Santa Fe's Noir festival changes locations, but not curators.
For the eighth straight year, Santa Feans will be spending a portion of their summer in the dark with the help of Jerry Barron. The former executive director and Cinematheque manager of the Center for Contemporary Arts is the curator of the
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popular Film Noir festival that celebrates "gumshoes, cops and sleuths" from films of the post-World War II era.
"Film Noir was the product of coincidence and serendipity of time and space," Barron says, explaining how the combined influences of hard-boiled American writers of the 1920s and '30s, such as Dashiell Hammett (
The Maltese Falcon
) and Raymond Chandler (
The Big Sleep
), and the mood and tone of German Expressionism led to a dark, distinct and unforgettable era of big screen beauty.
Working under the strains of wartime budgets, filmmakers like Jacques Tourneur (
Out of the Past
) and Robert Aldrich (
Kiss Me Deadly
) gave birth to the genre populated by detectives like Hammett's Sam Spade and Chandler's Phillip Marlowe (both brought to life by Humphrey Bogart). "That so much talent-American, Austrian, Polish, French, German-[was] put together to create an unintentional genre is one of the many miracles of Hollywood," Barron says.
It's a miracle that has captivated loyal followers for decades. This year's festival continues Santa Fe's love affair with the genre, but junkies in need of their fix will need to go somewhere new to score. When Barron left CCA last year he took the festival with him, moving it this year to the bigger confines of The Screen. Communicating the change of venue has been a challenge, but the positive far outweighs the negative for Barron.
"Brent Kliewer [curator of The Screen] is one of the best known theater operators in the country," Barron says. "He has the nicest art theater in the state and brings a wealth of experience to any
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project he tackles."
This year's festival promises to be scintillating as ever, with a host of classics spanning the gamut of the gun smoking genre. Despite its initially limited life span (film historians typically point to Orson Welles' 1958 film
Touch of Evil
as the end of Noir), Film Noir's popularity has managed to endure thanks in part to festivals like Barron's. Keeping one of Santa Fe's favorite cinematic events fresh year after year can be a tough case to crack however.
"Finding great 35mm prints of classic titles isn't often easy," Barron says, "but we always manage to dig up several gems."
Even though virtually no filmmakers are actively working in the genre in this era of the blockbuster, movie buffs young and old remain drawn to these classics on the big screen. Barron offers this analysis for such enduring popularity: "These films are primarily one thing: entertaining. Whether you talk about the Golden Age movie stars or the writing, these films aren't just artistic successes, they're endlessly fun."
Hard-nosed detectives, classy dames and rapier repartée are all part of the fun, but there's a simpler explanation for Barron's dedication. "It's the same thing that drew me to westerns, silent film, etc.-I love movies."