Now we get into definitions again, always a perilous business
on this list.
Some of these TV shows you've cited (or there are others you
could have cited), I've never actually seen, so maybe they've
actually managed to pull it off. But the episodes I've seen,
I think of more as noirish, or boasting noirish elements, as
opposed to true, 100 per cent noir, which I still feel
requires some sort of definite, finite ending -- even if that
ending may be as ambivalent as hell.
Individuals in some of these TV shows go through a story arc,
meet their noir end, and are never seen again. But others are
only damned until eternity until next week, when they're
re-introduced having a cup of coffee with the boys. It
becomes just soap opera aimed at the professionally
cynical.
I'm not claiming any of the cited shows are not worth
watching or aren't great fun, just that I'm not sure how
truly noir some of them are, in the end. Mostly because for
the main characters they don't have an end. Unless they serve
more as observers to the nastiness. Like Chandler's Marlowe,
increasingly part of the nastiness, but never quite
succumbing totally (well, at least until Altman's THE LONG
GOODBYE).
And I still sorta think of all the great classic film and
romans noirs as having definite ends, not damnation on the
installment plan. How much bleak damnation do you pile on
after the original before it starts to cheapen the impact of
the original?
Maybe there's a reason nobody wrote or made THE POSTMAN RINGS
THRICE or BODY HEAT IV or WHITER HEAT.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Convince me.
Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site 75 Years
of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon http://www.thrillingdetective.com
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> Has someone you know been
affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place
to support health awareness efforts!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Apr 2005 EDT