Mark wrote: I'm not sure I so much identify with them, except
for a touch of "there but for the grace of God [or fear of
punishment, God's or man's] go I," as I can't look away from
the car crash of their lives so finely told by Cain
******* But that's exactly what makes them complex. Most
people are like you. They won't take an obsession that far
for fear they'll get caught. I'm not saying Frank
& Cora are complicated characters, I'm saying they're
complex; they push the envelope out of desperation, too much
of nothing. This is the complexity of all noir characters.
Unlike us, they take an opportunity which any of us would say
has too great a risk factor and they do it. That's where the
story is. When I say they're complex characters, I'm not
saying they're intelligent, although some are. Lou Ford in
The Killer Inside Me, I'd say was very intelligent. His
disadvantage is that he's also insane. This is also the
problem with Cora, who's a pretty intellignet woman. She
enjoys lust but she's not controlled by it the way Frank is.
She's driven by ambition, maybe just ambition for happyness.
She was born with nothing, married an old man for a little
security and found that security was all she had. She's only
hanging with Frank until he burns out, and Frank knows that.
That's part of his attraction to her. These relationships are
full of complexity and the decisions that are made are built
on complexity. To reduce the whole motiveation to lust is
missing why the lust exists in the first place. Cora is
looking for someone impetuous who'll help her do murder.
After the murder and their legal escape, that's when Frank
has his work cut out for him. On some level he may very well
have murdered Cora.
---
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net wrote:
> miker wrote:
> Complexity of character is not what makes the
reader
> identify with the
> protagonists in The Postman Always Rings
Twice,
> Killer Inside of Me and
> a lot of other noirs.
> ************
> Patrick replied:
>
> Oh, yeah? It's certainly what allows me to
identify
> with them. Shallow
> characters lose me third chapter, tops. What do
you
> think does, then?
>
> I'm with miker. How complex are Frank and Cora
in
> Postman? They seem
> pretty simple, with a simple motivation, lust.
And
> it's that
> simplicity, and transparency, that makes
them
> fascinating characters as
> they follow their lust to murder, then have
their
> plans unravel. I'm
> not sure I so much identify with them, except for
a
> touch of "there but
> for the grace of God [or fear of punishment,
God's
> or man's] go I," as I
> can't look away from the car crash of their lives
so
> finely told by
> Cain.
>
> Mark
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
The fish are biting. Get more visitors on your site using
Yahoo! Search Marketing.
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 01 Apr 2007 EDT