Brick (2005) 10/10
Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is contacted by his ex-girlfriend, desperately seeking his help. He re-enters his former world of dope sellers and criminals, hoping to save her and himself.
You know what you don’t think when you hear that such-and-such a film is a modern film noir? You don’t think it’s a film noir. Seriously. You think it’s got a certain style, a darkness, an edge. You expect, perhaps, particular costumes or a particular tone to the dialogue and the slang. But you don’t expect it to really be film noir.
Brick is film noir. Is. Brendan is Sam Spade. Or maybe Philip Marlowe, because he’s smarter than Spade, but no, he sounds like Spade and thinks like Spade and there’s no doubt in my mind that Laura (Nora Zehetner), from the moment she appears on-screen, is Brigid O’Shaughnessy.
Except that Brick is set at a present day high school.
In a way it makes perfect sense. Noir is a perfectly valid lens through which to view high school: The social circles that barely know each other, the seamy underside hidden from the clueless authorities who think they understand, the back alleys, basements, and parking lots in which teenagers live parallel to, but not quite a part of, the rest of the world. The slang that changes as it goes along, because the whole point is to make sure no one else understands. Noir reads like high school, and high school reads like noir, with its heightened emotions; with big love, big betrayal, and enormous danger.
Most of the young cast is excellent, although Zehetner is a bit weak. Gordon-Levitt gives us a hero who is by turns as tough and smart as he looks, and then is a vulnerable, frightened kid who is faking tough and smart as best he can. Who is totally over the girl from before, and who will live and die by the hope of getting her back. His face is infinitely watchable, and the director knows it, providing a lot of close-ups; indeed, his face is so nuanced and fascinating that studying it furthers the plot. Lukas Haas has a killer supporting role, by turns frightening and funny.
This is definitely a low-budget indie, but first-time director Rian Johnson turns that into an advantage in exactly the way that the original low-budget noirs did: Empty landscapes, hollow halls, blank rooms, that seem to say that there is nothing here but the mystery, nothing but the love and loss and violence. The only real problem with the low-budget nature of Brick is that the sound is kind of fuzzy and some of the rapid-fire dialogue is hard to make out. Thank goodness for DVDs, huh?
I can’t wait to check this one out – I’m a big fan of Veronica Mars, and on TWoP, the VM fans have been raving about Brick.
I can see why, but it’s very different in tone. VM is knowing in this very modern way. It winks at what it does. Brick takes itself seriously. Not by being self-important, but by refusing to be ironic.
Marlowe smarter than Spade? Hmm…I don’t see it. More literary-minded, certainly, but I don’t see one as smarter than the other.
By the way, this is at the top of my list now.
Y’know, the thing about Marlowe & Spade was something my father said to me once, and I never thought about it carefully.
But I think I’m right (or my father is). In The Maltese Falcoln, Spade is in over his head most of the time. his moral center is wobbly. He isn’t sure he understands what’s going on, he’s playing by ear.
In The Big Sleep, Marlowe is proceeding step by step, figuring things out, putting it together. He gets confused, he gets surprised, but mostly he’s always on top of the situation. He predicts what’ll happen faster and he’s right more often.
Quick question: are you going from the novels or the movies?
I have to confess that my perception of the two is probably influenced by the other Hammett and Chandler novels. In The Long Goodbye, which is the Chandler I’ve re-read most recently, Marlowe is far from on top of the situation (he fails to prevent a couple of murders, among other things). In the Continental Op stories, and especially in Red Harvest (my most recent Hammett re-read), the Op consistently manipulates the situation to his own ends. I haven’t read either The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep recently enough to separate them from this general impression.
That said, I don’t disagree that Spade is ‘playing by ear’…but that, to me, illustrates his smarts rather than the opposite; he thinks on his feet. What he does in The Maltese Falcon is a masterpiece of negotiation (I recommend it to my fellow Diplomacy players, although Red Harvest is an even better primer on the art), in which he constantly and subtly manipulates the other players (while assuming that everyone, even Brigid, is similarly trying to manipulate him).
As for his moral center being wobbly, I think this takes what he says more at face value than is warranted. As he himself says, don’t assume he’s as crooked as he lets on; that sort of thing might be good for business (and in fact, the appearance of crookedness is essential for the business of figuring out who killed Miles Archer). The appearance of venality is what allows him to get into the middle of things. I do think Marlowe has a more developed moral sense than Spade (or the Op)–what Spade has is less a ‘moral center’ than a code, which he describes to Brigid (in dialogue recycled in slightly altered form from The Gutting of Couffignal)–but I don’t think Spade’s code is all that wobbly.
As for being ‘in over his head’, isn’t that a convention of the genre? Certainly Marlowe gets in over his head in The Big Sleep (tangling with Eddie Mars).
You have me at a disadvantage, as I know Spade & Marlowe only from the movies. I’ve always meant to read Chandler (especially) but haven’t gotten around to it…
I’ve always meant to read Chandler (especially) but haven’t gotten around to it…
I went through a big hard-boiled detective phase in college…for a while I was drinking and smoking only brands mentioned in hard-boiled detective novesl. 😉
Both Chandler and Hammett are well worth it. Chandler is more literary and sentimental; Hammett is more in the Hemingway vein, simple and economical–kind of a non-style style, especially compared to Chandler. Chandler is king of the awesome similes.
I think Chandler’s best is The Long Goodbye, but it’s not the best place to start; go for The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely.
For pure entertainment, The Maltese Falcon is Hammett’s best, but I think Red Harvest is his best overall, a vision of systemic corruption and collapse. (Incidentally, it was loosely adapted by Kurosawa as Yojimbo, which of course was adapted by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars.)
By the way, Brick shipped this morning.
Watched it last night, and loved it. Definitely Spade, in the way he operates and in the staccato rhythm of the slang (very Hammett); but his motivations are more Marlowe. I loved the fact that the only parent we ever see is the Pin’s mother…giving the hero cereal and juice.
And you’re right about the sound–we watched about half of it with subtitles.
If “the brick” is “the black bird,” then the motivation is Spade as well.
I think the Pin’s mother beautifully illustrates that the Pin only thinks he isn’t small-time. Which is something you see all the time in gangster-noir; crooks who believe they’re big players who are really nobodies.
[…] I am currently reading The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. I came to this sorta backwards, having loved Brick, and noticed that it was practically a remake of Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, and then Brick’s writer-director said his biggest influence on the film was Hammett, and there it was in the bookstore, so… […]