* la vie noir.

aesthetic sideblog to dunnithole.

[connerys]

How to Steal a Million (1966) dir. William Wyler

[noitblanc]

                               𝙲𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙶𝙾𝚁𝚈 𝙸𝚂: 𝙿𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙲 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙻𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚂. 

[noitblanc]

                                          𝐊𝐍𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐔𝐓:  𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐏𝐓 𝐕𝐒. 𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐒 

[deforest]

WILLIAM HOLDEN in BORN YESTERDAY (1950) dir. George Cukor

[noitblanc]

                   THE KNIVES OUT YOUTUBE CHANNEL 

Benoit Blanc makes an appearance in the official Youtube Channel of the movie inspired in his real life accomplishment, Knives Out. Eventually, the platform will also be hosting the subsequent movies of the Benoit Blanc franchise. Blanc is heavily featured in the official channel, having given a number of interviews about his work during the press tour of the first movie. Most notably, he speaks about parallels between himself and his cinematic version, pointing out that his interpreter failed to grow a presentable beard at the time of filming even though the director and Blanc himself had asked him to try for more accuracy. Alas, while Blanc usually sports a very virile beard in real life, his big screen counterpart can only settle for a five o'clock shadow. 

[noitblanc]

                 BENOIT BLANC'S OFFICIAL WIKIPEDIA PAGE

After the success proceeding the movie Knives Out, Benoit Blanc became a figure of keen public interest. Once being mentioned by the director as the main source of inspiration to the movie, people began to grow more and more curious about the real life detective. His Wikipedia page was set up in December of 2019, following the premiere and global success of the picture, and some dedicated fans began to gather all the information they could find on the detective. It came as a surprise to them to see so many news articles linked to his name, all exclusively related to some of the most high profile cases of the last decade. 

Unbeknownst to the general public, Blanc keeps a close eye on the page. He makes a point out of checking it every other week for the sake of maintaining accuracy, and sometimes even embellishing some of his reported cases if need be. Be sure that most adjectives on the page praising his person were written by the man himself.  

[noitblanc]

𝙻𝙰𝚄𝚁𝙰 𝙳𝙴𝚁𝙽 - 𝙰 𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚈 𝙶𝙾𝙾𝙳 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳. 

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to call Laura one of Blanc's closest friends. He and the actress met around 2012, during a case Blanc had been working in Los Angeles. So many NDAs were signed due to the highly public people involved that little else is known about the real circumstances of their first encounter, but it's a fact that the one thing that came out of it was their friendship. 

Dern and Blanc get along swimmingly, often seen commenting on each other's posts on social media and hanging out in person when they happen to be in the same city. The last time he stayed in LA for an extended period of time, Blanc and Dern were spotted together so often that the press began to speculate a romance between the tow. Such claims were soon denied by the pair, but they left a permanent mark on the detective's Wikipedia page nonetheless.

Laura is one of the few people Blanc openly admits to being friends to, and one of the even fewer whose praises he sings frequently. She was the one who introduced him to director Rian Jo/hnson, which ultimately led to the two getting together to make the series of movies based on Blanc and his cases. 

When Laura claimed to have seen Baby Yoda during a basketball game, Blanc was the first person to back her up publicly. "I was there, and so was that little frog. We saw it." He tweeted.  

[noitblanc]

𝚂𝙸𝙼𝙾𝙽 𝚁𝙰𝚃𝙲𝙻𝙸𝙵𝙵 - 𝙰 𝚁𝙴𝙶𝚄𝙻𝙰𝚁 𝙲𝙻𝙸𝙴𝙽𝚃.

Blanc and Ratcliff met under a cloud of tragedy, which is typically the way with most of the investigator’s connections. Simon had hired Blanc’s services to uncover the truth about his younger brother’s death, which at the time had been ruled out as an accident. Alas, Blanc rose to the occasion and found out that such accident had been arranged by one of Ratcliff’s considerable enemies. After the case had been solved, it was reported that the Englishman held the private investigator at the highest regard, and was infinitely grateful for the work.

