A Quote by Michael Dirda

In classic noir fiction and film, it is always hot. Fans whirr in sweltering hotel rooms, sweat forms on a stranger's brow, the muggy air stifles - one can hardly breathe. Come nightfall, there is no relief, only the darkness that allows illicit lovers to meet, the trusted to betray, and murderers to act.

Michael Dirda

Quote Topics

Act Air Always Betray Breathe Brow Classic Come Darkness Fans Fiction Film Forms Hardly Hot Hotel Hotel Room Hotel Rooms Lovers Meet Nightfall Noir Only Relief Rooms Stranger Sweat Trusted

Quote Author

Michael Dirda
American - Critic
Born: 1948

We're told that independent film lovers... folks that are used to watching art house films, won't come out and see a film with black people in it - I've been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that's not true.

Ava DuVernay

There are certain fixed rules that one observes for one's own comfort. For instance, never be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden.

Hector Hugh Munro

I'd love to do a noir. I think Steve McQueen is so cool. But a classic film is a classic film, and perhaps the fantasy of being those characters should be left alone. You're treading on very thin ice.

Benedict Cumberbatch

There are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.

Werner Herzog

I think there are specific times where film noir is a natural concomitant of the mood. When there's insecurity, collapse of financial systems - that's where film noir always hits fertile ground.

Werner Herzog

Film noir is not a genre. It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood. It is a film 'noir', as opposed to the possible variants of film gray or film off-white.

Paul Schrader

Noir was a brainchild of the United States. And most of the creators of classic noir - novelists and screenwriters, directors and cameramen - were men. Women were their mysterious, sometimes villainous, always seductive objects of desire.

Margo Jefferson

I've had fans break into my hotel rooms.

August Alsina

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such a twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of darkness.

William O. Douglas

If you say: I believed in God, I trusted God and He didn't come through - You only trusted God to meet your agenda.

Timothy Keller

Is there something in druggy subjects that encourages directors to make imitation film noir? Film noir itself becomes an addiction.

Pauline Kael

How I envy writers who can work on aeroplanes or in hotel rooms. On the run I can produce an article or a book review, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of.

John Banville

I'd always wanted the show to be more reality based science fiction, something along the lines of The Day the Earth Stood Still, which I consider to be the classic science fiction film.

Gil Gerard

I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.

James Ellroy

Anything that has to do with noir and space, I'm gonna love. When you've got a noir-ish, pulpy detective in a science fiction show, I'm all in, in that regard.