dMYD DVD
Starring Humphrey Bogart
M
A-list Pulp fiction, a trail-blazing noir masterpiece wedged full of treacherous dames, chain-smoking Bogart and snivelling weasels, all lit with the same acrid glare of slumbag San Francisco 1941. Peter Lorre and Bogie dry-run for Casablanca, waterfall dialogue and slap happy physicality ratcheting them up to the peak of the pre-war pile, whilst Hammet’s schizoid plot writhes and twists like a sentient rope. It’s brilliant. You won’t watch it.You’ve seen a Bourne film in the past couple of months. It’s quick. Compared to The Maltese Falcon it’s like having a seizure in a combusting fireworks factory. All the masterful techniques at the birth of an art form can’t compete with the attention span of a modern man with phone in pocket, headphone in one ear and an eye on the door, and they shouldn’t have to. Something else will come along in a few weeks to fuck your face, so don’t worry about it. But where does that leave The Maltese Falcon? Better than 90% of the films released this month but tough to sit through unless you’re dead or a ponce, the kill-off with kindness seems to be to jack it up with credo and seal it off as art. A relic of bygone time with atmospheric effects that James Cameron can’t even get invited to (blurring the lens, the crackle of sound, jumping on lines), the piece can stand as a monolith of Spielberg-stamped-out simplicity, a beautiful, slow dive into patience and time. Plus, in fifty thousand years this is what the archaeologists will think the real-life forties looked like, when pulp titans roamed the earth. Then they’ll watch Bourne 8065 in 7.2 nanoseconds and get back to work, cultural time-code stamped for the day. Good film.
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