Welcome back to Double Feature, the IDS film podcast where the powers that be let us in a podcast booth to give you hot takes and maybe some lukewarm ones too.
For every movie that fits into the film noir genre, there seems to be three commenting upon the genre and its tenets. The world of mysterious dames, hard-nosed detectives and unraveling layers of intrigue started in American cinema in the 1920s and lasted until the late 1950s, but the echoes of the style carry decades past that time frame.
On this week’s episode of Double Feature, hosts Annie Aguiar and Chris Forrester discuss the 1958 film noir classic “Vertigo” and the 2001 neo-noir surrealist film “Mulholland Drive.”
“Vertigo,” directed by the legendary so-called master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, follows the story of a former detective suffering from vertigo who is hired to follow the wife of an acquaintance. In 2012, it replaced “Citizen Kane” as the greatest film ever made in the British Film Institute’s Sight & Sound critics’ poll.
The David Lynch-written and -directed “Mulholland Drive” is notable for its non-traditional narrative structure that left audiences and critics speculating on what the movie is actually about and what happens in it. The film seemingly follows an aspiring actress in Los Angeles named Betty who meets an amnesiac woman who was recently in a car accident. The Village Voice called the film a “poisonous valentine to Hollywood” in its review.
