Film Noir’s Visionary Genius: John Alton
FILM NOIR’S VISIONARY GENIUS: JOHN ALTON, a two-night, four-film tribute to the legendary cinematographer is being presented by Elliot Lavine, who was part of the programming team at The Roxie from 1990 – 2003, then again as guest programmer from 2009 – 2016. His ground-breaking Film Noir and Hollywood Pre-Code programs re-ignited widespread passion for these wonderfully subversive films.
In any meaningful discussion of film noir, inevitably the conversation turns to the name John Alton, someone only the most dedicated followers of this film style instantly recognize. John Alton didn’t merely photograph these seemingly ordinary “B” films, he virtually redefined the inherent look of film noir in the late 1940s, investing them with carefully composed shadow patterns, blending their inky blackness perfectly with the white-hot images lurking behind those shadows in ways not exactly seen before. Alton’s work in the realm of film noir remains unparalleled; wholly imaginative, inventively stimulating, ultimately establishing him as a true master in the art of film noir.
The four films presented in this tribute—RAW DEAL (1948), HOLLOW TRIUMPH (1948), THE AMAZING MR. X (1948) and THE BIG COMBO (1955)—represent four of Alton’s best examples of the film noir style, each a brilliant classic in their own right and all once part of the Roxie’s annual film noir festivals back in the 90s and early 00s.
Elliot Lavine, who was originally brought to the Roxie Cinema in early 1990 as a part-time blurb writer for the theater’s printed calendar would soon go on to become a full-time programmer known nationally for his revivals of long-forgotten films as well as his groundbreaking film noir and pre-code festivals all the way up to 2016, before leaving the Bay Area for the Pacific Northwest in 2017. He continues to teach film studies classes for Stanford (via Zoom) and programs a weekly series of classic films for Tom Ranieri’s Cinema 21 in Portland.
‘Film Noir’s Visionary Genius: John Alton‘ serves as a vital addition to Arthouse 50, Roxie’s year-long series paying tribute to past films and their programmers who set the pace, temperament, and aesthetic guideposts for the first 50 years of this cinema’s mission of unspooling the highest order of artistic merit in a medium just barely over a century old.
