Film Noir (literally "black film" in French) is a genre of stylish crime dramas, difficult to define, but the 1940s

and 1950s were the classic period. Whether works since then can be accurately classed as Noir is a subject of much debate among film critics. efore the !altanese Falcon "rime and detection ha#e been common elements in world literature, as e$emplified in the biblical stories of "ain and %bel and &usanna and the 'lders, as well as in works by &ophocles, William &hakespeare, and (oltaire. )espite the long history of crime and detection in literature, detecti#e fiction as a full* fledged genre first appeared in the mid*nineteenth century in the detecti#e stories of 'dgar %llan +oe. ,n -.he !urders in the /ue !orgue,0 first published in 1raham2s !aga3ine in 4564, and se#eral subse7uent -tales of ratiocination,0 +oe created the archetypal pattern for stories of detection8 a bi3arre crime is committed, a brilliant, seemingly omniscient, detecti#e in#estigates, sol#es the pu33le with the aid of superior logical reasoning, and the perpetrator is unmasked. .he protagonist of +oe2s stories, the perspicacious but eccentric ". %uguste )upin, inspired generations of subse7uent sleuths. +articular political, social, and ideological forces uni7ue to the nineteenth century are often cited by critics as factors contributing to the emergence of the detecti#e fiction genre during this era. With the ad#ent of bourgeois societies, criminals, who in autocratic societies enjoyed, in the popular imagination, the reputation of heroic rebels, e#entually became #iewed as a menace by a social class interested in safeguarding its property. %t the same time the police, regarded in the eighteenth century as an organi3ation dedicated to protecting autocrats, rose in popular esteem. 9nce maligned as agents of corrupt kings, members of the police force were now #alued for the protection they pro#ided, and the figure of the law enforcement officer became an acceptable protagonist in literature. ,n the intellectual realm, the 'nlightenment brought about a profound respect for the power of reasoning, as well as an o#erwhelming faith in the ability of science to sol#e social problems. .his pa#ed the way for the de#elopment of a new literary hero, the detecti#e*scientist. .hese protagonists were often gentlemen possessed of such admired traits as scientific knowledge and superior intellect, and they elicited much enthusiasm among nineteenth*century readers. While +oe2s tales of ratiocination were relati#ely unknown in his own country during his lifetime, they strongly influenced the de#elopment of detecti#e prose, and literature in general, in France and 'ngland during the 45:;s and 45<;s. %lthough not e$clusi#ely concerned with crime detection, no#els by 'mile 1aboriau, "harles )ickens, and Wilkie "ollins featured, among other elements, the efforts of policemen to sol#e crimes in much the same manner as +oe2s )upin. .he policeman*hero introduced by these writers inspired the growth of the French roman policier and the %merican police no#el, branches of detecti#e fiction that ha#e flourished in the twentieth century. 9ther no#elists of the time=

!ary 'li3abeth raddon in 'ngland and %nna >atharine 1reen in %merica, for e$ample=created the domestic detecti#e no#el in which crime in#estigation is combined with realistic representations of e#eryday life, a form of detecti#e fiction that further de#eloped in the twentieth century. y the 45?;s, the short story form had eclipsed the no#el2s popularity, and a number of short works established a new standard for detecti#e prose. .he &herlock @olmes stories of &ir %rthur "onan )oyle, which feature the deducti#e powers of an eccentric amateur detecti#e, are the best known e$amples of these. @a#ing crystalli3ed and populari3ed certain elements of +oe2s stories, )oyle established a narrati#e form that e$erted considerable influence on later detecti#e prose. .wentieth*century readings of detecti#e fiction re#ealed the genre2s comple$ity, alerting critics that these te$ts contained more than brilliant intellectual gymnastics. For e$ample, commentators, particularly scholars analy3ing the works of "ollins and )ickens, noted a peculiar authorial ambi#alence regarding crime. ,n fact, the shady world of crime came to symboli3e a particular shadow in the (ictorian psyche8 the dark, and often repressed, reality of 'ngland2s imperialist policies. "rime no#els, particularly works by "ollins, also shed light on the social problems of (ictorian 'ngland, including po#erty, discrimination, and domestic #iolence against women. ,n "ollins2s works, for e$ample, critics discerned an effort to e$plain the mechanism whereby social and psychological forces conspire to place women in such desperate situations that crime seems like the only rational solution. Finally, in works such as /obert Aouis &te#enson2s .he &trange "ase of )r. Bekyll and !r. @yde (455<) commentators saw symptoms of a malaise more profound than the (ictorian crisis of conscience8 the disintegration of the personality. Freudian readings, from the earliest critical efforts to the Neo*Freudianism of Bac7ues Aacan, approached detecti#e prose from a clinical point of #iew. ,n fact, critics openly likened the process of criminal detection to psychoanalysis, arguing that the analyst, like the sleuth, searches for the truth. @owe#er, since the dominant intellectual paradigms underpinning twentieth*century criticism essentially dispensed with the idea of personal identity, this became a problematic interpretation. While in Freud2s construct the ego still retained some rele#ance, albeit controlled by the id2s o#erwhelming power, in Neo*Freudian thought, as e$emplified by Bac7ues Aacan, there is only a linguistic symbolic order, into which a person is born. %ccording to Aacan, a person2s unconscious is totally determined by a symbolic order which is imposed on an indi#idual. .aking a cue from the semantic theory of Ferdinand de &aussure, who di#ided the semantic uni#erse into -signifiers0 (signs, symbols) and -signifieds0 (the realities that these signs denote), Aacan posited that signifiers do not denote anything, thus effecti#ely separating the world of signs, as well as the world of psyche, as a self*referential uni#erse. Aacan used +oe2s -.he +urloined Aetter0 (456:) to illustrate his theory. %ccording to Aacan, +oe2s remarkable story about an ingeniously misplaced letter shows how a signifier (the letter) e$erts enormous power o#er people without referring to anything in particular. ,ndeed, there are

