By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GREENWICH VILLAGE — The New School is taking a dark turn this weekend.
Starting Saturday, the Greenwich Village university is presenting the first New School Arts Festival: Noir, a week-long celebration of noir film, theater, opera, literature and digital art.
Dramatic characters like slinky private eyes, seedy gangsters and femme fatales recur in noir, the classic American genre that delves into the alienation of modern life and was coined by a French critic in 1946.
The cynical and clever subject matter is the perfect fit for the brand new festival and its organizers, who come from the school's liberal arts, drama and writing departments, said university president David E. Van Zandt.
"The Arts Festival reflects the range of artistic and intellectual activity at the New School," said Van Zandt.
"What better theme to launch this first event than noir?"
The genre's stylish and dramatic elements reverberate in the festival's movies, including the Coen brothers' first feature film "Blood Simple," "Mildred Pierce" by filmmaker Todd Hayes, and Guy Maddin’s "Hauntings."
Poets Robert Pinsky and Mary Gaitskill delve into the genre's literary undercurrent by reading noir literature to a live jazz accompaniment.
Presentations also explore how noir grew over time by examining the genre's effect on music, looking at 1980s bands such as Lounge Lizards and Rootless Cosmopolitans.
While classic pieces in the New School’s festival reflect a more traditional view of the genre, speakers also discuss how new noir subjects take on a more modern, isolated persona, a spokesperson for the New School said.
"The term has come to suggest the alienation and disorientation of modern life, characterized by stark silhouettes, sexual frankness, stylized emotion and the absence of sentimentality," its website says.
To get a detailed schedule of events, visit the New School Arts Festival website.