I wouldn't pay too much attention to what Duhamel said. He
cannot define what noir is _for us_. Imagine that some
contemporary of Beethoven wrote that the composer was
essentially a drunken asshole who delighted in violating all
rules of good music... what kind of value would that have for
us? We have ears. The same goes for literature. If concepts
didn't evolve, jazz would still mean the New Orleans style,
sex would be some kind of duty for procreation and so
on.
Today, noir does not have a very definite meaning; however,
it is easy to see when something
_isn't_ noir, which shows that, however hazy, it is a robust
concept and not a pure contraption of critics.
Best,
MrT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 20 Dec 2006 EST