JIM DOHERTY
> Miker, for crying out loud, listen to yourself!
The
> same story, maintaining the same atmosphere of
gloom
> and evil and darkness, telling about the
same
> character, moving through the same events,
in
> virtually the same way and the same order, is noir
in
> one medium but not in the other?
*********************************** An excellent example of
this would be THE MALTESE FALCON. I'm not an expert on any
kind of noir, and in film noir I am on very shaky grounds,
but I believe that it's considered a noir film, isn't it? I
have also heard it said that nothing Hammett wrote was noir,
that his characters were simply too tough to be noir. I think
the implication was that his writing lacked the sweat, fear,
and desperation that the dark and sinister atmosphere is
supposed to gen- erate.
And yes, I am suggesting (as I sink into quicksand) that noir
in film is not the equivalent to written noir. I see film
noir as a style, and written noir as an extension of the
pessimistic determinism of the American Naturalists.
miker
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