From Fixed in No-Time

If you know a lot of cineastes and they irritate you with their endlessly self-conscious meta-commentary, ask them to name the best example of film noir. Sharks mid-feeding frenzy are a solemn affair by comparison. (I once saw someone successfully defend the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple as the last true noir–a statement with which I hardly agree but you have to appreciate the audacity of choosing that as a last stand and managing to rout multiple attackers.)

This image gets me thinking about film noir. Particuarly Jules Dassin as the prototypical noir auteur. If you want to understand what noir entails, you could do much worse than studying The Naked City and Riffifi.

Ultimately though, I grudgingly agree with the camp that suggests Out of the Past as the last true noir. (I do understand the desire to attribute a more decisive dividing line a la Touch of Evil where you can pretty much say film noir was B&W and neo-noir is predominantly in color, but I think that glosses over a bunch of nuances–I’d argue Touch of Evil is neither noir nor neo-noir and instead exploited distinctions that subsequently demanded differentiation.)

"How can you do that?" the other klingons ask. "You don’t even draw blood? Not a single furniture breaking? It doesn’t seem… natural".