Somebody help me out here. I read:
"I would refer you also to David Corbett's piece on
existentialism in the current "Reflections of a Private Eye."
In the existentialist view the world is chaotic, lacking in
any meaning other than the meaning a person creates for
himself through his actions. That's noir. The protagonist in
such stories is no more doomed than we all are. If you excuse
the sexist language, "Man's Fate."
Then I read Bruce, saying,
"Charles Ardai drew recently in speaking with him privately
after his fine B'con panel on noir. He said that the Greeks
felt their universe was determined by the gods, and when a
Greek tragedy suggests that the gods were acting completely
arbitrarily or unjustly, as in Oedipus Rex, it created a noir
universe."
Einstein said he couldn't believe that God played dice with
the universe. But He does.
Clendon then wonders, "The protagonist can't win because
there is too much chaos in the way?"
Okay...
And I started thinking about our current bunch of
All-American creationists and Intelligent Designers,
(twisting Dave Z.'s words) "all grasping for whatever hope
they can get a glimmer of only to have it ripped away." In a
universe of chaos, those religionists (?) are noir. They are
screwed. To twist Kerry J. Schooley's words, they "aspire to
a set of values that have no meaning outside their world...
It is a set of values that can only be maintained with a lot
of work done for no purpose other than to try to make that
particular set of values work, and the strength of character
to ignore the obvious consequences of that work..." Without
Providence, without a loving personal god who makes sense and
who watches over them, they're screwed.
Religion is rooting around in here somewhere, like a pig with
truffles. In his daughter's biography, Hammett, an
ex-Catholic, had come to believe that Random Chance ruled,
which puts a sort of religious (or ex-religious) spin on
"falling beams."
Kent's right, too, I think, that, "So in the end, ironically,
I think Noir is about a growth in human
awareness/consciousness. I think it means we have a chance.
We have hope. It means we're willing to face the ugly things
in life and go on from there." In a cold chemical universe
(such as Camus or Satre's) we go on. I also don't think
established, hierachial religion is the answer to feeling
Doomed. I look at Creationists, for example, who talk like
the Flintstones was How It Really Was 'way back when, and I
think, in our post-modern world, they're losers, they're
doomed.
Then Mark says,
"Brigid slips out of police custody after leaving Spade's
presence
(perhaps seduces one of the cops, grabs his gun and shoots
him?). We next hear of her in Casablanca. She's heard someone
has information about the Falcon; he gambles at Rick's Cafe
Americain. Unfortunately, as she enters the club, she spots
Guttman and Cairo, who have heard the same rumors."
Oh man I'll go see that movie!
Fred Zackel
"lakhn mit yashtsherkes"
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
--------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite
Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page
http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/kqIolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rara-avis-l/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
to:
rara-avis-l-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 01 Oct 2005 EDT