NOTHING CAN BEAT ITS LURE : "SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS"

The other night, one of my flatmates decided we should see a nostalgic film, film noir more specifically. The film, I have to admit was selected pretty much at random but turned out to be a classic funnily enough. So there you have it, you can trust the internet in your quest for knowledge – sometimes  This blog however, as you may already know, is more about opinions and less about knowledge and my opinion of the film was so high that I reckoned I should share it with the rest of you all. You know, in case any of you guys were in the mood for a good, old-fashioned classic. This is the dark and twisted tale of JJ. Hunsecker (played by veteran actor Burt Lancaster). He is a successful columnist in LA, which makes him a popular man among those of the industry. It also means he has an immense amount of power should he choose to wield it. It is this power specifically that he uses when he finds out that his sister has “got involved” with a jazz musician. Deciding that a penniless musician is no suitable match for his beloved sister, he uses the greed and hunger of unscrupulous press agent Sidney Falco(Tony Curtis) to break the couple up once and for all. The plan is dark and convoluted but Sydney doesn’t mind getting his hands a bit dirty as long as he gets his reward at the end. The only problem is, what seems to start off as something relatively simple slowly begins to backfire… Those who try dirty deeds as means to the ends they crave, should in all fairness be ready to suffer the consequences… I loved this film because it was completely and utterly everything you expect and want a film noir to be. It has beautiful innocent dames, handsome beaus trying to overcome circumstances and dastardly bad guys getting up to unthinkable tricks to achieve their dastardly ends. It is, in short, a complete and utter classic. Now, there is always the argument that this has something we have seen before. And as you know I am very, very far from averse to original and artistic work in the cinema. Heck, I’m a Terrance Malik fan. That should say it all. But then again, if cinema is art, it is also entertainment. I think quite frankly that most art forms, if not all, have this dual side to them. They are artistic, creative but must also at some level appeal to the public, entertain or force people to think. This is why being an artist is so tough really, striking a balance between the two – if indeed a balance is what you’re going for - is so difficult. Then again, it ain’t so easy if you’re going for one extreme or the other. If you’re going for entertainment value – as most film noirs tend to – you have to either “perform” exquisitely and fulfil all the conventions of your genre with quality and class or risk looking very cheesy and done a hundred times before. Like I said in my review of Alien3 , there is nothing wrong with doing stuff we’ve seen before. The Sweet Smell of Success is a very classy example of its genre, successfully combining the classic with the original. And it goes very well with pizza. Just saying.