Jim wrote:
"I never said that script, acting, etc., had nothing to do
with film. I said it had nothing to do with whether or not a
film was a film noir. That's exclusively a function of the
visual stylistics.
"Film noir is what it is, and it's nothing else EXCEPT what
it is, and what it is is a crime/suspense film made during a
particular era with a particular kind of visual style. If a
film isn't that then it isn't a film noir. Period. Film noir
is what it is, and it's nothing else EXCEPT what it is, and
what it is is a crime/suspense film made during a particular
era with a particular kind of visual style."
Wait a minute, you've added a second condition here, that the
film is a
"crime/suspense film." So I guess it's not EXCLUSIVELY a
function of visual stylistics. And what makes it a
crime/suspense film if not the plot in the script? So it must
have something to do with the script.
Later you add:
"Which brings me to the other salient point about noir. Its
lack of self-consciousness."
So there's a third condition, making it even less EXCLUSIVE.
How exactly does self-consciousness manifest itself, though?
I'd say through slavishly imitating the visual stylistics of
its model. So if it self-consciously adopts the style of a
director (and cinematographer and set designer and lighting
technician, etc) who defined that style
(whether or not they were aware of it at the time), how could
it not be noir, IF noir is EXCLUSIVELY defined by VISUAL
STYLISTICS?
In other words, what is it about the visual stylistics of the
Coen Brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There that bars it from
being noir?
Mark
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 18 Feb 2003 EST