Noir reflects a world even darker than ours.
It is an important distinction, and one which sets Noir apart from most every other black-and-white film. The world is dark, sinister, and not a nice place to be. You see this sort of outlook in a couple modern movies where "the world is not a nice place" and even hints of it in shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. These worlds are not nice places, nor is there any safe happy place in which to escape.
The worlds are even darker still than ours.
But that "no escape" clause is probably important here. There isn't a safe place to go in Noir, and even if there was, it would likely be a fallacy or some unattainable place that no one ever gets to and everyone dies trying. I am not even sure having an escape hatch would be fitting in Noir, even if it was a hopeless one - the absence of hope is critical for the genre to work.
Noir characters don't chase rainbows, they know their fates, and a better analogy is more following the executioner to the gallows.
If there was an escape hatch, let's say the mythical "flight out of the country" that our doomed-from-the-start racetrack robbers try to get to in Kubrick's The Killing, it is at best something the audience knows no one will get to. The way out is there, and part of the grim satisfaction of watching Noir is the almost horror-movie-like "who gets it next" sort of feeling as you watch life unravel and take down the ensemble one by one. Good intentions or not, nobody is escaping this one, and we watch as twisted motivations sabotage everything.
Even the dumbest thing like a stray dog can ruin everything. Admittedly, that dog felt like a deus-ex-machina and hand-of-godto wrap things up in Kubrik's film, but it shows you that fate will find a way to correct the insane, sadistic, and mostly uncaring cosmic balance of karma.
And the world which Noir inhabits is darker still.
This isn't our world, but a reflection of it in a mirror covered with blackened soot and ash. It is probably safe to assume the motivations of characters in these worlds are just as darkly tinged, and distrust and hatred are a common currency of the times. There is a precedent for that, in the time of Noir the world was changing, technology and the march of progress was making mankind obsolete, almost as if the individual spirit of man was worthless.
It could be a reaction to the end of the industrial revelation, where war is a machine and machines are war. Chivalry is dead, honor means little, and instant annihilation on a global scale is just a button push away. This is a harsh, dead, post King Aurthur world where there are no noble deeds or honorable men. Men in these days are just greasy, dirty cogs in a broken machine - the same men likely as broken themselves as the machine is as a whole.
You are replaceable, and if you break, it doesn't matter and nobody cares. You may never be replaced, as your role in society may be a gear and a cog that nobody needs anymore.
The breakdown of the family during the post-war period may also play a role here. Family life in Noir typically reflects the darker side of things, or family is conspicuously absent and the characters are loners. With families, sinister motives and inheritances create distrust between siblings, and you can see the traditional bonds breaking down. Society during these times was also becoming more mobile, with people movie to the cities and out to the subrubs, so you see a breakdown of the traditional support structures of communities and neighborhoods. Everybody is a stranger. Nobody sticks around for long.
You can see many of these forces today. Real-estate flipping where families move in and out of homes so fast to turn a buck that it creates communities of profit-minded transient opportunists. The breakdown of assimilated communities creating isolation and pockets of extreme poverty. Reacial tensions. The breakdown of social order. The ad-inspired culture of being fake taking on more importance than what is real. The uncaring and savage world of international business, where it is profit-or-be-killed, and damn any sense of loyalty or pride. These isolating and negative forces had their seeds planted in the heyday of Noir, and they never left us.
There is a reason this genre calls to us.
This trait, where the world is a darker reflection of the real world, is another of my signature traits for the genre, at least in my view of Noir. This extra-dark reflection is important as it is a part of the exaggeration of the world and the conflicts within, the creating of the long, dark shadows that stretch across the screen in both image and feel. The story can start out in a nice place, but once we are on the roller-coaster, we should feel there is no going back home again.
We are doomed to our fates just as we are doomed to live in a world which hates us, or at best, does not care if we live or die. There can be no emotional escape. There can be no safe places. The overriding sense of tension, paranoia, and fear must be maintained at all places in all times. It is a pressure cooker, much like the hotel in Key Largo with the hurricane blowing outside. There isn't a place to run to and get help. People have sinister motives. Nobody cares.
And the world outside is darker still.
