This logline - and subject - has had me a bit confused from
the start. It seems to assume that there HAS been some kind
of major shift in noir writing (but if there has been I don't
think that it was defined by the original poster). I'm not as
well read as most of you on this list, but I don't know that
this is true. If anything it seems the opposite is occuring.
Retro is in right now. Old is the new new. The biggest noise
that I see coming out of noir plays on fiction that is fifty
or sixty years old - and our nostalgia and tolerance for its
strengths and weaknesses.
There are certainly individual practitioners who are carving
their own unique paths in noir, but I don't see an organized
movement towards a new evolutionary plateau.
I could well be wrong on this score, but I haven't seen much
evidence posted to the contrary.
And I would agree that Elmore Leonard was possibly the last
person to bring a radical change to crime writing - a change
that inspired so many imitators that his kind of storytelling
is now not so much imitation as just a style in which to
write. In some ways I think he did to crime fiction what
Hemingway did to literature in his day. But that began for
him almost forty years ago, starting with THE BIG BOUNCE.
(And I recognize that Higgens showed him the way, but I think
Elmore perfected the style.)
Hey, a post with no reference to THE LONG GOODBYE!
(Oops.)
TL
P.S. - Congrats to Charlie on the French sale!
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