On May 20, 2007, at 3:20 PM, Kerry J. Schooley wrote:
> And I know others disagree with me, but I still
think
> Maltese Falcon noir, in that the rules Spade
developed for himself,
> and was forced to accept and live with, definitely
precluded the
> transcendence through love or justice, despite the
fact that he
> solved his case.
Yep. I think a P.I. novel or film CAN be noir. Not always,
but it's not unheard of either. You can solve the case, but
still fail to solve anything that really matters.
It's a cliche now, but there was a reason those old books
often ended with the shamus reaching for the office bottle.
Here's a hint -- it wasn't to celebrate.
Certainly both film and literary versions of OUT OF THE PAST
qualify
(but not AGAINST ALL ODDS, which is simply "film nah"). And
THE MALTESE FALCON III is definitely noir, as is CHINATOWN,
MURDER MY SWEET, NIGHT MOVES, THE CONVERSATION, THE LONG
GOODBYE and a slew of others. And they all revolve around
P.I.s.
Still, I don't think a noir book always becomes a noir film
-- or that a noir film has to come from a noir book. For
example, I'm still not sure if the film version of THE BIG
SLEEP truly qualifies as noir, but I certainly think the
book, with Marlowe's closing "part of the nastiness now"
soliloquy where he muses on his own damnation
(which Hawks' film deleted), is.
There's something about all the jokey jockey patter going on
between Bogart and Bacall and the frequent nudge-nudge
wink-wink that's more suited to an episode of MOONLIGHTING
than true noir for my liking.
Doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it -- I did, and still do. Just
that it doesn't seem particularly noirish to me.
(The one part of the lousy, let's-go-to-England BIG SLEEP
remake that I actually enjoyed was them restoring the
soliloquy at the end. What a voice Mitchum had. Imagine him
reading Chandler on tape for audiobooks?).
No, Chandler's novel doesn't end with guns a-blazing and the
world in flames -- it ends quietly, with a man, alone,
realizing he's probably ineffectual and no better than the
"nastiness" he rails against. It's sad and poignant and
bittersweet, but also hard and dark, and it feels like noir
to me.
Noir doesn't have to hit you over the head -- it can be
subtle and still be noir. In fact, one of my problems with
much of the so-called
(and often loudly self-proclaimed) new noir is its
over-heated, almost cartoon-like reliance on selective noir
trappings (and the more obvious, the better). There's a
certain almost adolescent pleasure there in wallowing in the
dark end of the trough, and they're always big on big, messy
damnation, but too many of them seem on the emotionally
shallow side, lacking any real soul.
Whereas the classic noirs I treasure most had soul to
burn.
Kevin
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