--- JIM DOHERTY <
jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> On the other hand, if you mean that the
PROTAGONIST
> must be screwed, then, conversely, your
definition
> is
> much too narrow. Many books published under
the
> SERIE
> NOIRE imprint, many films listed in Silver &
Ward's
> FILM NOIR, many authors profiled in THE BIG BOOK
OF
> NOIR, fall outside of those tight
parameters.
I agree with Jack. First off, please use examples of falling
outside those parameters. Second, my definition is even
narrower than Jack's. Series Noir
(or Roman Noir, whatever) and cinema noir exist in a very
tight time frame. As a pre-war sensibility or Depression-era
style and as an immediate post war style. It was all over by
1955 at the latest. Many of you consider David Goodis noir. I
don't. Really like his writing and he's a fun read but he
ain't the thing we mean. Touch of Evil is not noir. It is
junk. When I see some of the examples that pop up on this
list, I'm dismayed. I really enjoy this list, don't get me
wrong. But I see the attempts at a definition of noir in the
way the military sees mission creep. In fact, it had a very
short life-span and was incredibly influential but like the
art movement Dada, it was what it was and there are no
neo-dadists, or post-dadists or whatever-dadists.
The naming convention is the key to the whole mess. It was an
almost off-hand remark by a French critic who never announced
the beginnings of a movement or school or anything with rules
or regulations or secretaries reading the minutes of the
previous meeting. Talk about vague (and yes the pun is
intended). So I really don't care about somebody's big book
of this or that or conversations about how noir is alive
today. It isn't. What is being touted as the new noir is more
a fashion than a style. That's not to say that some of these
books aren't good or not worth reading. But having
definitions of post-1955 noirishness is sometimes funny and
every time has helped me with my own evaluations of the
form.
But the waving of books and quotations is a little too Mao
for me.
William
Essays and Ramblings
<http://www.williamahearn.com>
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