----- Original Message ----- From: "Robison Michael R CNIN"
<
Robison_M@crane.navy.mil>
> I've been thinking about noir. Oftentimes the origin
of noir
> fiction is pegged in the early Thirties, pointing to
works by
> James Cain, Paul Cain, Raoul Whitfield, and even
Faulkner.
> Can you think of any noir characteristics that
separate these
> works from earlier ones by Conrad, Dostoyevsky,
Shakespeare,
> or even Greek tragedy?
To expand on Mario's point:
Here's an extract from "The Revenger's Tragedy" web site.
www.revengerstragedy.com
"REVENGERS TRAGEDY is based on the classic play by Thomas
Middleton.
It was first published, anonymously, in 1607, having been
performed by Shakespeare's company, the King's Men. Middleton
was one of Shakespeare's young collaborators: he also worked
on MACBETH and MEASURE FOR MEASURE. In the 1650s, authorship
of the play was ascribed to another playwright and poet,
Cyril Tourneur. Modern critics view this as a mistake, and
attribute the play to Middleton, who also wrote THE
CHANGELING, WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN and A GAME AT CHESS.
REVENGERS TRAGEDY was long viewed as the product of a
demented or diseased mind. In the nineteenth century, William
Archer wrote in The Old Drama & The New: "I will only ask
whether such monstrous melodrama as REVENGERS TRAGEDY, with
its hideous sexuality and its raging lust for blood, can be
said to belong to civilised literature at all? I say it is a
product either of sheer barbarism, or of some pitiable
psychopathic perversion."
This is how the story is described by Alex Cox, the director
of the forthcoming film (my caps):
"the story is about that English class of TITLED GANGSTERS,
the
'Aristocracy': with its intrigues, indiscretions, betrayals,
lost fortunes, and sudden deaths."
And this is a description of Vindice, the play's main
character (not a Jim Thompson psychopath):
"In love with the skull of his dead wife, infatuated with his
sister, doing his best to make his mother prostitute her
daughter, he has his share of problems," says Cox. "What
makes him appealing is that he's so funny. He is a comedian
-- a very dark comedian, who murders people in ironic
ways."
Noir's just a label. One which no doubt will be applied to
film, but, for obvious reasons, was never applied to the
play. Noir's been around for a long time, in my opinion.
Those Jacobean dramatists were a pretty dark bunch.
Al
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