NOIRVEMBER is coming to a close at Central Cinema — and Knoxville’s newly opened indie theater is ending with a special presentation of Out of the Past projected in 16mm.
When Arts Knoxville interviewed Central Cinema co-founders William Mahaffey and Nick Huinker this past summer, we talked a lot about celluloid. Central Cinema is the only theater in Knoxville with the expressed intent to screen films on film regularly, but projecting is a logistical puzzle for a small, one-room moviehouse like Central Cinema–the size of their space makes 35mm projection impossible for the time being, even though they own a projector. The 16mm projection will be handled by the former TAMIS head Bradley Reeves, who currently runs a company called Cinegraphic Archives & Preservation. Out of the Past will be the theater’s first feature length film projected on celluloid.
As Central Cinema’s culminating event in what the online film community calls “Noirvember,” Out of the Past wraps up an eclectic slate of movies. As singular as the noir genre is, it is far from monolithic, as evidenced by Central Cinema’s programming. The slate has included indisputable classics like Double Indemnity and Touch of Evil alongside slasher-adjacent Italian mysteries like The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Deep Red, as well as cult-status neo-noirs such as The Big Lebowski and Blade Runner. Out of the Past is an appropriate capper to the series, as it circles back to traditional character tropes while also reminding audiences how versatile the genre can be.
The story of the film is, on one level, familiar enough: a detective is asked to track down a woman who has run off with a gambler’s money, but he ends up falling for the woman (Jane Greer) in the process. However, two things make the drama unique: its star and its structure. The former is Robert Mitchum, one of the great American actors who is best known for his heel turn in Night of the Hunter, a Southern Gothic childhood fairy tale that features Mitchum as a homicidal preacher. In Out of the Past, Mitchum trades his natural charm for a stiff-lipped deadpan, each line dropping out of his mouth like a stone in a river.
Mitchum’s approach to the role is understated yet sharp: he plays into the role of noir’s stereotypical aloof pragmatist, but he secretly possesses a strategist’s cunning. Mitchum’s narrowed eyes can at once be read as those of a simpleton and those of a snake, and he deceivingly gestures towards the former. “It’s too late in life for me to start thinkin,” he says at one point in the film. In another, he verbally spars with a woman who says of Mitchum: “For a man who appears to be so clever, you can certainly act like an idiot.” Mitchum responds: “That’s one way to be clever–look like an idiot.” Ironically, neither cleverness nor simplicity is much help to Mitchum in a game that has the deck stacked against him.
Because structurally, Mitchum’s detective protagonist is trapped in a narrative arc that offers him almost no agency. The comparison is perhaps cliché, but Out of the Past really does play as a Greek Tragedy, in which every major event has been decided on beforehand. As the title suggests, the past haunts Mitchum’s character: the film opens with him trying his hand at small-town domesticity before his past association with a gambling crime-boss (a very young Kirk Douglas!) catches up with him, leading into a half-hour-long flashback of his past misdeeds. Later, he is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, the only man who can clear his name is killed before he can arrive, and his only opportunity to escape with his life is a barely-concealed plot to double-cross him.
Out of the Past is directed by Jacques Tourneur, a French director who was prolific in Hollywood, thrice alongside horror visionary Val Lewton. I can’t pretend to know the full breadth of Tourneur’s filmography, but I’ve seen enough to know that the man has a penchant for place, making any space feel intimate and real. Whether it’s the oft-exoticized world of Haitian “Voodoo” in I Walked With a Zombie or the pastoral small-town south of Stars In My Crown, Tourneur was able to direct his actors and capture the light with a softness of touch that always feels authentic even when there are obvious amounts of movie magic present.
Noir is, of course, full of dark, expressive, and clearly artificial shadows, but Tourneur works to universalize the visual world of noir in Out of the Past. In other words: the film doesn’t just take place in the concrete jungle, but also in the mountainous countryside, a bramble-filled forest, a windswept beach, and even sun-drenched Mexico. In Tourneur’s film, all of these settings are imbued with the ethereal darkness of noir, while also feeling real enough to touch. I daresay I’ve never seen images like these in any other noir film.
Central Cinema will be presenting two screenings of Out of the Past this weekend to wrap up their Noirvember series: one on Friday, November 30th, at 7:00pm, and one on Sunday. December 2nd, at 4:30pm. Both screenings will be presented on 16mm and—as an added bonus—will be preceded by three celluloid short films by the great silent comedians, Charlie Chaplin (“The Immigrant”), Buster Keaton (“Cops”), and Harold Lloyd (“Haunted Spooks”). What more could a cinephile want?
Central Cinema
1205 N. Central Street
Knoxville, TN 37917
info@centralcinemaknox.com
(865) 951-2447
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the 16mm projection was being handled by TAMIS. Central Cinema’s 16mm projection will be handled by the former TAMIS head Bradley Reeves, who currently runs a company called Cinegraphic Archives & Preservation.