Simon Ratcliff, one of the wealthiest men in England, began to rely more heavily on Blanc’s services after the first time their paths crossed. With a great many people who saw him as a target, Simon was often a victim of theft. His considerable collection of paintings, statues and objects d'art  – spread all throughout the globe – occasionally found itself missing one or two artefacts. At every single one of such occasions, Mr. Benoit Blanc has been called to recover the piece and identify its thief. He has yet to fail in this duty.

It is said that when Blanc is in London, he stays at flat in West Kensington that belongs to Mr. Ratfcliff, one of many courtesies that the billionaire has offered Mr. Blanc as payback for granting him the peace of mind that came with his brother’s killer being brought to justice.  

[noitblanc]

𝙳𝚁. 𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙰𝚂 𝙶𝚁𝙴𝙴𝙽𝚆𝙾𝙾𝙳  -   𝙰 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳

Blanc was a lot more prone to injury in his earlier years of investigating, where his method was not yet set in stone and he’d be quicker to jump into action rather than think things through. It resulted in quite a lot of unnecessary physical confrontations, many of which needed tending to afterwards. It was just his luck that at the time, while living in New York, Benoit’s next door neighbour was a man as good as Dr. Greenwood.

The older man had caught sight of then young and bloody lad in the hallway of their floor and taken him in to tend to his injuries. A medical practitioner, Elias was just was Benoit had needed to ensure that he would live to fight another day. Their relationship had begun strictly professional at first, with Dr. Greenwood paying assistance to Benoit when he needed. However, a friendship between the two soon blossomed and they begun hanging out even when Blanc hadn’t been beaten to a pulp.

Greenwood would invite Benoit for meals with his family, seeing that the young man was rather lonesome, and made him feel like a part of the Greenwood clan. Though Elias is no longer Blanc’s go-to doctor to tend to his every injury  –  he hardly spends any time in the city anymore, with his cases taking him across the globe  –  they still keep in touch regularly. Elias is one of the few people in this world who Benoit considers a true friend, and holds the doctor in the utmost regard.

[noitblanc]

𝙴𝚅𝙰 𝚁𝙾𝙻𝙵𝙴  -  𝙰𝙽 𝙸𝙼𝙿𝙾𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙱𝙸𝙻𝙸𝚃𝚈

Eva Rolfe is a world-class violinist, the very best of her field. She was a key part of Blanc’s first high profile case, which concerned the murder of her father, the obnoxiously wealthy banker Frederick Rolfe. While working the case, Blanc became close with the victim’s daughter, having her by his side through every step of the ordeal, as the men who had her father killed had their eyes on her next. The intensity of circumstances made fast friends out of the two, and then something more. Blanc fell in love with the musician, though he would never admit to it.

Though the feeling was reciprocated, the two of them knew better than to expect the romance to ever work out. Much like everything else in Blanc’s life, their story was far fromordinary. They keep in touch through letters, and only meet in person when Eva has a concert at city that Blanc is currently in. She will send two front row tickets to his office, always accompanied by a note: You can only bring someone that can make you take your eyes off me. As Blanc has never met such a person, he has yet to make use of the second ticket. He suspects he never will.

Eva knows him better than most; perhaps the only person alive who knows his real name, and whispers it in his ear when the two are behind closed doors. She likes to tease him by saying one day he will retire and live out his days with her on a little Portuguese village where she resides at her hillside manor. Privately, Blanc entertains the idea, despite knowing it’s improbable. They both do.

[noitblanc]

𝙱𝙸𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙰 𝙼𝙰𝚁𝚂𝙷𝙰𝙻𝙻  -  𝙰 𝙳𝙸𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙸𝙲𝚃 𝙰𝚃𝚃𝙾𝚁𝙽𝙴𝚈

Marshall was not yet a DA when she and Blanc first crossed paths. At first, they had gotten along well enough. She was a prosecutor and he was a star witness in the case she was working against the defendant. On that occasion, she had nothing but high praise to say about the detective whose testimony helped her sway the jury to her side. Her affection for Blanc only lasted until the next case. The next time he took the stand before Marshall, Blanc was adamant in proving that the state had the wrong person. He made her job a living hell then. She was not so fond of him anymore.

