Mark,
Re your comment below:
> And while I agree with Jim that film noir
once
> referred only to a visual
> style, I'd say its common usage has
expanded
> well-beyond that, in much
> the same way that "pulp fiction" is no
longer
> limited in most people's
> mind to the literal meaning of that term.
Language
> evolves (and I'd say
> that hardboiled/noir, with its heavy use
of
> vernacular helps fuel this).
If the term has expanded beyond what it's meant to define,
then it means that people are commonly misunderstanding the
term, not that "the languange has expanded."
> And in the neo-noir film movement, the
word
> definitely refers to
> content, not style. While many present stories
like
> those of Jim
> Thompson (in many cases direct adaptations),
David
> Goodis, Jim Cain,
> etc, few recreate the mise-en-scene of
Samuel
> Fuller, Fritz Lang or
> Robert Aldrich.
Which, along with the exterme self-consciousness of those
films is precisely why few of them, I would argue NONE of
them, ARE genuine film noirs.
> I asked just this question in a movie review of
Wild
> Things in the
> latest issue of www.handheldcrime.com:
>
> Film noir. Does "noir" refer to the darkness of
the
> setting or the
> darkness of the human soul?
Darkness of the setting, or more correctly, darkness of the
image.
> But can a film be noir if it's set in
bright,
> sun-drenched Florida? . .
No. Not unless the film is black and white, and mostly, if
not exclusively, takes place at night.
> Wherever there are people with large sums of
money,
> there will be other
> people trying to take it away from them. And
no
> matter how bright the
> sun, it still can't cast away all of the
shadows
> within the darkness of
> the human soul.
True enough, but that hasn't anything to do with whether or
not a film is a film NOIR. That's exclusively a function of
the visual style.
JIM DOHERTY
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