Person is Not a Rude Word

Back in 2004, on a part time arts course – including film studies – the subject was film noir. Relatively new to me at the time I threw myself into reading Dashiell Hammett and watching a handful of films – The Big Sleep, Maltese Falcon, Gilda, etc – to jen up on the world of the ‘hard-boiled’ private detective and the femme fatale.

As seen, I even tried drawing a few of them from the movie stills…

Putting in fewer class hours on other subjects than my peers, I offered to do extra in film studies, and so when it came to actually creating five minutes worth of film noir, I found myself becoming overnight screenplay writer, director, wardrobe mixtress, props producer, editor – and probaby gaffer and key grip into the bargain.

(The cinematographer drew up the storyboard after the edit…)

‘Bite of the Apple’ had it all: diamante gems sat on velvet jerkily rotating on a ceramics studio potters wheel; San Francisco fog rolling in from Alcatraz via the smoke machine in the drama workshop; gunshots from a real lead pistol misfiring in iMovie audio mode; old style digital phone tone ringing out on a mobile – and lashings of lipstick on the dame shot close-up in a compact mirror…

The whole memory of those heady Hollywoodesque two weeks inspired my first attempt at creating a villanelle style poem in February this year; as can be seen Aspie wordplay in my brain was doing its thang – as usual – to inspire the poem’s content…

Le Monde of Film Noir

Just to divert the world-wise private dicks,
Each villain: elle, hourglass waist and bottle blonde –
The femme fatale – dons high heels, gets her kicks.

On celluloid reels: uptown, in the sticks,
The chiaroscuro (from across the pond)
Serves to divert the world-wise private dicks;

Shadows disguise the dame’s wiles and antics
That ensnare her ‘lame’ prey – of whom she’s fond;
The femme fatale dons high heels, gets her kicks.

To outsmart the ‘hard-boiled’ PIs’ own tricks,
She envelopes them in her perfumed monde
And so diverts the world-wise private dicks.

Trench coats and suits fall for rich red lipsticks:
The dick, the prey and femme dance tous en ronde;
The femme fatale dons high heels, gets her kicks

‘Til her fate is sealed in those film noir flicks –
Her silver tongue proved not to be her bond.
Still, to divert the world-wise private dicks,
The femme fatale dons high heels, gets her kicks.

© Luc(e) Raesmith