Mark,
Re your comments and question below:
> As I see it, you narrowly define film noir as
a
> group of crime movies of
> a certain period that organically developed
and
> displayed a common
> visual style. So noir is a way of telling a
story
> and not the story
> itself. In addition, once filmmakers became
aware
> of that style as
> something distinct and began consciously setting
out
> to make films
> within that style, they lost its essence and
instead
> made hollow
> imitations, aping the style, but without
the
> substance. Some of these
> post-noir (since you reject the term neo-noir)
films
> may even be very
> good films, but they are not noir.
I'm not sure I'd say "hollow imitations," or "lost the
essence," since I do admire quite a few movies that have been
called "neo-noir," and films that are but
"hollow imitations," that have "lost the essence," wouldn't,
it seems to me, turn out to be very enjoyable films.
You're quite right when you interpret my comments as defining
noir as a visual story-telling style, rather than the story
itself. But I'm not sure there ever was any "essence" to
lose, in the sense you seem to mean it.
You and Rene are quite right when you insist that the
"essence" of a film is the story it's telling, and the best
of recent crime films are the films that tell their stories
the best. The essence of film noir wasn't the visual style,
per se. It WAS, in fact, the stories that were told. My point
was that film noir defined a particular visual style that was
used to tell the story. Sometimes that visual style was used
for a particular story (as in THE STREET WITH NO NAME).
Sometimes it wasn't (as in the remake HOUSE OF BAMBOO). The
essence, in both, was the story. The best of current
filmmakers DON'T lose the essence, in the sense that they
lose the story. What they often do, however, by resorting
self-consciously to the visual flourishes that defined film
noir, is draw attention to technique in a way the classic
noirists did not.
> As I've made clear in several previous posts, I
do
> not agree with this
> definition (for instance, I happen to think
that
> that last condition may
> be an argument that a film is poor film noir,
but
> not that it ceases to
> be film noir). However, I do believe I've been
fair
> in presenting your
> take. I hope you agree.
I don't absolutely agree with your take, but for the most
part your interpretation of my comments was fair and
balanced.
> So let me move on to your definitions of
hardboiled
> and noir literature:
> Hardboiled is tough and colloquial; noir is dark
and
> sinister. It
> strikes me that these are also ways of
telling
> stories, not the stories
> themselves.
True enough. "Hard-boiled" covers a large area of crime
fiction. It's been applied, and in my opinion applied
correctly, to private eye stories, police procedurals, spy
stories, criminal protagonist stories, etc. What they've all
had in common is a tough, colloquial way of telling the
story.
> So if we follow your reasoning on film
> noir, once writers
> became aware of hardboiled and/or noir as a
distinct
> way of telling a
> crime story that they were also guilty of
> self-consciousness and
> therefore could no longer be considered
true
> hardboiled or noir?
There was not the same level of self-conscious use of a
technique for the simple reason that the expression of a
tough colloquial style was a natural way for the writers
writing this fiction to express themselves.
Since it was so obviously different from what had gone
before, they had to be aware that this was a break from the
artifical style that had been the pattern of the traditional
mystery, but that's not the same thing as a filmmaker
becoming aware of a visual technique long after it's ceased
to be used, and and then resurrecting it for the purpose of
harkening back to a bygone era of filmmaking. In such a case,
the use of the technique drew attention to itself rather than
supporting the story. And the story, not the visual technique
supporting it, is SUPPOSED to be the point.
> Adding your recent (very convincing) case
that
> Hammett (as evidenced by
> his book reviews) and other classic
hardboiled
> writers were very aware
> of themselves as presenting a new, distinct way
of
> telling crime stories
> very early on (even if some, like Cain, did
hate
> being grouped
> together), doesn't that mean that the vast
majority
> of what most of us
> consider the canon of hardboiled and/or noir
cannot
> possibly be such
> because it was self-consciously tough,
colloquial,
> dark and/or sinister?
Again, most of the hard-boiled writers of the '20s and
'30s were, first of all, writing in a style that came
naturally to them, and second of all, writing in a way that
was completely different from what had gone before. The
"hard-boiled" label came to be applied to such stories pretty
early on.
Filmmakers who used the visual flourishes that came to define
film noir weren't really using techniques that were entirely
new. As Rene pointed out, many of the Universal horror movies
of the '30s, and, for that matter, many of the silent horror
films of the '20s, used similar visual techniques.
The makers of classic noir used, and refined, already
existing techniqes to tell stories for which those techniques
were appropriate, but for which they had never before (or at
least rarely before) been used. It happened that many of
these stories were adapted from books that had been
published, in France, as part of the famous SERIE NOIR
imprint of crime fiction. So, to French film ciritics,
familiar with both the films and the source novels from which
many of these films had been adapted, the term "film noir"
must have seemed natural.
Again, however, film noir covered a wide spectrum of film
genres. Private eye in MURDER MY SWEET. Procedural in THE
NAKED CITY. Romantic suspense in LAURA. Spy stories in BERLIN
EXPRESS. "Everyday guy caught up in criminal doings" in THE
WINDOW. Gangster stories in THE ASPHALT JUNGLE. Sometimes
they weren't even particularly hard-boiled as in THE SPIRAL
STAIRCASE.
Two things differentiate noir in film from hard-boiled in
prose fiction. First, once started, hard-boiled never died
out. Indeed, it might be argued that crime stories with a
tough, colloquial attitude became far more numerous then
gentler, more traditional crime fiction. On the other hand,
as black and white films died out little by little, trickling
down to virtually none by the mid-60s, film noir died out as
well.
Second, "hard-boiled" was almost immediately recognized and
labeled. Undoubtedly there were many who jumped on the
bandwagon who knew the words but couldn't get the tune, but,
since it remained a natural style for guys with working-class
roots to write in, it never, at its best, became
self-conscious, though at its worst, it could seem
derivative.
On the other hand, the term film noir wasn't coined, or at
least didn't come into common usage, until after they were no
longer being made. References to film noir were inevitably
retrospective. When filmmakers started using similar visual
flourishes in current films, it couldn't help but seem like a
self-conscious exercise in nostalgia, rather than an organic
visual choice made to support the story.
> Finally, you say that any expansion of
the
> definition of film noir is
> not evolution, but error, that it is what it is
and
> is not what it is
> not and there is no room for greater
inclusiveness
> (except the "wiggle
> room" you reserve for yourself). However, you
have
> long maintained that
> the usefulness of your definitions of hardboiled
and
> noir is exactly
> this kind of inclusiveness, that it allows a
number
> of different
> approaches, as long as these minimum
requirements
> are met.
Film noir was coined to describe a particular visual style.
Hard-boiled was coined to describe a more general prose
style. A particular definition of a term meant to describe a
particular visual style is appropriate. A more inclusive
definition used to define a more inclusive term is also
appropriate.
Since the visual style of film noir was one that gave those
films a dark, sinister atmosphere, it seems appropriate to
used "dark, sinister atmosphere" to define noir in prose
fiction as well. Since, in prose fiction, a dark, sinster
atmosphere must, of necessity, be communicated by means other
than visual flourishes, prose being a non-visual medium, a
general definition regarding atmosphere, however it can be
conveyed to the reader by the writer, seems the best way to
define noir in prose fiction.
JIM DOHERTY
__________________________________________________ Do you
Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/
-- # 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 : 22 Feb 2003 EST