Muay Noir: Where Muay Thai Photography and Film Noir Meet

[threeoaks]

This is a seminar.  I’ll be studying later.  Night of the Hunter is a favorite.  It’s all I can do not to tattoo “Love Hate” on my knuckles.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

11 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

This is a seminar.  I’ll be studying later.  Night of the Hunter is a favorite.  It’s all I can do not to tattoo “Love Hate” on my knuckles.

I'm still thinking about your questions about performativity and femininity. There is really a perfomative aspect of Film Noir and also in Muay Thai, and there is a hyper-masculinity in both, but I'm not quite sure how they connect up. We get that line of Dorothy Parker's "Scratch an actor, you find an actress". The Film Noir construct seems to be pretty bulwarked against any such revelation, even if true. In some ways the performative elements of masculinity are the essence of masculinity, especially when we climb out of western sensibilities. The Samurai, highly performative. The executioner. 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Additional aids in defining classical Film Noir:

 

Perhaps it could be called the Romance of Fatalism, Corruption and Death.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

More on classic Film Noir aesthetics, from Paul Schrader's - Notes on Film Noir

 

 

Most interesting in these observations to me is #3, that the subject and the context are given the same lighting. I experience Noir as plucking out the subject from the darkness, with the avenue of light, while I can definitely see what Schrader is saying. This is maybe a fundamental tension of a subject swallowed up by the corrupting or oeneric world, and the subject disjoined from it. Maybe there is a passing into and out of existence, between these two poles. I have to think on this.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

In terms of personal inspiration again, Kurasawa all the way.  I've read that there is some debate about how many of his films would qualify as Film Noir (some fancy a very narrow boundary), but a film like Stray Dog (1949) definitely fits the bill, and is incredible. For my part, a great number of Kurasawa films are quite Noir, so many of them in the aftermath of a disillusionment in society. This is leaving aside for a moment his Samurai films, which may be one of the more important templates for a Muay Noir photography.

Kurasawa is a director who sometimes slips from my mind despite having enormous impact on me, visually, and when I go back to him I shake my head and think to myself: There may never have been as great a director as him.

Stray Dog

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Logic of Shadows

Doing a little research into the aesthetic of Film Noir last night we watched Jeanne Eagels (1957) with Kim Novak. I was drawn to it because it was in a list of Noir genre busting Film Noir films, in a critical essay list that included 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was filled with beautiful frames. But this series below just captured my brain. Kim Novak, caught in emotional desperation, turns her face away from an old flame who has come to save her from self-destruction. I'm just mesmerized by her turn-away, how she suddenly incandesces in almost a blownout white of sun, as she turns away, despondent. The Logic of Shadows. Here she is "going away", but growing brighter, which in just a few frames enacts her tragic arc as a character in the film, a kind of Icarus of morality. Catching more light, but burning up. It shows that even in a simple binary of light and dark you can compose a calculus of great meaning.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I don't shoot a lot of these, but thumbing through ran into a reportedly Noir angle:

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

An interesting dimension to walk when thinking of a possible Muay Noir, is that in the minds of many film critics, Film Noir does not constitute a genre. Writers like Paul Schrader like to say that Film Noir is just literally "black film" (as opposed to gray film, or off-white film), meaning, I assume, it's a gray scale pallete choice. One is painting towards that end of the scale. Thinking in these terms, instead of grafting on genre or definition types, presents us with a much more open ended set of possibilities. For instance my thought that for me darkness slows time down, brings a sense of peace, asethetically goes against many of the more genre-centric uses of darkness (to produce tension, or foreboding). This kind of reversal is much more understandable if you just start from the "Black Film" perspective. What does Black Film give us or present as possible? We are looking at a pallete, and a relationship to light, and maybe less than an appeal to a convention.

I don't think we can push this too far and still meaningfully use the reference Film Noir, but it can act as a creative starting place.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This isn't the right composition, obviously, but this frame from the film Laura (1944) taught me something in my recent research into Film Noir classics. I was quite surprised by the flatness of the photography of the film, which seemed like it lacked something of the teeth of what I've come to expect from the Noir Aesthetic. But this scene, an interrogation scene, opened up an interesting truth or concept in the Noir workings. While much of the film lacked photographic depth, this scene did not. The blacks produced great depth, with Gene Teirney's face floating above it, almost supernaturally. It gave me to wonder if this is the purpose of shadow effects in Film Noir, a way to create photographic depth, a rich sense of swimming in something. And, sympathetically, this could be the same for any Noir approach to Muay Thai photography. The Bas Relief effect. I feel like I touched on this in the thread above, in another manner, but it is interesting how the study of a subject can provide you with the negative of a positive, the absence bringing forward the subject.

[AndyMaBobs]

Looks like we're into some similar stuff! The photographs look great  it's clear you've got an eye for composition from the now years of camera work

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

On 1/8/2020 at 12:59 AM, AndyMaBobs said:

Looks like we're into some similar stuff! The photographs look great  it's clear you've got an eye for composition from the now years of camera work

If you have related images, aesthetics, feel free to upload and post them!

