No voices, no lyrics. Deeply emotive noir music that pains the heart and stirs the psyche. Too often, music in the noir genre is defined by the tilt of the noir-centric lyrics. This instrumental doesn’t need them, because there’s nothing left to say.
Composed by Kärtsy Hatakka & Kimmo Kajasto.
Filed under Noir Music
Max Payne 3: After the Fall
I don’t think I need to restate how much I love the Max Payne series or Sam Lake, the original series author. A month ago, around the same time I was pre-ordering Max Payne 3 for xbox 360, I learned from a Rockstar Games press release that Dan Houser and Sam Lake would be co-writing a free Max Payne digital comic book. The comic is now available. Here is the link:
http://www.rockstargames.com/maxpayne3/comics
Bullet Time
Rather than do a full noir definition run-down on the comic, I’ll just provide my initial impressions based upon the first issue of this ongoing digital project. All the screen caps are my own, and I hope they illustrate the sections of the noir comic that I found most rewarding.
Same old Pain.
One of the biggest fears I’ve had about the pending release of the Max Payne 3 video game is the lack of Sam Lake on the development team. The first two games drew their noir potency from his ink, and the thought of a Max Payne story without his involvement seemed wrong. This comic set me at ease. The setting is a twisting corridor of torturous flash-backs, like the revelations of a mad man. Max has been through hell, and in “After the Fall” he’s still there, held captive by demons old and new. As you read his dark monologues, you’ll hear the flat baritone of James McCaffrey and you’ll smile. Nothing important has changed, and that’s exactly the way it should be.
Painkillers
Patricide?
The most intriguing aspect of this first issue is the glimpse we are given into the fear-riddled childhood of the anti-hero. We learn that his abusive father was an alcoholic and the cause of his mother’s early death. The story then takes an even more violent turn and suggests that Max may have been his father’s executioner, a taker of vengeance on behalf of his mother. Understanding his childhood, at least in part, adds new depth to the tragedy of his wife and infant’s deaths. For in that depth we can see his fear of becoming his father; his fear of becoming a harmer of loved ones.
Patricide
Art noir.
The panels are excellent, and are beautiful examples of noir art. The colors are moody and atmospheric, especially during the flashback scenes. I always value the noir comics that can tell more in a panel then they can with dialogue. Max Payne: After the Fall accomplishes this.
Old Soldier
Demons.
Ultimately, we are privy to a Max that is older and even more deranged and damaged than before. He’s swimming in an ocean of addiction, self pity, and violence. He’s a man with a death wish and a guardian devil over his shoulder, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.
**The noir comic is completely free, what are you waiting for? Go get it:
Filed under Noir Comics
“Bang! You’re dead Max Payne.”
My 10 year old copy
The guts
I was given Max Payne for my seventeenth birthday. At that point, I had never heard of it, and if you were to ask me to define “noir” I would have had no idea what you were talking about. But, as I dove into the snow-bound grit of Max’s “Noir York City” I became enamored with the potency of the hard-boiled narrative. Truly, the video game noir Max Payne was my first taste of the genre, and I’ve been powerless to resist it since.
Written by Sam Lake, and presented in graphic novel cut-scenes, the story-line of Max Payne is a near perfect example of crime fiction. A brooding undercurrent of anger propels the intense monologues in this revenge/redemption plot. Couple that anger with a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude and we’re given a violent recipe.
Shootdodge (binaryarmor.blogspot.com)
Max is a good New York cop, a husband, and a father. With his wife and baby girl tucked safely in a New Jersey suburb, he’s living the American Dream. He’s rudely awakened. Upon returning home from the station on a late afternoon, he discovers signs of forced entry into his home. He yells for his wife…she doesn’t respond. A wicked strip of graffiti mars the inner hallway, a letter ‘V’ split by a syringe. The phone rings, a sinister woman’s voice on the other end:
“Is this the Payne residence?”
“Yes, someone’s broken into my house, they’re still here, you have to-“
“Good. I am afraid I cannot help you.”
“Who is this?”
*KLIK!
