Nightcrawler -- Neo-oir

[Mack]

I watched Nightcrawler on Netflix last night. It is a terrific piece of neo-noir staring Jake Gyllenhaal as a low life hustler who stumbles into the world of stringers who monitor police-band radio for horrific (fatal automobile accidents, shootings, etc) events and sell the video footage to tv studios. Gyllenhaal is wonderful as Lou Bloom, a guy who's approach to life comes from on-line courses he takes. Once he decides that this is what he is meant to do, we see him learn the trade, getting more and more sophisticated. I credit this course enabling letting me see this film with a more critical eye. I know I'm to see it several times.

[cigarjoe]

Nightcrawler sort of lost credibility when Bloom suddenly is able to drive that Dodge Challenger like a professional race driver.

[Mack]

I wondered about that as well, cigarjoe. Here is how I rationalized it:

we don't know how much time has elapsed. Maybe there should have been a montage 

his video skill are quite sophisticated by the time he gets the Dodge Challenger

we know that Bloom has an obsessive personality once he sets his mind on a goal. I can see him watching movies with car chases then going out and practicing.

 

I did wonder at the color. It seems like Bloom would have chosen something less conspicuous than red.

[ThePaintedLady]

I'm currently watching this on Netflix. I keep thinking that if WeeGee were alive and young today, would this be his method?

 

So far, an interesting film and a look at how these videos make to broadcast news. Although I seriously question the ethics of people who really do this kind of work (as well as the citizen journalists).

[cigarjoe]

I wondered too, and we have a film to check it out with a Neo Noir The Public Eye (1992)

 

 

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105187/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_14

[Sir David]

I thought this was an excellent movie: Jake Gyllenhaal was tremendous as the haunted-looking and incredibly creepy "hero", prepared to do anything to progress in his chosen sphere. 

 

It was an incredibly dark movie, with the vast majority of it taking place at night (did we see the daylight at all, I don't remember?) and no doubting it's Noir credentials here. But, unlike the Noirs from the classic period, Karma isn't lurking around the corner waiting for him: he doesn't pay for his sins and in fact prospers from his deviousness. No-one else may come out of this movie in any way happy but the protagonist, he's sitting pretty!