RARA-AVIS: Pelecanos quote

From: southpaw@altavista.net
Date: 27 Jun 2000


I just came across this interview with George Pelecanos and was struck by what I think is a dead-on criticism by him of much hardboiled lit. and films -- that too often we see men who are unusually affected by the schemes and demands of women who make the men do things they ordinarily wouldn't. Pouty lips and heaving bosoms, sad stories and breathy entreaties don't seem so realistic (maybe that's not the right word ... compelling, perhaps) as either they might have in another decade, or might have on my first reading of them. Am I being too harsh?

###

< http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/cover/1998/print_cover0821. html>

     I'd basically come to the point where I was sick of
     noir, because now it's become a parody of a parody.
     It's like in movies_in the late stages of the '50s,
     noir movies became a parody, like Kiss Me Deadly, a
     great film, but it's a parody of noir. And so modern
     noir literature has become this James M. Cain riff
     where a guy is sucked into the web of a black-widow
     spider woman who makes him kill people. It's always
     wealthy white guys, they lose everything 'cause
     they're drunk on pussy or whatever.

--
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 27 Jun 2000 EDT