The Influence of Noir

This week, in Literature of California, we are wrapping up our literary and film noir experience. In many ways, we see 1930's and 1940's detective fiction and film noir serve as inspiration to this day in all aspects of pop culture, from film and television to music videos and video games.

The comic above is from the fantastic Calvin and Hobbes and features a recurring character, Tracer Bullet, that Calvin habitually uses as escapism fiction when he has gotten into trouble. In just a few frames, we can see Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Patterson utilizes many of the tropes associated with hard-boiled fiction and noir.

Both genres have also been used to great satirical effect. Below are two clips from Steve Martin's early 1980's film Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, in which Martin actually wove original film noir scenes into his parody film about a hard-boiled detective.

Hard-boiled detective novels and film noir are not just for adults, either. Below are clips from the Disney film Who Framed Roger Rabbit and an old Muppets cartoon, both of which use the two genres for inspiration.

For this week's blog post, I want you to write a short paragraph about why you think hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir are still so influential in pop culture today. What about both genres still speaks to modern audiences? What stylistic choices, both in the literature and in film, make it so compelling to honor and make fun of, artistically? Finally, pick two or three tropes that your film group is planning on including in the noir film you are creating. 

Hollywood Crime

(Jewelry Store Hold Up, Los Angeles, July 23, 1932. Foteka.com)

In Literature of California, having wrapped up The Day of the Locust, we have moved into our Hollywood noir unit, having recently watched the classic film noir, Double Indemnity (1944) and students are currently reading Raymond Chandler's short story "The Lady in the Lake".

Chandler is quoted as saying, "Hollywood is wonderful. Anyone who doesn't like it is crazy or sober." In this, he perfectly captures the paradox of Los Angeles (and Hollywood) post-World War II. In her critical piece "The Dark Side of the Dream: The Image of Los Angeles in Film Noir", Tina Olsin Lent notes that, after the Depression and World War II, people could not ignore that the world they saw in Hollywood pictures was not really the world that they were living in and that "in the collective consciousness of the media, Los Angeles remains the contemporary icon for the dark side of American culture."

For many years, the image of California had been sunshine and beaches, warm Santa Ana winds and flowers in bloom all year round. With the advent of literary and film noir, authors and filmmakers began to explore those shadows in the sunshine that we have been concerning ourselves with all year. Additionally, as filmmaking became more popular and photography more available to the masses, a more realistic picture of what Los Angeles was really like came into view.

For this week's blog post, I want students to step back in time a bit and see the Los Angeles that Raymond Chandler and his literary noir counterparts saw. In recent years, photographers have gone through the LAPD photo archives and published photos from the time period in which "The Lady in the Lake" takes place. Please visit the Foteka website, which has an amazing archive of these photos (warning, some photos can be disturbing). Browse through the archive and then choose one picture that stands out to you. I want you to copy that image and paste it into your own blog entry and then write a paragraph on why you chose that particular image. What stands out about it for you? How does it affirm or challenge your understanding of Los Angeles during this time period? Please also note any connections you see between what is displayed in the photo and what you have read or watched so far related to literary and film noir.

Images of Loss

(image link here.)

As we continue our work with Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust, we have spent some time in class furthering our understanding of the Great Depression of the 1930's in order to better contextualize some of the themes of the novel. The glitz and glamour projected by Hollywood during this time, known as the Golden Age of Film, was vastly different from the fear, uncertainty, and poverty that most Americans were experiencing in reality. Did Hollywood serve a specific purpose by offering escapism through the films that were produced, or did they numb Americans, offering a quick relief from the pain of the Great Depression that only ached more once the shine of the film-going experience wore off? These are things West is thinking about in the novel.

For this week's blog entry, I want students to better understand the reality of America at this time as it will help them balance the typical Depression experience against both the fantasy and reality presented by Hollywood that West is examining. Students should spend some time looking through the photos on this website, which features over forty fascinating color images from around America during the Great Depression. Once you have looked through them all, copy and paste the image that impacted you the most into your own blog post and write about why you chose it. Also address how the image fits into our ongoing discussion about fantasy versus reality in The Day of the Locust. 

Into the Great Wide Open

This week, in Literature of California, we began Nathanel West's seminal Hollywood takedown novel, The Day of the Locust. Set in Depression-era Los Angeles, the novel follows Tod Hackett, an artist, and various fringe members of Hollywood society, all trying to make it on their own. Since its publication in 1939, there have been countless other similar stories told of the broken dreams and seedy underside of the Hollywood scene. As we move through this novel, we will discuss why Hollywood is such a perfect symbol for this theme of the fracture that happens when reality does not quite lives up to fantasy. It still holds truth and proves a draw for audiences today as Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga's A Star is Born is currently raking it in at the box office.

