Bruce Townley (btownley@sirius.com)
Sun, 28 Nov 1999 10:01:17 -0800 (PST)
On Sat, 27 Nov 1999 at 20:26 robert bee sent: sensitive
detectives
>I'm delurking to point out that hardboiled and noir
literature arouse out
>of a particular cultural period. Noir and hardboiled
books and films had
>their greatest period of popularity in the 30s-50s
when the US went through
>a depression and the WWII. In fact, the WWII
generation was a "hardboiled"
>generation believing in stoic determination in the
face of pain. I think
>the hardboiled figure was a model of manhood for that
generation.
The narrative thrust of the noir film, which came into its
own in the post WWII period, turns this do-it-yourself stoic
determination on its head, as the lead characters (one
hesitates to call such souls who have descended so deeply,
yet so willingly into jeopardy, "heros") keep plodding
onwards, or downwards, to their inevitable, self-inflicted
fates, for the most part.
"For no good reason at all" to use the world weary line from
the voice-over at the end of DETOUR. We'd just suffered
through a war of global scope and unleashed the nightmarishly
powerful nuclear genii at its end. The result were some
unrelenting crime films that examined the seamy psychic
underside of our nation's consumerist paradise.
Bruce T. = btownley@sirius.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
"Sure I live bad. But at least I don't have to work at
it."
-SLACKER
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