"Not only is there a world of difference, as Brian points out,
between fiction and reality, but also between noir and senseless street
crime."
"Brutality and terror and horror aren't hardboiled, they aren't tough, and
they aren't noir. At the very least, you need a touch of ironic distance."
Ah, we like our violence dainty! Lace panties on the corpses?
"Tragedy is a close-up, comedy is a long shot," Charlie Chaplin once
remarked. Hmm, so that's his concept of the spectrum between comedy and
tragedy. That's why God must laugh like a hyena over humanity.
So how do you feel about Nick the Greek's death in THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS
TWICE? You remember him, right? (Maybe you oughta read again the racist
things said about his skin color.) Wilmer deserves being bitch-slapped by
Spade, right? ("You'll take it ... ") Is it Montresor who is noble, who has
dignity, as opposed to Fortunato, that dirty dog? Oh, "the thousand injuries
of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon ... "
Well, Fortunato deserved what he got, right?
If you ever sided with Montressor even for a moment, I want you on my jury.
Noir is YOU getting screwed and doomed. Comedy is when the next guy gets
it.
Noir is where you stand.
Noir is poor man's tragedy. Well, it used to be. (OF MICE AND MEN, right?)
Now it's the middle-class man's tragedy.
I, for one, was shocked to learn, incidentally, that captive whales refuse
to eat and
have to be force-fed till they die.
For now... Cheers!
Fred Zackel
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