[SHELL28]

On 11/19/2019 at 11:08 PM, WaltZinkPhotography said:

These may or may not be in the same vein. My removal of color definitely is a bit different than the typical black and white we think of with noir. Still, I think the sport - as well as the country of Thailand! - lends itself well to noir photography.

Who is this fighter please Kevin? 
 

Just absolutely love your work

Thank you for sharing 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Additional study material, unpacking the historical development of the Noir aesthetic, if anyone wants to follow along:
 

Quote

 

Deadly Deviations, Subversive Cinema: The Influence of Hollywood Film Noir on the French New Wave (Ph.D Dissertation)

This dissertation develops a comprehensive study of the influence exerted by Hollywood “genre” cinema, in particular the B-series film noir, on the French New Wave. Initially, I ask if this relationship is not the principle identifying criterion of New Wave cinema. It is, after all, a matter of record that Hollywood’s cheaply-made B-movies were championed by the critics of Cahiers du cinéma as permitting authorial self-expression and as encouraging cinematic innovation and evolution. Genre cinema subsequently remained a preoccupation for the New Wave auteurs, who made no fewer than fifty gangster and crime films between 1958 and 1965, including many of the New Wave’s most iconic films. I therefore embark on a comparative study that considers in great detail the New Wave’s reprisal and adaptation of the film noir format, with my analyses focused not only on character and plot conventions, but also on the tropes, aesthetics and filmmaking production techniques common to both cinemas. I show how the two cinemas cross-pollinate, especially given that the French polar itself exerted influence on Hollywood film noir and that French critics were among the first to identify the new tendency towards making film noir in postwar Hollywood. I also draw a number of important conclusions. Primarily, I show that while the New Wave borrows extensively from Hollywood aesthetics, its manipulation and subversion of American film noir conventions are also at the very heart of the politique des auteurs. This politique is characterized by a profound dissatisfaction with their era, the Americanization of French society, France’s involvement in Algeria, and a reticence about the impending sexual liberation movement. I contextualize my project within the current debate in film and French studies regarding the legacy of the New Wave, particularly in light of a tendency to cast doubt on the movement’s involvement with “the political,” as well as to dispute the New Wave’s status as a defining moment in French cinema.

source, download the entire paper

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[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

In posting a new photo in the Noir aesthetic, a portrait of the legend Wangchannoi, it struck me something that should have been obvious, but for some reason I never caught. There is a very real - sociological, identity laden - way in which Muay Thai fighters are aligned with the image of the Gangster. I think unconsciously using cinematic tropes that encapsulate the picture of the American Gangster, Film Noir, somehow work to braid western and Thai conceptions of manliness. In fact, this photo has some of this. Wangchannoi in particular was known for his savage, violent, but ultra cool fighting style. Seeing him here, later in life, in a Noir light, somehow embodies that in a very curious and emotive way:

 

If you want to read more on the connection between the Nak Muay (Muay Thai fighter) and the Nakleng (gangster) in Thai culture, this article and essay is indispensable:

Thai Masculinity: Positioning Nak Muay Between Monkhood and Nak Leng – Peter Vail

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Another recent Noir take on Muay Thai:

photography, this time capturing the Golden Age fighter Pairojnoi striding in a gym.

 

[SHELL28]

Stunning... it seems a step back in time 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I'm uncovering for myself, just tracing the line of contrast in Noir back through time, that German Expressionism in film (this I knew about), but also silent film whites play role in a Muay Noir aesthetic for me. This was really brought to bare in the film Blancanieves (Snow White), which is a 2012 homage to the silent films of Europe. It's just a beautiful film, and for me tickles so much of what Noir also carries. Here are a series of still caps I took from the film to give you an idea of what I see:

A Muay Noir aesthetic can draw on the morality tale tradition of German Expressionism, which you find in this film, and which the Noir Universe also absorbed.

 

 

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

A contemporary photographer whose photos I think can contribute to a possible Muay Noir discussion is: https://www.instagram.com/dieter.langhart/

It's the way he handles the deep, rich, stark blacks, and the blownout whites, and then all the tonality and detail inbetween, for me. Here is a square of his photos from his Gram, but really look through it all and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This thread relatedly expands on the cultural aspects and difficulties of shooting in Black and White in Thailand, and reflects on the history of Muay Thai photography in the country:

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

On 11/19/2019 at 6:39 PM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

The combination of the future alienation, and throw-back aesthetics has a deep and satisfying history in our culture, and there is a sort of sci-fi, Blade Runner experience to many ex-pat realities in Thailand, though these seem quite far from Muay Thai depictions which already turn back up on the real. The Real. But, there is in that Tech Noir history a powerful sense of figure depiction that could play a role in what we could be looking for in Muay Noir meanings. I recent read through the Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita (1993) and its connective books, and was terribly struck by the force of its action depictions, the cleanliness of the lines (Noir contains excessive contrast, purifying the subject) as well as the emotionality of its characters while in action. It is a Tech Noir work of art.

Two recent photos with the Blade Runner Aesthetic: