The Seemingly Good Men of Noir: A Reflection of the Company They Keep
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 villain with sheer perfection. Dressed in black for most of the film, we, the audience, could feel the danger looming.
The film, act by act, scene by scene, line by line, surprises the audience in all the beautiful and terrifying ways it unfolds. And while both Griffith and Liotta absolutely shine, it's Daniel's Charles, the protagonist of Something Wild, that, naturally devolves into the people he keeps most company with. By the end of the film, the character arc completes.
In Cleveland City, we meet Jacob. Jacob is Esti's younger son. He's in his early 30s, tall, dark, handsome. He's done everything right, everything expected from a young, Jewish man next in line to inherit his late father's real estate kingdom. Jacob's father Aaron grew up in Brooklyn, earned a law degree and on a business trip to Cleveland met Esti. He was 27. She was 17. Young, petite, gorgeous. He waited until she turned 18 and then asked her father, head of one of the big five real estate families of the 216, for her hand in marriage. Esti's father liked Aaron. He saw himself in him: self-made, educated, Jewish, ambitious. He knew his daughter would be protected and taken care of. And so at age 18, Esti married Aaron. The next year they had a son, Isaac.
All was going great for the young family. Then tragedy struck. Esti's father had a heart attack and died. And while Aaron inherited the business, Esti had to manage all the boards, fundraisers, Israel support and what seemed like an infinite list of community responsibilities. Tzedaka, or charity, is a Jewish value and raised in that value, she knew she had to continue her father's legacy. Aaron was often away at work and even with all the nanny and housekeeping help she received, juggling an infant and running these causes became an incredibly demanding and isolating responsibility. Publicly, she had it all. Privately, she was lonely as hell.
Esti decided she didn't want to have any more kids. Isaac was the true love of her life. As he became a toddler, they did everything together: grocery shopping, attending the Cleveland Museum of Art, walks on the shores of Lake Erie and, eventually, he even started to join her at these fundraisers and city events. This made her life less lonely. And also perfectly content to be a mother of just one child.
Then fours years after Isaac was born, she gave birth to a second son, Jacob. During that pregnancy and even after delivery, she was never the same. Depressed. Lethargic. Silent. Aaron fell even deeper into his work. And this must have rubbed off on Isaac, as the people closest to them didn't understand why Isaac had to suddenly be sent away. Sent away where? All the public heard was "a special school." And the rumor mill, the knitting circle of gossip spread quicker than the synagogue shmear at Rosh Hashana.
Then tragedy struck again. One late night as Aaron was leaving his downtown office and crossing the street to get a drink at his usual pub, a fast moving car hit him. He died on impact. Authorities never found the perpetrator - a horrific hit and run.
Esti, already stoic, wasn't just devastated. She was destroyed. She also had to rise up once more. And as a single, young mother of two sons, took over her late husband, running a company where no one wanted to take her seriously. Not the contractors, not the politicians and not even the very people who relied on her payroll. She was young, lacked a college diploma and was viewed by many as simply yet another Jewish princess born into privilege and a care-free, yet co-dependent life. But that was also her gift - she became emotionally numb and business driven. What many forgot is that she spent her youth hanging at her dad's office. And he taught her his entire business. He wanted to be prepared for everything.
So, as a widow, mother and inheritor of the business her father and then husband built, Esti got to work. She started looking at the books, the costs, the favors, the relationships and the profits. She quickly realized Aaron's own accountant of twenty years was skimming. At the next board meeting, publicly, she fired him. She also fired the secretary he was shtooping. Not because of the sex, but because that very secretary was also shtopping the accountant of the competition. Esti wrote a large scholarship check to the local university and in exchange asked to audit some classes. Not only did she brush up on her marketing skills, but she watched and observed the next generation, thus growing her marketing portfolio: she began to understand the kinds of homes the youth wanted to live in next.
Under Esti's watch, in the first five years, the firm doubled its developments and became the biggest name in real estate in all of Ohio. Suddenly, everyone wanted to work with Esti. Even the Mayor, who was hell-bent on proving that Cleveland could finally stop living in the shadow and deliver on the premier lake-front development. And wanted Esti to lead that massive undertaking.
Esti's son Jacob, in essence, grew up alone. No, he wasn't an orphan, and he did have all the financial provisions most people could only dream about, but his father was gone, his brother was away and his own mother was emotionally checked out and only cared about the family business. And her cigarettes.
As result, Jacob cultivated a very independent life outside his empty home. He was smart, curious, had financial freedom, a knack for technology and one remaining parent that was too self-involved to notice his personal choices. He spent his Bar Mitzvah money on a hooker. While in high school, he found a porn distributor and began a for-pay porn club.
Jacob got into many colleges, but like many Cleveland-born youth, ended up at Ohio State University. There, while studying programming and business, he took things to the next level. He saw the future of self-made porn and hired scouts to find the least expected housewives and husbands doing the most extreme things, all on camera. Men and women, women and women, men and men, groups, toys, props, costumes. Anything went. This, of course, led to parties. Very exclusive, invitation only, Eyes Wide Shut kind of parties, with Cleveland's business, political and society's elite attending.
He drew the line at minors and went out of his way to hire PIs and install verification tools to make sure he knew the ages of the talent pool he hired. Jacob's online earnings grew and to protect his family name from his fruitful enterprise, he made sure all companies were opened in fake names, with very real bank accounts in very far away countries.
In 1997, just before dying in prison, that Reuben Sturman agreed to meet with Jacob. And in that one sitting, he told Jacob everything about the porn industry: Video. Distribution. Merchandising. Clients. Contacts. Technology. Legalities. "And stay the hell away from Vegas, kid! Everyone's already there."
The baton had been passed. No one knew about that meeting besides Reuben, Jacob and the guards who bought the story that this was a rare nephew/uncle reunion.
Ten years later Jacob was the mastermind behind the biggest sex empire in America.
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