Please Consume: Day 3

Happy New Year!

2023 is going to be a big year in film.

Dune part II, Oppenheimer, and mother effin Barbie!!

Sorry, I'm excited…

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though, we had a major release this week.

That being Damien Chazelle’s newest film, Babylon.

For this reason, we are going to take a step back into Old Hollywood.

I know what you're thinking, “Oh this is going to be so boring, a bunch of black-and-white pretentious bullshit”.

To that, I would say this….

You have clearly never opened an email from Please Consume. We kick pretentious in the teeth and tell him to shut the door on the way out.

These old films are more than just history.

They are fun as hell.

Okay, yes, this is technically not old Hollywood. It’s a British film but we will stretch the rules for such an incredible and important film.

This movie is an important part of a cinematic classification known as “Noir”. A term coined by french critic Nino Frank in 1946, naming a group of films that lasted from the early 20s to the late 50s.

They are darkly lit black & white movies about tough men making tough decisions and dames who are up to no good. This era of the film has influenced all our most heralded contemporary directors like David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, and Denis Villenous, to name a few.

This scene specifically comes at the middle point of the film.

Our protagonist is talking to the man he’s been searching for throughout the first half of the film.

They debate ideologies.

As you watch this clip, pay attention to the way the camera and Ferris wheel move, as points are thrown back and forth.