This is the world of Noir, to me.
It is an important distinction, and one which sets Noir apart from most every other black-and-white film. The world is dark, sinister, and not a nice place to be. You see this sort of outlook in a couple modern movies where "the world is not a nice place" and even hints of it in shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. These worlds are not nice places, nor is there any safe happy place in which to escape.
The worlds are even darker still than ours.
But that "no escape" clause is probably important here. There isn't a safe place to go in Noir, and even if there was, it would likely be a fallacy or some unattainable place that no one ever gets to and everyone dies trying. I am not even sure having an escape hatch would be fitting in Noir, even if it was a hopeless one - the absence of hope is critical for the genre to work.
Noir characters don't chase rainbows, they know their fates, and a better analogy is more following the executioner to the gallows.
If there was an escape hatch, let's say the mythical "flight out of the country" that our doomed-from-the-start racetrack robbers try to get to in Kubrick's The Killing, it is at best something the audience knows no one will get to. The way out is there, and part of the grim satisfaction of watching Noir is the almost horror-movie-like "who gets it next" sort of feeling as you watch life unravel and take down the ensemble one by one. Good intentions or not, nobody is escaping this one, and we watch as twisted motivations sabotage everything.
Even the dumbest thing like a stray dog can ruin everything. Admittedly, that dog felt like a deus-ex-machina and hand-of-godto wrap things up in Kubrik's film, but it shows you that fate will find a way to correct the insane, sadistic, and mostly uncaring cosmic balance of karma.
And the world which Noir inhabits is darker still.
This isn't our world, but a reflection of it in a mirror covered with blackened soot and ash. It is probably safe to assume the motivations of characters in these worlds are just as darkly tinged, and distrust and hatred are a common currency of the times. There is a precedent for that, in the time of Noir the world was changing, technology and the march of progress was making mankind obsolete, almost as if the individual spirit of man was worthless.
It could be a reaction to the end of the industrial revelation, where war is a machine and machines are war. Chivalry is dead, honor means little, and instant annihilation on a global scale is just a button push away. This is a harsh, dead, post King Aurthur world where there are no noble deeds or honorable men. Men in these days are just greasy, dirty cogs in a broken machine - the same men likely as broken themselves as the machine is as a whole.
You are replaceable, and if you break, it doesn't matter and nobody cares. You may never be replaced, as your role in society may be a gear and a cog that nobody needs anymore.
The breakdown of the family during the post-war period may also play a role here. Family life in Noir typically reflects the darker side of things, or family is conspicuously absent and the characters are loners. With families, sinister motives and inheritances create distrust between siblings, and you can see the traditional bonds breaking down. Society during these times was also becoming more mobile, with people movie to the cities and out to the subrubs, so you see a breakdown of the traditional support structures of communities and neighborhoods. Everybody is a stranger. Nobody sticks around for long.
You can see many of these forces today. Real-estate flipping where families move in and out of homes so fast to turn a buck that it creates communities of profit-minded transient opportunists. The breakdown of assimilated communities creating isolation and pockets of extreme poverty. Reacial tensions. The breakdown of social order. The ad-inspired culture of being fake taking on more importance than what is real. The uncaring and savage world of international business, where it is profit-or-be-killed, and damn any sense of loyalty or pride. These isolating and negative forces had their seeds planted in the heyday of Noir, and they never left us.
There is a reason this genre calls to us.
This trait, where the world is a darker reflection of the real world, is another of my signature traits for the genre, at least in my view of Noir. This extra-dark reflection is important as it is a part of the exaggeration of the world and the conflicts within, the creating of the long, dark shadows that stretch across the screen in both image and feel. The story can start out in a nice place, but once we are on the roller-coaster, we should feel there is no going back home again.
We are doomed to our fates just as we are doomed to live in a world which hates us, or at best, does not care if we live or die. There can be no emotional escape. There can be no safe places. The overriding sense of tension, paranoia, and fear must be maintained at all places in all times. It is a pressure cooker, much like the hotel in Key Largo with the hurricane blowing outside. There isn't a place to run to and get help. People have sinister motives. Nobody cares.
And the world outside is darker still.
This is the world of Noir, to me.
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