Marianne wrote:
"I believe that this goes without saying. Noir seems to me to
be neither character- nor plot-dependent, but a matter of the
setting. It's the shadow moving beyond the campfire light,
the darkness down the back alley, in the unlit doorway (Third
Man, right?), between the street lights, OR in the woods. Or
for that matter in the unconscious mind, the dark mind of the
Other, the killer.... Death's home, really or
symbolically."
[I always try to resist getting dragged into these labelling
debates, but sod it...] I believe noir IS dependent on plot.
For me, a noir novel is one where it is demonstrated that
you're going to get knocked back no matter how hard you try
or how good your underlying intentions are. By good
intentions I mean - typically - yielding to romantic urges. I
keep coming back to The Postman Always... when thinking about
this. Frank and Cora take desperate measures because they are
yielding to their urges. What is more human than yielding to
urges? Noir says life is grey and mundane if you don't (ie:
you're screwed), so you might as well give in to them (ie:
you're screwed).
Regarding shadows and darkness and unlit doorways, I've
always been dubious about this because it shares so much with
gothic horror. Since you take movies as your example here,
have you seen The Crow? Shadows and darkness galore, night
all the time, and a lot of bad feeling. But to me it's not
noir. It ends with redemption and a righting of wrongs. To
me, that's anti-noir. If it's noir it's got to be noir all
the way through. Not mostly noir but with some blanc at the
end.
"I will stop before I freak myself out on this rainy morning
in London!"
Ah, but it's sunny today, isn't it. Too sunny. Give me rain
and murk. (But give us back the Central Line.)
--- Charlie Williams
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