Re: RARA-AVIS: Bouchercon article

From: Marc Seals ( mseals@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: 23 Sep 2005


I think it does work for a great many films noirs.... Relatively few films noirs feature a detective. (I'm speaking here of the films from the so-called classic era of noir, roughly 1941 to 1958.) The more common protagonists are the common losers being destroyed by the random whims of fate (and often aided by a femme fatale). I remember a theatre professor years ago telling me that classic tragedy is "a great soul suffering greatly" (or words to that effect); film noir is often the tale of a common schmo suffering greatly. In both kinds of stories, we witness a person's downfall....

~Marc

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Dave Zeltserman

  I'd have to say "working-class tragedy" doesn't make a hell of a lot
  of sense as a definition for noir. I also don't see the connection for
  film noir either - how does that definition fit film noir classics
  like Body Heat, Angel Heart, Chinatown, Double Indemnity, Blade
  Runner, Godfather 2?

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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