Is Blade Runner noir
Is Deus Ex Human Revolution
Would Altered Carbon fit
How about early Gibson?
I’d say yes to all of the above being noir, noir is as much about tone and style as it is setting.
Likewise western. It’s a tone, a style as much as a setting.
Lawless or very loosely enforced laws
Hardscrabble life where luxury is nearly absent and necessity is hard
Lots of open space, travel through desolate areas with few people, and even fewer who aren’t hostile
Vendetta, personal code of honor, or the lone ‘man of action’ feature prominently
Strong distrust of some ‘other’, be it along national, racial, or regional lines, often driving some interpersonal conflict (bonus points if resolving this is a major point of growth for a main character)
These strike at the core of a Western, and are why Firefly qualifies, why No Country fits for me. It’s about tone, and that strikes true.
Fantastic soundtrack by Leonard Cohen. Probably Julie Christie’s greatest screen role. It’s on my Six for a reason…transcendent film. Probably on my all-time list of films, period.
Agree. No Country even has meditations on Violence, Freedom, Individualism and Heroism. Solidly associated with classically John Ford-Western themes.
And though seen as modern, its a late 70s/early 80s period piece. I mean if they wanted to set it in 2007, they could have. The Coens aren’t known for obliviousness. :)
A lot of great choices listed, so I’ll add just one my favorites for now. This is a very different James Stewart from the Ransom Stoddard of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.
No Country For Old Genres: McCarthy, The Coens, and the Neo-Western
“Genre films essentially ask the audience, “Do you still want to believe this?” Popularity is the audience answering, “Yes.” Change in genre occurs when the audience says, “That’s too infantile a form of what we believe. Show us something more complicated.” And genres turn to self-parody to say, “Well, at least if we make fun of it for being infantile, it will show how far we’ve come.” Films and television have in this way speeded up cultural history.” – Leo Braudy
