It is here. The new week is upon us. A new time. A time of changes and uncertainty. People cling to their comforts and are distrusting of the 'new' more than ever. Closer we draw to one another. We find that after the revelutions of information and technology, we have not brung peace to one another, but friction. This friction causes heat. The heat stirs the blood and makes mad the minds of people.

The political climate has shifted and coupled with the financial meltdown, has caused all politicians' heads to explode. The sheer force of the tremors coming from the capital has caused a rift. Time has collided with itself and had brought two brothers onto the stage for the contemporary world to see.

Cain v. Abel















"This is no field. Where have you taken us, Cain?" Abel turns. "What's that? Is that a club in your hand?"

"No matter where we are, I have taken you away to kill you. You will serve our God no more."

As Cain brings down his club, his brother reaches with both hands to stop the blow. Fierceness on their faces, they struggle with the club above their heads. Cain's teeth bare and are feral through his beard.

Wrestling on the green of the National Mall, they have already drawn a crowd. Tourists circle with cameras clicking and flashing. Somewhere in the distance, guards are blowing their wistles and coming closer.

The club is jostled out of their hands and fallen onto the floor. The brothers separate and crab walk in circles. Their dance of battle has taken them away from the strange new world around them. They do not think of what has become of their open plains and flocks of sheep and farms. What are these strange buildings and what strange people inhabit them. Cain instead focuses on his brothers blood, how sweet the ground would taste it. Abel, ever the holy son of Adam, prays to God for his strength.


















Abel says, "you've lost it, brother."

"I will kill you."

Cain lunges and they grab one another by the shoulders. In the air, the humidity of the Eastern United States fuses and lightning cracks the clouds. In the boom of its thunder the first sons of Adam are locked in struggle and vicious. Far off, President Lincoln sits watching this epic battle.

Spittle foams amongst the hairs of Cain's beard. Abel, awestruck by his brother's ferocity, is taken away from the moment for just a second and is disgusted by his brother's appearance. So beastly, he thinks. What devils have taken my parents' from their first home have possessed my brother today.

"Abba."

Cain hisses.

"Abba."

"This bodes ill for you, brother," Cain says. "He is not here. This is a forsaken place."

Cain overtakes Abel and pushes him to the floor. As Abel falls, he strikes his head against a stone. The fall bedazzles him. Abel looks to the United States sky now, completely removed, seeing the clouds stir dark and more lighting flash. The thunder boom ripples the sky. Lighting flashes again and he suddenly sees Cain's eyes. His brother has retrieved the club and weilds it over his head ready to strike.

"Brother," Cain says. "Remember this place of desolation. See these people watching us. Watching you die. No one comes to save you. No one speaks up. No one. No one."

"Really? No one? There's like, thirty people here."

"Yeah," Cain says. His face has dropped to a confused look. "Strange." Cain lowers his club and removes his foot from Abel's chest. Helps him up.

"What's really going on here?"

Cain looks out. He is numb now, not knowing what to make of it all. The strangeness of everything has just settled in.

The people are circling now. They surround the brothers taking pictures and pointing. Japanese tourists are speaking swiftly and their voices sound like stones cascading down a hillside.

"What are you doing?" Abel says.

Someone there speaks their language. A man in a business suit. "You guys are crazy."

"Crazy? I'm about to kill my brother and you do nothing."

"What's crazy is that I can't speak to God here." Abel's head is turned up and eyes focused to the sworling grey clouds. "What's going on, where are we?"

"You're trying to talk to God and you think we're crazy. This is America. Who are you anyway?"

"Cain."

"Abel."

"Crazy," the man in the suit says. "Come to the real world. We're dealing with crisis. No one can get a house anymore. Our money is losing value. It's harder to buy food."

"Money?" Abel says. "Is that like your word for Honor? Or Dignity?"

"What?" The man in the suit says.

"Your crops won't grow? Why don't you build your house?" Cain says. "There's no materials?"

"Build?"

A Japanese tourist approaches them. She smiles and her teeth are brown. "Excuse me. What is your name?"

"What did she say?"

The man in the suit says, "she wants to know your name."

"Cain."

"McCain!" The Japanese tourist says. Her companions rush them taking pictures.

"What the hell are they doing." Cain raises his club.

"It's okay. It's okay." The man in the suit is pushing the club back down. "They're taking pictures. Good God."