For this week's blog post, I want students to watch a classic early 1990s music video by the artist Tom Petty for his song "Into the Great Wide Open". In many ways, Petty is offering a musical update on the classic themes of The Day of the Locust. After you watch the video (putting aside the obvious dated aspects of the video itself), write a short paragraph in which you make some connections between what you have read so far of The Day of the Locust and the story told in the video. How does this song/video further expand our understanding of the Hollywood Dream Factory and expose some of the shadows in the sunlight of Tinseltown?

Here is the video:

The Tide Pool of Life

As we have been reading John Steinbeck's Cannery Row in Literature of California this past week, I've been thinking a lot about the idea of community and, specifically, how there seems to be a natural human impulse for each of us to take on certain roles within the different micro-communities we find ourselves in on a day-to-day basis. With my friends from college, for example, I'm often considered "the connector" because I tend to be the one who keeps us all in touch with one another and organizes events to get us all together from time to time. I've also been called "the diplomat" by others because I'm the person who usually tries to mitigate conflicts between friends by having them communicate in better, more thoughtful ways with one another. In high school, my senior class voted me "Most Socially Aware", but I think people were confused by this category and some people put my name down because I was pretty vocal about politics and world affairs, while others figured I always knew where the parties were that upcoming weekend. Needless to say, I've played different roles in different communities that I have found myself in over the course of my life.

In Cannery Row, Steinbeck uses the tide pools of Monterey as a symbol for the symbiotic relationships we see developing between the residents of the neighborhood. For this week's blog post, I want students to consider the Sage Hill School community in a similar way. Every high school community has groups, cliques, and stereotypes. For this week, you can take one of two approaches to your post:

1. Apply the tide pool metaphor to Sage Hill School. Who are the hermit crabs? Who are the barnacles? Are there predators and prey? Which groups work together, which are trying to gain power and who is just trying to stay afloat? Write 1-2 paragraphs where you analyze the social organizations that exist within our community.
2. Identify one of the social organizations in our community of which you are a member. This could be a friendship group, a sports team, an arts ensemble, an extracurricular club, etc. Who are the "players" in this organization and what is your social role in the group? Write 1-2 paragraphs where you describe the social structure of this organization and your role in it.

The Ocean in Seventeen Syllables

This week, in Literature of California, we have begun reading John Steinbeck's literary classic, Cannery Row. Set in Monterey during the great depression, Cannery Row is as much about the ocean as it is about the people that reside on Steinbeck's fictional street. You cannot talk about California, it seems, without mentioning the ocean. With over 1,100 miles of coastline, California is literally defined by the sea.

For this week's blog post, I want students to take a creative approach to their relationship with California's beaches. Please write a haiku (your standard 5/7/5 approach) that you feel captures your relationship to California's coastline. Once you write your haiku, choose an image to go along with it and then write a short paragraph explaining the meaning of your haiku.

Here's mine:

the smell hits you first

PCH, my windows down

the heart swells, i breathe

While I've been visiting the beaches of California my whole life, I never truly lived "at the beach" until I started working for Sage Hill over a decade ago and immediately moved to Belmont Shore, directly across the street from the ocean. Every day, when I would come home from work, no matter what sort of day I had, I would be struck by the smell of the beach whenever I opened my car door. In that moment, my shoulders would relax, my worries would lift a little, and I would simply breathe. The smell of the beach is a sensory connection to my past; some of my happiest memories take place in and around the ocean, so each time I opened that car door or lowered my windows, I was transported back to a time of fun and relaxation. This is my California beach experience.

The Single Story of California's Regions

The past couple of weeks we have divided the state of California into three (very broad) geographical regions: the Bay Area, the Southland, and the Heartland. In doing so, we have also read literature, both historical and contemporary, from each region in order to come to a better understanding of whether or not there are regional "voices" in California literature and, if so, what are their defining characteristics. Certainly, California's diversity is something that comes up in nearly every one of our conversations about the literature of the state, so there is no way we can do justice to the multitude of experiences found throughout our state, but as students learned from Chimamanda Adichie in 10th grade English, it isn't that stereotypes are not necessarily untrue, but rather that they are incomplete.

