Fragen noir an ...
- Foto: J. Ferreira
... die Schriftsteller und Organisator der Noir-Foundation Eddie Muller
Vorab
Name?
Eddie Muller
What are you doing besides writing?
I run the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit corporation that is dedicated to rescuing and restoring America's noir heritage. We stage "Noir City" film festivals around the country and use the profits to restore rare films, such as Trumbo and Losey's The Prowler. This year we are funding restorations of Cry Danger and an obscure Anthony Mann B-film Strangers in the Night. I also do way too many commentaries for film noir DVDs. I'm gravitating toward making films, as well. My short film with Marsha Hunt, The Grand Inquisitor , was well received on the festival circuit, and in now on-line. and I'd like to do another short one before tackling a feature-length film as writer-director.
Film released in the year of your birth?
Touch of Evil
What was your initiation in the noir-subject (film or book)?
Crime films on daytime television when I was 13-14 years old. I'd pretend to be sick so I could stay home from school to watch Thieves' Highway, The Big Heat, Cry of the CIty, all that stuff. Then when I was 16 I saw Chinatown, which opened up the literary history of the genre to me. LIke most everyone else, I started with Chandler and went from there.
What books can we find in your bookshelf?
Oh, lots of stuff. One bookcase is just movie-related, there's historical non-fiction, general fiction, genre fiction, art books... no sci-fi and no self-help.
Which noir cliché do you like the most?
Hmm, that's tough. I suppose it'd be the sense of guilt. I don't like contemporary noir writing that doesn't have a guilty conscience, i.e there's no price to pay for sociopathic behavior. Let's just kill a bunch of people for the fun of it, after all, it's only fiction. In noir, I like to empathize with characters doing bad things -- but I don't excuse them.
Some of your favorite film noirs?
In a Lonely Place, Sunset Boulevard, Criss Cross, The Asphalt Jungle, Nightmare Alley ... I could go on and on.
And films beside noir?
The Wild Bunch, Borzage's History Is Made at Night, anything by Ernst Lubitsch or Preston Sturges. Sadly, there are virtually no contemporary filmmakers -- maybe Lynch -- whose work I anticipate with excitement. I liked Fabian Bielinsky's two flms, Nueve Rienas and El Aura. Perhaps Gasper Noe. Irreversible was a visceral experience. Some people are offended by it, but I didn't think it was in bad taste. It was a pure cinematic expression of noir -- what could lead a normal person to commit murder -- and he didn't want to explain it, he wanted you to feel it. Totally legitimate, and very convincing.
Which fictional character (book or film) would you favor to kill face-to-face?
Fictional? Too bad. I guess it'd be those women on Sex in the City, just to make them stop talking. A case of mass murder and justifiable homicide(s).
Internet?
Questions noir - Your life a film noir
1. Which would be your part in the movie?
The guy who thinks he's too smart to be a sap, but falls for the wrong dame anyway. I guess that's the Mitchum part. I wish.
2. Your nickname in the movie?
Fast Eddie, of course
3. Which author (living or dead) should write the script?
If it wasn't me, I'd go for Ben Hecht, with Bill Bowers coming in to polish the wisecracks.
4. Famous quote in your movie? (Exmaple: Scarface = The World Is Yours, White Heat = Made It Ma, Top Of The World)
"Never trust nobody. Especially yourself."
5. Shot in black and white or in color?
Seems black and white, so far.
6. Soundtrack by …
Noir's mighty minstrel, Tom Waits
7. Which femme fatale would lead you to your doom?
I'd give Linda Darnell the part she always deserved, if you get my drift.
8. Your getaway car?
'49 Merc
9. Your weapons?
A steady stream of patter: "I'd like to engage you in war of wits, but it's my rule to never battle an unarmed man."
10. Book for your prison sentence?
Finally I'll have a crack at War and Peace.
11. Finally: Epigraph on your tombstone?
Nice try, sucker
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