"God. Abba." Abel raises his hands to the sky.

" You still haven't answered me," Cain says. "Why can't you build your house?"

"Are you kidding? I don't know how to build a house."

"And you say we're crazy?" Cain scoffs and pushes the Japanese tourists away from him.

"Abba."

"Shut up, Abel." Cain looks at the man. "What kind of man are you? Can't build a house? I bet you can't grow your food or raise herds. My brother's a weakling and he can raise herds. Come on."

"You don't know. We're in a new age. The technology age. You're stuck in the past. I can get things done with just a push of a button."

"Yeah, but you can't build a house. You can't gather your own food. That's what you need right now and you can't do it. What good are your magic buttons and money?"

"He can't raise his own food? He can't herd? What kind of man is he?"

"Yes, Abel. I know. Stop looking at the sky and lets find some place where the people have their minds right."

Watch: Maltese Falcon; Detour; The Set Up; DOA; Touch of Evil; Double Indemnity

Read: A Panorama of American Film Noir by Borde and Chaumeton

Party people and you film buffs,

Why, you ask, will we discuss this. It's so old and hokey. Old is hokey. Talk about politics and ipods and cutting edge technology.

I respond with a quick slap to the face.

This is one of the greatest eras in American Film. It began in 1941 with an epic movie and an epic leading actor: The Maltese Falcon with Humphrey Bogart. It came at a time when the United States was starving and weak from the Great Depression. Teeth bared and sharp and gritting hard from pain. The party of the 1920's was over and the hangover was here, hard, those who had become drunk from the excess now hated the world with a headache as big as Europe.



Color film had just been introduced and musicals capitalized on the goodness of it all to try to keep people in love with the saccharine. At the same time, many film directors and cinematographers from Europe were fleeing to the United States, the only nation not involved in World War II at the time. Therein began a harsh reaction that sent movies reeling away from the imagined prosperity and glee. Things weren't about smiles and happy feet anymore. People were poor. Damnit. People were hungry. Imagine you need to feed your family and you see store owners pouring good milk into the sewers, tossing produce into the trash, because they'd rather get rid of their stock and lose the money than give it away.

Films like the Maltese Falcon began to slap these musical films silly, essentially saying, "wake up. Why the hell are you dancing? You look like a fool with those tapping shoes."

Then, the morose of it all shifted films into the extreme and birthed Film Noir. With the Maltese Falcon, one saw a story line where the happy ending dissolved into an ending where no one came out clean. The good guys got beat. The bad guys wound up losing what they were after. Even in terms of character, the 'good guy' didn't even exist. The protagonist you followed on screen was often a crooked and lusty private investigator or a man who's trying to get away from his life and cheat on his girl every chance he got.

Take a look at Bogart's face. This is you're protagonist now.



The effect of these films and this kind of character acting was so profound that people on the street seriously thought that Bogart was a real tough guy like the characters he played on screen. Lucky for him, he was a real tough guy and he kicked serious ass. But I digress.

One can even attribute Film Noir to the advancement of the female character, which would soon be complimented by the 'Rosie the Riveter' campaign that promoted female independence and the image of the working woman, while the men were either enlisted or got drafted to fight in Europe and the Pacific soon after Pearl Harbor.

In Film Noir specifically, the damsel in distress and the innocent, fervently valued woman archetypes were replaced by the sly and foxy and ultimately corrupted. The woman who had her own plans and a gun to get her way. Unlike the singing dancing and melodramatic, this woman lied, had sexual hunger, was selfish and vicious just like the men. To the extreme, she was like this all the damned time.



Needless to say, all the leading ladies today can attribute the depth and complexity of their roles to this movement in film and storytelling. The men too, who the hell would want to keep singing and dancing and forgetting that across the middle part of America dust storms killed vast acres of crops and destroyed the farming economy? People were hungry. Damnit.

Film Noir also incorporated the best in film effects and in the best way--being poor. The bulk of films in this genre were produced by B-rated companies and therefore budgets were low. No color for these films. No expensive backdrops and special effects. They did it the hard way. The hard core way, through the use of dynamic camera angles and use of lighting. The most notable of techniques was Chiaroscuro--the use of shadows to create dynamic effects so to result in visual tension. Thank Film Noir for the image of the menacing shadow crawling up the wall. It began with shadowy figures of men and women running around in their dark dark world with so many secrets and guns that have fired too many bullets.