Week 11: David Lynch, Television Procedurals, and Neo-Noir

Evolution of Detective Shows

• Dragnet followed a case-of-the-week format, good guys vs. bad guys

• Columbo was more subversive, but the cases were always solved and Columbo was the “good guy”

• Hill Street Blues is influenced by soap operas and has flawed characters, cops don’t always solve cases

David Simon

• Created The Wire

• Originally a police reporter in Baltimore

• His book inspired Homicide: Life on the Street

Barry Levinson

• Directed several films set in Baltimore, like Diner, Tin Men, and Avalon

• Executive produced and directed episodes of Dopesick

• Helped develop and direct episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street with David Simon

• Directed Rain Man, won Best Director at the Oscars

Paul Attanasio

• Wrote the pilot for Homicide: Life on the Street

• Created several TV shows

• Wrote films like Donnie Brasco

Tom Fontana

• Showrunner for Homicide: Life on the Street

• Worked on St. Elsewhere

• Created Oz

Rise of FOX

• Rupert Murdoch launched in 1986 for very little money

• Unavailable in certain parts of the US until 1991

• Launched The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, the first late night show hosted by a woman

• Married… With Children, The Simpsons, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, In Living Color, America’s Most Wanted, Cops, The X-Files

Chris Carter

• Known as a comedy writer

• Wrote Disney TV movies like The B.R.A.T. Patrol

• Pitched The X-Files to FOX after learning that 10% of Americans believed they’d contacted aliens

The Scully Effect

• Scully in The X-Files is a competent, skeptic scientist who is different from other women on TV at the time

• Inspired young women to go into STEM fields

David Lynch

• Went to the American Film Institute

• Directed Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, etc.

• Developed and directed Twin Peaks with Mark Frost

Mark Frost

• Helped develop and write Twin Peaks

• Worked on Hill Street Blues

• Experience in ensemble-driven TV influenced by soap operas

Homicide: Life on the Street

• Influential but often overlooked

• Seven seasons on NBC

• Morally complex

• One episode can track multiple investigations at once, some cases are never solved

• Similar to Hill Street Blues and The Wire

• Based on a book by David Simon

• Developed by Barry Levinson who directed some episodes

• NBC provided lots of creative freedom due to Levinson’s positive reputation

• Paul Attanasio wrote the pilot

• Tom Fontana became the showrunner

• Not many action pieces, focused more on emotional impact

• Described as “a series of interconnected short stories”

• Breakout star was Andre Brougher as Frank Pembleton

• Shot on location in Baltimore

• Shot through handheld cameras to save money, gave show a grainy documentary feel

• Premiered after the Super Bowl

• Moved to Friday nights

• Always under threat of cancellation

The X-Files

• Created by Chris Carter

• Ran on FOX, intended to be a different version of other networks’ detective shows

• Ran for nine seasons

• Two feature films and two revival seasons

• Inspired by Rod Serling’s work and Kolchak the Night Stalker

• Aired on Friday nights, not a typical time slot for a hit show

• Tapped into a feeling that the government was lying

• Early internet fandom

• Scully was a competent skeptic scientist, different from how women were portrayed on TV at the time

Twin Peaks

• Inspired by soap operas like Dallas

• Many viewers were intrigued by Who Killed Laura Palmer (even though that WASN’T THE POINT!!!!!)

• Surreal elements

• Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost

• Inspired The X-Files, Fringe, Lost, The Leftovers, Fargo, True Detective

• Inspired by a real unresolved murder

• Strong emotional core

• Example of “event viewing”

Law & Order

• Created by Dick Wolf, who worked on Hill Street Blues

• 65 seasons between original series and spin-offs, over 1300 episodes

• Half police procedural, half courtroom drama

• Case-of-the-week format

• Often cynical

Quentin Tarantino

• Provocative and quirky dialogue, pop culture references

• Variety of genres

• Stylized violence

• Pays homage to past films

• Two Oscars for screenwriting

• Two BAFTAS

• Four Golden Globes

• Criticized for degree of violence and use of racial slurs

• Worked at a video rental store

• Acted as an Elvis impersonator in The Golden Girls

• Directed Reservoir Dogs, etc.

The Wachowski Sisters

• Started careers writing Marvel comics

• Sold screenplay for 1 million, but the script got rewritten and they got their credits removed

• Sold script for The Matrix under the condition that they could direct

• Wrote and directed Bound to prove that they could direct

Martin Scorsese

• Influential in New Hollywood after directing Mean Streets

• Goodfellas was a personal film, he grew up near the mob but had to stay inside watching movies due to asthma

The Coen Brothers

• From Minnesota

• NYU film school and Princeton for philosophy

• Worked on Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead

• Directorial debut was Blood Simple

• Directed Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, and Fargo

Goodfellas

• Personal film for Martin Scorsese

• Based on a nonfiction book about Henry Hill by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi

• A lot of the dialogue was improvised

Bound

• Directorial debut for the Wachowski sisters

• Studios wanted to change the lesbian romance to a heterosexual one

• Sometimes considered the first mainstream Hollywood film to put a lesbian relationship at the center without the relationship itself being the point of the story

• Occasionally considered exploitative by “male” filmmakers, reassessed after the Wachowskis both came out as trans women

Reservoir Dogs

• Heist film that takes place after a robbery

• Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, debut

• Inspired by The Killing (Stanley Kubrick)

• Harvey Keitel liked the script, offered to act and produce the film, put up own money to get the film made

• Subtext and character writing under stylized violence

Fargo

• Directed by the Coen Brothers

• Idea from writer’s block on Miller’s Crossing

• Dark comedy neo-noir

• Allegedly based on a true story, but it’s not

• Huge hit, critically acclaimed

• Won Oscar for Best Screenplay

• Inspired TV show