Re: RARA-AVIS: Types of noir (was Re: Pop. 1280)

From: Jeff Vorzimmer ( jvorzimmer@austin.rr.com)
Date: 29 Jul 2007


> And isn't that the essence of noir? The story begins with someone doing
> what s/he shouldn't and rest is finding out if a payment must be made,
> how screwed s/he is?

I have a fundamental difference with most of the discussions here about the terms hardboiled vs. noir. I think you guys are taking a few very intangible characteristics of film noir and trying to create a definition of roman noir, which is a doomed excercise from the start. It's too broad and too intangible and, on top of that, you're reapplying it back to film. Using your definition of noir as applied to film, movies such as Casablanca and even Gone With the Wind, would be noir.

I've mentioned this before but noir is a style of presenting a crime story on film. You seem to be overlooking this very important aspect of noir. Certainly crime is committed in the movie Casablanca and it has all the stylistic elements and story elements of noir, but it is a story of international intrigue and espionage, not a crime story.

Jeff



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