Under the Silver Lake - Why noir films still work today

Written & Directed by David Robert Mitchell

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough, Topher Grace, and Riki Lindhome

(Spoilers Below)

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Plot: An insightful yet aimless man named Sam goes on a trek to find a woman he had a spontaneous night with. As he sets off to track her down, he begins to uncover different conspiracies in Los Angeles.

After receiving conflicting reviews for the film, A24 decided to push Under the Silver Lake to April 2019. However, recently I watched the film and it's safe to say that noirs are here to stay.

Why noirs are still viable in 2018:

Under the Silver Lake takes on themes of hierarchies, toxic masculinity, and crime in East Los Angeles. Sam, played by Andrew Garfield, deals with internal problems relating to masculinity, unemployment struggles, and addiction to sex/pornography. In retrospect, these problems were common among main protagonists in film-noirs from the 1940s and 1950s.

The film-noir dealt with serious issues that men faced once WWII was over. These issues revolved around addictions, homelessness, and unemployment. This can also be looked at from a different perspective today. It's easy to identify this movie is as a noir because Sam acts as a flawed detective who encounters deceptive women along his journey. But, there is more to a noir that classifies it as such.

As an example: today in the United States we face financial problems, addictions (sex, drugs, alcohol), and social media. Under the Silver Lake uses media and additions as an issue for Sam and is a theme used in the film.

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Sam has intercourse with various women and acknowledges this addiction at some point in the film. Sex addiction is a common problem for men like him. This was viable back when film-noirs first came around, but they still work today. With new technology and media, this addiction makes it worse on Sam.

After having intercourse with a woman towards the beginning of the film, he tells her about the first Playboy magazine he read. The cover of that magazine is replicated later in the film when a woman is killed in a lake. This can mean different things, but the main representation of this moment is how pornography can mean the destruction of a person's mental state.

At various moments in the movie, Sam is notified many times of his eviction from his apartment if he doesn't pay his rent. In the final minutes of the film, the manager and security attempt to evict him but he isn't in the apartment. He's watching from another apartment and laughs. Throughout the film he is running away from this problem that he knows he has to face but never is able to. Sam is unemployed and is constantly asked what his profession is, but he never has an answer. This is an issue many of us should never encounter, yet our main protagonist can never deal with this himself. His struggle to maintain his apartment and never attempt to get a job is a common problem today especially in Los Angeles.

As of 2018, there has been a 31,285 homeless population in the city of Los Angeles alone. Under the Silver Lake uses this real-life problem and applies it to its story.

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Sam's character faces stakes that asks whether or not it's worth finding a woman he hardly knew in the first place. He breaks into homes, follows people, and kills someone with a guitar in order to find the answers he is looking for. According to Raymond Borde's A Panorama of American Film Noir: 1941-1950, he establishes that "the private detective is mid-way between lawful society and the underworld, walking on the brink, sometimes unscrupulous but putting only himself at risk, fulfilling the requirements of his own code and of the genre as well." Although Sam isn't an official police detective, he is a detective of his own. He takes matters into his own hands to get the answers he wants since he doesn't care about his own morality. When he finds another lead, he beats on a naked man and almost breaks his wrist in the process. He might not look like detective Humphrey Bogart, but he still understands the stakes of finding where this woman is and doing that he himself loses his morality.

David Robert Mitchell took the classic noir themes and applied it to a probable story that could happen in today's world. The situations may seem a bit 'extreme' but for the most part, the conflicts are real. Many issues that people faced in post-WWII do abide in 2018. People today deal with addictions, toxic media, and financial problems as they did back in the 1940s. The noir genre will always be viable for years to come because the genre focuses on serious issues men and women face everyday that they would never be able to admit. Yes, the noir also has to consist of a severely-flawed detective and a 'femme fetale'...but creative filmmakers are going to ultimately bend the genre.

A24

Under the Silver Lake will be released in the United States in April 2019. The film is rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, violence, language throughout and some drug use.

Sources:

https://archive.org/stream/BordeAndChaumetonPanoramaOfAmericanFilmNoir19411953/Borde+and+Chaumeton+-+Panorama+of+American+Film+Noir+1941-1953_djvu.txt

http://www.laalmanac.com/social/so14.php

https://www.indiewire.com/2018/11/a24-under-the-silver-lake-release-date-2019-andrew-garfield-1202017214/