The opening night of NoirCon 2012 kicked off at PhilaMOCA with a presentation by Heide Hatry about her performance art using pigskin and pig's blood to create rooms, sculptures, paintings, and other art projects. Certainly a provocative, unexpected, and wild way to kick off the convention. These sorts of surprises are part of what makes NoirCon so exciting -- you never know what's around the corner.
Next, Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders took the stage to discuss Noir Music from around the world, culminating in Tom Waits' "Hell Broke Luce."
You can view Peter's full list of Noir Music here. It's a fantastic list, covering a wide variety of styles, performers, and nationalities, proof that Noir is a universal language (something that Peter touched on during his presentation).
Filmmaker Oren Shai shared his excellent short women-in-prison film, Condemned, followed by an articulate and thought provoking speech about the need for genre reform in contemporary cinema.
Edward Holub was up next with a short film, as well as an extended preview of his work-in-progress adaptation of David Goodis' Cassidy's Girl.
Next, The Scovilles took the stage to end the evening on a raucous, rockin' note. Heavy garage rock, great riffs, tight solos, solid grooves. A great end to the evening!
As always, one of the best parts of NoirCon is meeting old friends and making new ones. Here's just a few of the great people who showed up to Opening Night.
 |
| Peter Rozovsky, Ed Petit, Duane Swierczynski, Mike White and friends. |
 |
| Mike White and The Philly Poe Guy (Ed Pettit). |
 |
| Jeff Wong, Lou "Mr. NoirCon" Boxer, Heide Hatry, and Eric Rice. |
 |
| Jonathan Woods and Jon McGoran. |
 |
| Ed Pettit, co-Master of Ceremonies, pointing out troublemakers, or maybe just commanding us to buy more raffle tickets. |
 |
| Charles Benoit, co-Master of Ceremonies, man of a million laughs, and man with a great hat. |
 |
| Robert Polito and Lou Boxer. |
Genre reform in cinema sounds interesting. I'm wondering what that is about.
ReplyDeleteOK, a few hours of sleep, and I'll be ready for the next Noircon.
ReplyDelete=======================================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com
Great photos, mate!
ReplyDeleteCharles -- As I understood it, Oren was saying that old-school genre pictures aren't being made the same way anymore. When a Western with Brad Pitt is made, it is self-consciously "a Western with Brad Pitt," kind of a gimmick. Oren was suggesting that we need to re-think genre and combine different genres to make them fresh and exciting again.
ReplyDeleteCullen: Would you mind if I posted the picture of me on my blog -- with full credit and a link back here, of course?
ReplyDeleteThanks
Charles / Cullen - That's pretty much what I was saying, indeed. I looked at Thomas Schatz's definition of genre (in 'Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Studio System') where he defines the film-genre as a "contract" and the genre-film an event honoring that contract. Each genre has conventions that the audience can recognize and those can be subverted and tweaked.
ReplyDeleteIn that light, Noirs and Westerns become problematic in their classical form because today's audience doesn't know their conventions at all, so their mere existence become their subject. I feel that we need to come up with a new approach in order to create an experience that could reach a broader audience.
That's the short version :)