He mounts the stairs, and opens fire upon a deranged intruder emerging from the baby’s room. The junkie falls dead. Max cries in agony as he discovers his dead infant in the overturned crib. Gunshots are heard, his wife screams.
“MICHELLE!!” He sprints into her room and slays his wife’s killer. He’s too late, she’s gone.
The loss of his wife (via rawcore101.com)
Everything he held dear is destroyed in a moment, a torturous moment on replay. He learns that the junkies were high on a designer drug called ‘Valkyr’, ‘V’. Hungry for answers, revenge, and redemption, he enters deep cover in the DEA. When his only contact in the department is murdered and his cover blown, he begins a one man war against the Punchinello crime family.
Sound like a decent plot trajectory for a video game? It is. Here is the noir definition run down:
1) The Seedy Underworld
The setting of Max Payne is superb: the New York City underworld during the worst snow storm of the century. A cold day in hell.
I came in from the cold and the dark. Outside, the city was a cruel monster. I’d been slowly working my way from small-time to the big fish, trying to get to the source of the drug.
(via maxpayne.wikia.com)
2) The Anti-Hero
Max Payne is an excellent anti-hero because he is so simultaneously desperate and tortured. He blames himself for the murders of his loved ones, and his rage is the slow burning fuel that moves the plot forward.
3) The Femme Fatale
Mona Sax is the femme fatale. She’s a hired gun, and although her role is small in this first game, in the second she truly becomes a central character.
I don’t know about angels, but it’s fear that gives men wings.
(via ign.com)
4) Misogyny
One section of the game takes place in a run-down hotel/whore house. Some objectification of women is present, but never any from Max himself.
5) Redemption
The entire plot line revolves around the false redemption that comes from knowing the truth. I call it ‘false’ because knowing doesn’t really change the event. When Max learns the conspiracy laden truth surrounding the deaths of his family, it doesn’t change the fact that they are gone. He can never be truly redeemed.
6) Eroticism
A little eroticism here and there, but nothing compared to the second game. (Review to come).
I went for the hotel first. It was a sad old thing, with flickering lamps and faded colors, cheap mobster punks and tired-eyed prostitutes. I walked straight in, playing it bogart, like I’d done ahundred times before. The place was run by a couple of murdering mobsters, with shark smiles…
7) Loss of Innocence
Max’s life is shattered by the tragic events at the onset of the game. The murder of his wife and child scar him in a way that can never be fully understood.
I have tasted the flesh of fallen angels… I’ve tasted the Devil’s green blood. It runs in my veins. I have seen beyond the world of skin, the architecture of blood and bone marrow… Death is coming… She is coming, and Hell follows with her.
8 ) Racism
The Italian-Americans in the game are portrayed in a very mobster/Hollywood fashion. This racism could be considered offensive.
(via d9n.blogspot.com)
9) Smoke
Cigarette smoke and gun smoke. A choking combination.
10) Emasculation
A certain level of emasculation is inherent in the inability to defend his family. Even though the act was entirely out of his control, the guilt associated with surviving, especially when he could have protected them, is immense.
Max Payne will forever be one of my very favorite video games. The game play is addictive and intuitive, and the bullet-time/shoot-dodge physics are exquisite. I conquered it again last week, and was once again pleased beyond measure.
To Sam Lake: Please, please, please start writing novels!
EXTRAS:
Sam Lake’s face was used in this game for Max Payne.
Max Payne’s footsteps are SO loud.
Max Payne 3 arrives on shelves in North America May 15th 2012 (YES, I’ve already Pre-Ordered it)
Max Payne 3 will unfortunately NOT be written by Sam Lake. It will be penned by Dan Houser.
Dan Houser and Sam Lake are releasing a free Max Payne digital comic in the next few weeks… I’ll let you know when it’s out.
Filed under Video Game Noir
Late last night I watched the 2008 film noir Max Payne (directed by John Moore, starring Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, and Beau Bridges). It was the third time that I have seen the film, and I seem to like it more and more with each consecutive viewing. While I enjoyed certain aspects of the film initially, I felt it had some glaring faults as a film noir and as a tribute to one of my favorite video games. My arguments were many and varied, and I had trouble pinpointing what peeved me the most, but now that I have had some years to digest I am ready to tell the world what I think of the film noir Max Payne.
