In honor of Noir All Night, a marathon of film noir screenings set for Cambridge’s Harvard Film Archive on August 31st, Fuse film critic Betsy Sherman has written a series of haiku inspired by “the cycle of fatalistic, pessimistic and visually striking crime dramas that flourished in the 1940s and 1950s.” The march of “bleak and hard-boiled dramas of despair and loneliness [that] offer both a fascinating vision of the American dream gone woefully wrong and an artistically daring revision of the classical style refined by the Hollywood studios” kicks off at 7 p.m. The films in the marathon will include The Big Combo, Force of Evil, The Scarf, Sudden Fear, The Naked City, Split Second, and Dark Passage.

Send in your own haiku if the muse strikes.

[1]

Hand cupped over phone
Disgraced cop succumbs to fate
We are all tainted

[2]

A back-lit back lot
Rain that never knew the sky
Weeps down window panes

[3]

Crooked stocking seams
She always picked the wrong guy
Reeks of brilliantine

[4]

Film noir marathon
Emulsion thick with shadows
Dreams in minor key

— Betsy Sherman