The panel on "Noir Authors with Novel Approaches" which
included Jack Bludis and myself turned out to be a lot of
fun. Not only was it a good panel, but it was great to meet
Jack, as well as Graham Powell who was in the audience, face
to face.
Another one of the panelists, Eddie Muller, who's written a
great noir novel, THE DISTANCE, and three books about film
noir, DARK CITY, DARK CITY DAMES, and THE ART OF NOIR (coming
in November), brought up a point about the definition of noir
that I thought I'd pass along.
I've always maintained that noir was strictly a question of
atmosphere. If it was dark and sinister, it was noir, period.
Others have maintained that certain plot mechanics and
character types have to be present (i.e. the doomed
protagonist [to use Jack's phrase "noir equals screwed"], the
femme fatale, etc.)
Eddie suggested that there was a difference between what he
called noir "atmospherics" and noir "content."
And he was pretty convincing. I'm not sure I totally
accept his premise, but it does provide a way of reconciling
the two points of view.
JIM DOHERTY
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