In a Lonely Place

I love film noir. I just finished watching In a Lonely Place which was made in 1950 and stars Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. It's one of those movies that you don't realize how good it is until after it's over and you start to think about it, and then all the little things hit you and you just want to watch it again.

I love how it ends, it's probably one of the best and least anticipated endings in film history. You are just left with this feeling of question and inevitability at the same time. I love how as the audience you are taken along on the same emotional journey as the characters and how you come to the same conclusion. And yet you want to have this hoped for idealized ending that you've come to expect in other movies, but then you think about it and realize that the director was a genius, and that if it had had the typical ending it would be like last year's romantic comedy, ............ whatever its name was, and end up forgotten.

I feel a kinship with film noir and it wasn't until I saw this film that I realized that I explore the same general themes in my art, the alienation, the tension, the contemplation of the inevitable, the ultimate loneliness we all face, and forced acceptance of our situation.