Dave, I don't know ARKADIN so can't comment on that, but the
others certainly involve their protagonists confronting
death. They're all murderers. Can't get much more
confrontational than that.
You might argue that they're all equipped to deal with
killing people, but I don't see that. None of them is as
tough as they think. Dillon asks how he can be lonely with
all these dead people following him around. And Nick goes all
freakshow messianic.
I would argue that the 'hopeless state' of these characters
is very much attributable to the fact that they're murderers
(ie confronted death).
Al
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Zeltserman"
<dz@...> wrote:
>
> Al, it's not necessarily a confrontation with death,
but more
> something they can't live with. My two earlier
examples, A Hell of
a
> Woman and Pop. 1280 are examples of this, and Mr.
Arkadin is also
a
> perfect example of this--it's the character's
betrayal of his
> girlfriend that he can't live with, even though the
betrayal was
> necessary to save himself. "Double Indemnity" is
also a good
example-
> -Huff and Phyliss have nothing waiting for them but
death, and
death
> is actually a release for them. The hopeless state
in these
> characters (and in my opinion the best of noir) has
nothing to do
> with any confrontation with death, but their own
psychic
destruction.
>
> --Dave
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