RARA-AVIS: Re: Another noir definition

From: JIM DOHERTY (jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 24 Jul 2010

  • Next message: Patrick Kennedy: "Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: Another noir definition"

    Dick,

    Re Kehr's suggested definition:

    "a pervasive sense of urban menace . . . "

    KEY LARGO and ON DANGEROUS GROUND are rural.

    ". . . and malign fate, . . . "

    Marlowe in MURDER, MY SWEET and Hammer in I THE JURY are master of their own fate.

    " . . . conveyed by a Germanic visual style full of threatening shadows and forced perspectives . . . "

    In other words, "a dark and sinister atmosphere."

    " . . . a fall-guy hero wrenched out of a comfortable existence by an arbitrary twist of fate or a moment of moral weakness; a femme fatale who leads the hero on with her sexuality but ultimately only wants to use him and toss him away; a downbeat ending that finds the protagonist defeated or dead - or, preferably, both."

    In any number of cop noirs, private eye noirs, and other noirs, the hero (not merely a protagonist) emerges triumphant.

    So, as always, he's wrong, wrong, wrong, except in the one essential, ("German visual style") and I am right.

    JIM DOHERTY

          



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 24 Jul 2010 EDT