For this blog entry, I want students to identify a stereotype that comes to mind to them when they think about each of the three regions and then how that stereotype was either reinforced or challenged by one of the texts that we read from that region. Thus, you should have at least three paragraphs (one paragraph per region) in which you identify the stereotype for that region and then use one of the texts that we read from that region for your commentary. Good luck and I look forward to reading your reflections!

Homeland Poetry

In our Literature of California class, we have transitioned into our California Regions unit. We have broken up the state into three distinct regions: The Bay Area, The Southland, and the Heartland. Last week we read works about the Bay Area and this week we are moving into our discussion of the Southland.

One of the poems students read over the weekend was "Santa Ana of Grocery Carts" by Aracelis Girmay. This evocative poem is a sensory observation of the Santa Ana that Girmay grew up in. In reading the poem, you can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel Girmay's Santa Ana. It is both a love letter and a study of her hometown.

For this week's blog post, I want my students to write their own sensory poem about the city that they live in. I'm looking for at least 10 lines of poetry (they need not rhyme) that draw the reader into the sensory experience of your city. Besides the poem, please write 4-5 sentences where you describe your town and a little bit of the inspiration for your poem. Please also include an image of your city as well.

Above is a picture of the city that I grew up in, Rancho Cucamonga. More specifically, I grew up in Alta Loma, a smaller "town" within the city of RC. Nestled at the base of Mount Baldy in San Bernardino county, whenever I think about where I grew up, the mountains always loom large in the background. I had no idea how lucky I was to wake up and go to sleep to the sight of these mountain while I was growing up there, but now, whenever I see them, I know that I am home. Here is my poem:

high land

by Greg McCandless

main streets became flood channels

during heavy storms

mountain flotsam, human garbage

           pooling at four-stop intersections, a one-stoplight town. too

small for me.

small world, full of 

whites, mexicans, blacks, Tongans, Mormons,

       red tile roofs, citrus groves and houses,

three floorplans in our subdivision, alternating and reversed,

a puzzle that, once figured out,

confirmed my fear of conformity.

majestic mountains, majesty for some

overbearing parents

of one.

crisp, cold winter mornings, breathe rising

and mixing with smog, tight

lungs, tightening even more until

an escape plan is hatched

alta loma, high land

         bye land. Still,

i'm always drawn back.

The "Picture Perfect" State

Welcome to my blog! My name is Greg McCandless and I'm an English teacher at the Sage Hill School in Newport Coast, California. This year, I am teaching a senior English elective course called "Literature of California". Over the course of the year, we are going to be tackling the question of what it means to be "of California" through novels, short stories, poetry, film, and other mediums in a quest to better understand the rich and diverse state that we live in.

Over the summer, my students were asked to read the novel The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar as well as some short critical pieces by David Wyatt and Wallace Stegner. They also were able to pick a "California" film to watch (including LA Confidential, The Maltese Falcon, Milk, and LA Story). We then spent the first week of school discussing these texts and setting thematic goals for ourselves as we work out what the definition we currently have for "California" is and how that might evolve as the year progresses.

This week, students were asked to create a visual metaphor that represents their current definition of California and the results were really fascinating, everything from collage to sculpture to an animated flip-book.

In addition to our ongoing reading, I will be asking students to regularly write a weekly blog, in which we will discuss and explore some of the ideas that we talk about in class in more depth. You will soon be able to see a list of all of my students' blogs here on my blog homepage and I encourage folks to come back and check out some of the great work my students are doing.

For this week's blog post, I want to riff on the idea that "one picture is worth a thousand words". I want my students to choose a picture (either a personal photo or one they find on their own) that they feels captures their "California". They will upload the picture and then not only introduce themselves to their readers, but also explain why this picture best captures their ideas about the State we live in.

Here is my picture:

This is a picture of me taken at Newport Beach sometime when I was around five or six years old (so likely around 1982 or 1983). I chose this picture to represent "my California" because it captures every really great memory I have from growing up in California. I lived about forty-five minutes from the coast but we went there often as a family and usually rented a house in Newport every summer for a week or two. I've always felt particularly drawn to the ocean and I think that is mostly because I spent so many happy times there as a child. To me, California is a place of freedom and endless possibility- which is captured in the perspective of this photo as the ocean seems to seamlessly blur into the blue-gray skies behind me. It is also a place of warmth and carefree attitudes; it is a state that values individuality and creativity. It is my home.