Mark wrote,
I know you're a huge fan of McCarthy. How does his The Road
fit into this? I'm not being sarcastic, really asking the
question.
************ I would have to think about that, Mark, and I'm
short on time because I gotta walk out the hotel door and
head down to a conference in just a few. If you don't mind,
though, I would mention his No Country for Old Men. You've
got a classic noir going on and then when the protagonist has
his big scene, it is totally off-screen. Somebody here noted
that this tended to erase the noir and introduce the
postmodern (I think they mentioned postmodern). I thought
that was brilliant. It opened my eyes to at least one
characteristic of noir, the glory factor for the protagonist.
He might be a total sleaze, and he might go down hard, but he
struggled like a son of bitch. When McCarthy deletes the
glory scene, he introduces an element of postmodernism, which
essentially takes away the glory and adds a dose of apathy.
The protag's big exist wasn't even worth detailing.
I'd say that level of apathy is at least one element we see
in new noir. In the one Jason Starr I've read
(could it be Hard Luck?), the boy protag occasionally gets
angry or frustrated, but he doesn't really seem driven. It is
a marked difference from a lot of noir.
I would point to that as a possible touch of pomo in
noir. Another example, more extreme perhaps, is Barry
Hannah's Ray. Pomo fo show.
Gotta go! I'll think about The Road, but I saw a lot of
passion in it, and it wasn't demeaned or derided. I'm sorta
thinking that The Road isn't pomo.
miker
____________________________________________________________________________________
The fish are biting. Get more visitors on your site using
Yahoo! Search Marketing.
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 22 Mar 2007 EDT