Jim Doherty has said:
"Hardboiled is about attitude. Noir is about
atmosphere."
Although I accept that noir is about atmosphere it is about
more than that. It is not just dark and sinister, it is also
about an attitude--fatalism.
The noir protagonist can't win. The noir protagonist is a
loser or destined to lose. He knows it, even as he fights the
odds. He is screwed by fate, life experience, or just plane
something inside her or him that makes a loser.
To see a true noir character see Harry Morgan in Hemingway's
"To Have and Have Not." The book is
*not* the movie. It is barely *like* the movie.
It's about a loser--yet Harry Morgan, the "have not"
character, is not the only loser. There is a
"have" character who is a loser as well.
Jack Bludis
===== UPDATED 11/18/03 http://JackBludis.com
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