Re: RARA-AVIS: Hard-Boiled vs Noir
James Rogers (jetan@ionet.net)
Sun, 26 Jul 1998 19:52:18 -0500 (CDT)
At 12:29 AM 7/27/98 -0700, ej Duggan wrote:
>Someone recently asked what was the difference between
hb and noir.
>
>Basically (IMO), hb has institutionalised corruption as
its backdrop.
>The protagonist is cynical, and the methods of the hb
hero may be
>indistiguishable from the hoods. Vernacular speech may
also be a
>feature.
>
>Noir, on the other hand, has a gloomy air. Fear and
despair are to the
>fore. Bad things happen--wrongful imprisonment of
innocent man, for
>example.
>
>Institutionalised corruption is not a generic
requirement of noir as I
>see it.
>
>Hope this helps/leads to further discussion.
>
>ED
>--
>
Since I don't think anyone on here has ever succesfully
defined
"hard-boiled", I doubt that we are going to make much progress
in arriving
at a satisfactory distinction from "noir" either. But I believe
when the
expression "roman noir" first started to be tossed around, it
just referred
generally to "that kind of stuff", whether it was the Chandler
flavor or the
McGivern flavor.
I guess that I like both, and can't really discern much
difference. I mean, is _Nightmare Alley_ hard-boiled or
noir?
James
James Michael Rogers
jetan@ionet.net
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