Al,
I agree with your mortality angle in a sense--except instead
of physical mortality I look at it more as a spiritual
mortality; the noir character has been screwed over or
psychically damaged to the point where there's just no hope.
So many great noir books, like Thompson's "Hell of a Woman"
and "Pop. 1280" leave these protagonists as the walking
dead--they may be alive at the end, but there's no future for
them. "Double Indemity" leaves Walter Huff and Phyliss
eagerly awaiting death because that's all they have left.
Your eletric chair analogy is kind of interesting because it
brings to mind the Cagney film "Angels with Dirty Faces"
where Cagney's Rocky doesn't give a shit about being strapped
to the chair at the end, but what makes this such great noir
is he gives up the one thing he has left--sacrificing his
reputation to try to save some kids from following in his
footsteps. Yeah, he performs a last act of herorism in the
end, but it still feels like noir to me.
--Dave Z.
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "al_guthrie65"
<allan@...> wrote:
>
> 'Screwed' is close but it doesn't take attitude into
account. You
> can strap a man in an electric chair and fry his
brains but if he
> doesn't give a shit, it's not noir.
>
> Mortality has always been a fundamental part of noir
for me.
> Consequently, I'd suggest that noir might be defined
as 'a
> confrontation with death by someone ill-equipped to
deal with it'.
>
> Al
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Michael Robison
> <miker_zspider@> wrote:
> >
> > Mark: I'm down with Jack's "screwed"
definition.
> >
> > John Lau: if we want to take a vote, so am
I
> >
> > **************
> > I'll jump on this wagon. The Harry Potter books
have
> > a dark and sinister atmosphere, but I don't
think I'd
> > indentify them as noir.
> >
> > miker
> >
> >
__________________________________________________
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protection around
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> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 20 Dec 2006 EST