Yeah, my initial reaction is that he seems to be overreaching
with his thesis. It's interesting that you mention the Hays
Code, which was lobbied for and implemented by Catholic
decency crusaders. I googled Hibbs and found out he's a
professor at Baylor (a Baptist University), but he's written
for Crisis magazine, which is a conservative Catholic
magazine. It could be that Hibbs looks at classic noir and
sees his values reflected in it because people who shared his
values had final approval over the films. I'll be curious to
see if that's addressed in the book.
There's a pretty good excerpt from a book on the Hays code in
this month's Reason magazine, if anyone's interested:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/123518.html
On Jan 18, 2008 4:51 PM, <
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nathan asked:
>
>
> "The first question I have, though, is this
interpretation of noir
> really "new" as the marketing copy suggests, or is
this just a new
> packaging of an old idea?"
>
> That was my first reaction when reading the promo
summary. For
> instance, we've often discussed noir in relation to
redemption and
> transcendence. In fact, Kerry, for one, has made
numerous arguments
> that this is the key issue of noir, though he sees
noir as embodying the
> impossibility of transcendence, which counters the
claim this copy says
> the book makes that noir embodies redemption. I'm
more than willing to
> say noir engages the issue of redemption, but how
often does the
> protagonist achieve it? That's not a rhetorical
question: How often do
> noir books end with the protagonist redeemed? Of
course, it's different
> with classic noir movies since the Motion Picture
Code so often
> required/imposed a positive ending, like the
completely false last shot
> of the otherwise fantastic Pickup on South
Street.
>
> Mark
>
>
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