Max and Mona in the derelict druggy district
Let us begin with that which was lacking:
Max Payne needs his pain killers! I couldn’t believe that there was not one single reference to painkillers in the entire film (and believe me there was ample opportunity). Also, Mila Kunis needs a different make-up artist, because she is a sexy and vibrant young woman who they have managed to make look like a goblin in the first few scenes. Now, I admit that the first time I saw this film noir I thought she looked even worse (this most recent time I realized its not as bad as I remembered it), but she was not the femme fatale that she could have been. Had I been in charge I would have eased up on the eye-liner and given her some bright red lipstick. Next, The film noir needed at least two more dark monologues. They start with a bang, (which I will talk about later) and then they never come back to the Max Payne defining inner monologue. This lack of narrative was a gross oversight on the part of the screenwriter, because this script could have been magical. And finally, Jack Lupino needed more character development and less wordless looming. In the video game, Lupino is so scary because you learn that he is a Satan worshiping psychopath who believes he is immortal. In the film, they try to make him scary by having him stand on cold rooftops without his shirt on (not very effective). With all the time that they wasted on showing him loom over the city scape, they could have been developing his character by giving him lines.
Bullet time.
things they did right:
The first monologue was chilling, and Mark Wahlberg was a great choice for Max Payne. I was absolutely blown away by the opening lines of the film noir, but when they never came back to the same overly stylized Max Payne scripting I was utterly disappointed. I think that they were afraid that the script would be too cheesy if they mirrored the level of drama in the video game, but that’s the point! The heavy handed drama is what makes Max Payne who he is! Next, Olga Kurylenko was an excellent femme fatale. Her part is short lived, but she tip-toes on the edge of lust and danger with deadly skill. Also, the drug Valkyr was portrayed in a way that far surpassed the video game noir series. The ‘snowflake to embers’ effect was unbelievably cool, and the valkyries themselves in all their demonesque glory were amazing. Lastly, all of the action sequences were top notch in your face violent. The sets and special effects were all blu-ray worthy, amen.
Mila Kunis never looks this good in the film, this is not a screenshot.
“There’s an army of bodies under this river, people who ran out of time, out of friends. I could feel the dead down there, reaching up to welcome me as one of their own. It was an easy mistake to make.” -Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne
Some interesting noir definition moments:
This film noir has two femme fatales: Mona Sax and her sister Natasha. Mona plays the partner/equal/confidant role in the story, where Natasha plays the sexy/lusty/dangerous role. Interesting choice on the part of the film makers, because normally the femme fatale in any noir would have all of these attributes (and in the game, Mona and Natasha are identical twins so go figure). Also, Max Payne has a classic Redemption Theme. Max is attempting to redeem the irredeemable, for even if he successfully finds and punishes their killer, his wife and child will remain dead (and thus beyond his power to redeem). But the power of his story lies in the idea that if he can obtain revenge, that vengeance will redeem their memory and bring him closure. Max Payne is a classic film noir. (I purchased my blu-ray from Amazon.com) (also, Max Payne got 16% on rottentomatoes.com and that is where I got these film noir images).
Olga Kurylenko as one sister of the femme fatale pair
Jean Harlow
Bette Davis
Gloria Grahame
Lana Turner
Brigitte Bardot
Anna May Wong
Jean Seberg
Sophia Loren
Marlene Dietrich
Pam Grier
Ava Gardner
Lauren Bacall
Carole Lombard
Robert Maguire
Joe Webb
Jean-Gabriel Domergue
Victor Kalin
Edwin Georgi
Mike Ludlow
Frank Miller
Francesco Francavilla
Glen Orbik
Coby Whitmore
Jim Steranko
Sean Phillips
Ernest Chiriaka
Robert McGinnis
Rene Gruau
Niagara Detroit
NoirWHALE 
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