At 02:17 PM 05/09/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>Kerry, your explanation of a noir philosophy,
incorporating dogged
>perseverance strikes me as more hard-boiled than
noir, a practical
>approach to an often impractical world. Or maybe
we're tackling the
>concept of noir from different angles. I see noir as
total black, but
>you let a bit of grey (and maybe even a little hope)
creep in to your
>definition. I see hard-boiled as a way to view life;
noir as what
>happens when people's lives -- no matter what they
may believe -- get
>screwed.
The difference is a bit more subtle than that. Mankind is
truly screwed, from his own point of view. Each of us will
die. There's nothing grey about that. But where you conclude
that nothing matters, I recognize that for a great many
people life does matter, even many who have come to accept
its disappointments.
Sol Alinsky spoke at McMaster way back in olden times when I
attended classes,. Alinsky had worked organizing the CIO
under John L. Lewis. Later he applied his skills to
organizing poor and disenfranchised communities; one of his
early challenges being the "back of the yards" area of
Chicago, predominantly poor Irish families of workers in the
stock yards and slaughter houses. He was sufficiently
successful that one of their number
(Daley the Elder) eventually became mayor of Chicago, serving
many terms. Alinsky visited Mac toward the end of his career,
fresh from a contract to help organize black communities in
Chicago in response to the neglect and corruption of Daley's
administration.
Didn't this mean that Alinsky's work had been a pointless
failure? He said not. It was natural to expect that when
people are given power, even the formerly disenfranchised
will protect their status from new challengers. And he
understood that power inevitably corrupts. He saw community
organization as a never-ending political struggle to be
undertaken by
"radicals" and seemed genuinely chuffed that his life's work
was as relevant at the end of his career as at its beginning.
He was definitely a hard boiled, combative guy with a noir
philosophy.
I think the difference between your and my definition of noir
hangs around the word "screwed". Do you feel that this means
people are screwed in each and every endeavor? I favour the
notion that people are ultimately screwed. Actually, I only
accept screwed as a convenient shorthand. I believe the
defining characteristic of noir fiction is that it is the
only genre that is non-transcendent. Most other genres
suggest that if the protagonist behaves a certain way, they
will transcend the human dilemma. Love conquers all. Work
hard and apply yourself and you will succeed. Have sufficient
faith and you will be rewarded, if not on earth than in
heaven. Ditto the
"moral" path. Tragedy suggests the same thing by taking a
negative approach. Do wrong and you will fail. If not for
indecision, Hamlet would have fared better, found happiness
with Ophilia or something. If not for unrestrained ambition,
MacBeth would have been King, etc. If not for a silly family
feud, Romeo and Julliet would have lived in love. The Prince
says so at the end of the play, and the two families see the
error of their ways. It is meant to be instructive. Tragedy
shows the failure to transcend, but only noir denies the
possibility of transcendence. There is only one way out of
the human condition, and that is death.
As a consequence you suggest all is meaningless, and that may
be true. I suggest that in the void, people supply their own
meanings to life. Spade is a moral man. What difference does
this make? Archer is still dead, and no one, least of all his
wife or his former partner, miss him. Justice doesn't care.
One of the cops would just as soon hang the murder on Spade.
The other cop would prefer people behave and make his job
easier. Neither will solve the crime. Is Brigid Shaughnessy
better off for Spade's morality? Don't think so. Do people
take the lesson and end the obsessive pursuit of false
idolatry? Not the Fat Man and his gang. What about Spade?
What does he get? He gets to think better of himself and stay
in business. What he has sacrificed is anything from the
probability of a good lay, to one of the most significant
experiences of life: the opportunity to love and be loved.
But Spade seems satisfied with the bargain and that is
enough. If the world were improved by his sacrifice, he'd
soon be out of work. That's no good.
I love noir because it considers these questions. They may be
pointless in the long run, but entertain me while I'm alive.
Consideration of the pointlessness of life may be
pretentious, gratuitous etc. etc. but death is still
inevitable, and nobody's offered incontrovertible evidence of
any meaning to life so far as I can see. I'm definitely not
hard boiled myself, but if you think death is hard, all I can
suggest is that you haven't seriously considered what life
might be like without this single most important agent of
change and renewal.
>Or is it possible that being hard-boiled is simply
the way to deal with
>a noirish world? One could conceivably think we're
all doomed, but not
>be noir themselves, couldn't they? A true noir
believer would just let
>it happen; a hard-boiled believer would
fight.
Nearly all of us resist it, hard-boiled or otherwise. It's
not that life is so grand. It's just that the alternative,
non-existence, is so, well, indefinite. Hard even to imagine.
And it's eternal, so why rush it?
>And then, the question wouldn't be why Marg would put
up with you
>(surely one of life's great mysteries :-) but why, if
you honestly
>believe nothing matters, you're still there for her
to put up with.
Largely because nobody else would put up with me. And I value
the experience of loving, and being loved, incomprehensible
it may be. I think Spade made a mistake.
>I mean, would a truly noir guy ever admit he has a
thing for Otis
>Redding's TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS?
Ah well, I dig Redding's rendition of Tenderness because it
so closely parallels coitus, right through to orgasm. That is
strictly biological.
Best, Kerry
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