RARA-AVIS: Re: Canadian Noir

From: jordan_mcpeek ( jordan_mcpeek@yahoo.com)
Date: 14 Apr 2007


--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
>
> Da Vinci's Inquest was finally released on DVD in the US recently.
> Maybe that, and some cable crime shows that are set as well as shot in
> Canada, will make the idea of dark crime above the 49th Parallel more
> acceptable below it.
>
> Mark
>

I remember one episode from early in the series (my faulty memory may fail me here a bit) where one character is arrested on suspicion due to previous jailtime. After pleading innocence and injustice for the whole episode and generating some sympathy, he gets killed in the holding cells. Meanwhile Da Vinci figures out that the guy really was railroaded by the arresting constable, a constable who is now the Staff Sgt. The Sgt. eats his gun at the end of episode. The secondary story was some nice kid who stages a robbery at his own grandma's house, where he lives, and unintentionally and unknowingly scares her to death. Nice kid is crushed at end when he learns what he's done. And this is all very explicitly set in Vancouver.

They weren't all this delicious but they were gritty. There's not many hour-length Canadian dramas, and even fewer that last 8 seasons like Da Vinci. You'd think if this show survived that long, it would've translated into some kind of impact in Canadian noir writing. Someone must've thought there was a market for this kind of story. It wasn't that big of a hit, though, even up here. I suppose foreign markets, obscure cable, government subsidies, Canadian content rules, and hope for a big breakthrough kept it alive.

Hey, wait a minute. Noir and hope? Can you truly be a producer/writer of noir and hope for a big breakthrough? Would a purist hope for anything more than his big pile of rejected manuscripts being discovered in a trash bin after he's dead and finally recognized for the true masterpieces that they are?

Now that I think about it, is there such thing as a noir purist? Wouldn't that purity have to be corrupt in some way?

Somebody stop me.

Jordan in Winnipeg



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