Such is the relationship between Bianca Marshall and Benoit Blanc, whose professions keep them going from allies to opponents from case to case. Outside of court, the two have a perfectly civil relationship. Though they may not be the best of friends, they are respectful acquaintances. Blanc admires the esquire greatly, said as much when a journalist approached him about Marshall’s appointment to the DA’s office while they were both involved in yet another high profile trial.

There was an occasion where the two were caught having brunch together while the detective was not involved in any form of trial, and the prosecutor appeared in court the day after with a rather incredible story weaved against the defendant based solely on the evidences her office had gathered. Papers said Marshall did some remarkable detective work.

On the same vein, Blanc had found himself caught up with some legal trouble after being framed for a crime he did not commit. The duo was spotted sharing yet another meal together. Blanc then managed to dodge the accusations and clear his name. Witnesses claim that he had utilised of some rather clever legal tools.

[noitblanc]

𝙰𝙽𝙽𝙰 𝙽𝙰𝙿𝙸𝙴𝚁  -  𝙰 𝚁𝙸𝚅𝙰𝙻.

Anna is the daughter of a renowned master thief, Evelyn Napier. Keen to get out of her mother’s shadow, Anna began to make a name for herself by pulling a series of elaborate cons all throughout Europe. Her most remarkable one being a series of art thefts around Tuscany, chiefly in Florence, where works by Old Masters were disappearing mysteriously. It was the reason why Benoit Blanc spent a season on the city.

To this day, Blanc openly admits these were the most fascinating theft cases he’s ever worked on. His preference for mysteries involving killers faded in the background during the time of Anna’s thieving spree, where she kept him on his toes at every turn. The Florentine papers claimed it was a game of cat and mouse for the ages, always uncertain who was the cat and who was the mouse. In the most honest version of it, the roles were swapped often.

Blanc eventually caught Napier, handing her over to the Interpol. He was not surprised to learn that she eventually escaped her sentencing, just as he was not surprised to hear that the items he’d managed to recover from the woman’s possession were only a portion of the ones she’d stolen. When asked about Miss Napier and how he feels about her still being out there, all Blanc does is curve his lips into an inscrutable smile.

[thehandbookauthority]

from Christopher Jacrot

[noitblanc]

BENOIT BLANC, A NATURAL CHAMAELEON.

[noitblanc]

B. BLANC TAKES THE STAND, CIRCA 2015.

[erosandthedevil]

Palazzo Medici Riccardi: Courtyard

Via Camillo Cavour, Florence

[dunnitmoved]

BLANC TALKING HEAD. In his office. BENOIT BLANC In my old life, I was quite the notorious private investigator. Some of you might have read a few of my stories, an old acquaintance of mine wrote them while using my ventures as inspiration. His name was Arthur. Good lad, Arthur... until he decided to kill me off, that is. Then I drained him. It was an upsetting affair overall. Do I regret it? Not really. Arthur could be a real prick. ( Off the next question ) What do I do now? Well, I still investigate, of course. I had my familiar set up an websky... An ad up on the tele paper of my services, so humans can still hire me to solve their mysteries. It's a bigger challenge these days, since I can only investigate at nighttime, but I still see all my cases through. CUT TO: FOOTAGE OF BLANC IN A CRIME SCENE TEARING OFF SOMEONE'S THROAT AND FEEDING FROM THEM. IT WAS HIS CLIENT.                             BENOIT BLANC (V.O)            Almost all my cases. Sometimes I get to a bloody crime scene and get a little... hungry. I'm not proud of it. Those aren't great moments for me. But they are great snacks, can't deny that. Other times I am called to investigate the disappearance of one of my victims, which is always awkward. In those cases I just frame my familiar for it and move on to the next Watson in line.