anticipation as to what will happen next.

Will they kiss? Will they cheat? Will she kill? Will he die?

The male actors who rocked these films most? Michael Douglas, William Hurt, Denzel Washington, Jeff Daniels.

But it was the female actors who lured in and marked these men, they were the ones we couldn't take our eyes off: Kathleen Turner, Sharon Stone,  Melanie Griffith, Demi Moore, Gina Gershon, Glenn Close.

The woman who mastered the Neo Noir genre was Linda Fiorentino. Starring with her small but memorable role in Scorsese's After Hours and even as the agent who traps Anthony Edwards in Gotcha, to her manipulative brilliance in The Last Seduction to Robert Evans' production of Jade, Fiorentino is that perfect blend of sex, smarts and sin.

Unfortunately, with the commercialization of the internet and the advancement of online porn distribution, the erotica of Noir has gone by the wayside. When was the last time we saw true sensuality on the big screen? (Fifty Shades doesn't count. It's not even close.)

In Cleveland City I'm bringing back that erotica. Yes, it's a Film Noir and there's a crime (several crimes) but there's also tremendous passion. There will be temptation. There will be heat. There will be sin.

And the more desperate, lonely and betrayed men and woman feel - especially when they are not rooted, unrooted or misrooted - with no inner compass of family or morality anchoring them down, the bigger the sin they commit.

That's where the human condition is most primal and most frail.

That's what Noir is all about.



Jade Image: IMDb.com

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