William,
Re your comment below:
"Here's my dilemma. When Nino Frank and the other French
critic mentioned 'noir' in their 1946 articles, they were
making an off-hand reference -- a gesture -- to a film form
already in existence in France and other countries. It is
that definition that I think defines noir."
I've stayed out of this discussion for the most part,
primarily because I know the two articles you refer to only
by reputation. In other words, I've never read them, but I've
read what others, including you, have said about them.
But it has always been my understanding that, when they
called the post-war American crime films "noir," they were
not referring to some pre-existing French style, but to the
novels, mostly American, published by Gallimard under the
Serie Noire label.
In other words, the title "America Has Noir Films, Too," did
not mean "AMERICA Has Noir Films, Too, Just Like We Frenchies
Have Had Since the '30's," but rather "American Has Noir
FILMS, too, in Addition to the Noir Novels That Gallimard Has
Been Publishing."
Now, not having read wither article, and only going by what
others have said about them, I can't really argue with you in
any kind of informed way, on the basis of material with which
you better acquainted than me.
But if the conventional interpretation (that "Film Noir"
referred to films that were similar in style and theme to,
and very often based directly on, the crime novels published
as under the "Serie Noire" logo) is correct, then it follows
that "noir" as it applies to the films the two critics were
referring to, and to noir fiction in other mediums as well,
must have a far broader definition than you're giving it,
because the books published in that line range across a far
broader spectrum than your definition would allow.
I'd be interested in hearing from other Rare Birds who have
actually read the articles in question.
JIM DOHERTY
____________________________________________________________________________________
Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business
gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 05 Oct 2007 EDT