#ague hints about the content of the letter throughout the story, but the reader is constantly focused on the object itself, or more specifically, on the absence of it. .hanks to Aacan, and to his detractors, +oe2s stories are among the archetypal te$ts of twentieth and early twenty*first century literary criticism. "ommentary on the importance of nineteenth*century detecti#e fiction has also concentrated on the cultural significance of the hero and the function of the genre in literary history. .he detecti#e of this era was #iewed, according to critics, as a kind of prophet of logical reasoning who becomes #iewed as a sort of sa#ior for his defense of moral order. %t the same time, as 'lliot A. 1ilbert (see Further /eading) points out, the detecti#e2s ine#itable failures in an increasingly mechani3ed and godless society reflect late nineteenth*century awareness of the limitations of the reasoning process. .hus, the genre of detecti#e fiction in the nineteenth century is often #iewed as a transition between /omantic faith in the perfectibility of the world and (ictorian disillusionment with its harsh realities. .he !altanese Falcon .he !altese Falcon is an e$traordinarily entertaining and well*crafted film. ,mmensely popular since its release more than half a century ago, it is still fre7uently shown in re#i#al houses and on tele#ision, and is widely a#ailable in #ideotape and laserdisk forrnats. ,t may, howe#er, be too popular for its own critical good8 &cholars ha#e paid little attention to it. C...D .he mo#ie is remarkable not only for its long*term popularity but also for its significance in either inaugurating or changing crucial aspects of film history. .hese include the careers of indi#iduals like Bohn @uston and @umphrey ogartE genres like the detecti#e filmE styles like film noirE and cultural trends such as redefinitions of %merican masculinity and femininity, the influence of psychoanalysis on popular culture, and isolationist %merica2s perception of the international scene. 9ne of the most culturally resonant characteristics of film noir is its criti7ue of masculinity and femininity. ,t tends to drastically upset the traditional power balance between the se$es and construct women as powerful and men as weak and threatened. %n important character type of the style is the "black widow," a woman who seduces, e$ploits, and then destroys her se$ual partners. .hese characters, like rigid 92&haughnessy (!ary %stor) in .he !altese Falcon, +hyllis )ietrichson ( arbara &tanwyck) in )ouble ,ndemnity, @elen 1rayle ("laire .re#or) in !urder, !y &weet, or >athie (Bane 1reer) in 9ut of the +ast, were e#il and homicidal, but they were also smart and ambitious. .hey were not adjuncts of their men but competitors who often succeeded at least to a point. F4;F .hey tended to be destroyed in the end, but their #ery independence and skill at power politics has been seen by some feminist scholars as a positi#e step in de#eloping representations of women. .he flip side of this new empowerment of female

characters was the emasculation of many of the male ones, an aspect of the genre that plays itself out repeatedly. 9ut of the +ast(4?6G) pro#ides an ideal e$ample. ,n it, /obert !itchum plays Beff, a pri#ate detecti#e hired by a gangster, Whit (>irk )ouglas), to find his girlfriend, >athie (Bane 1reer), who has shot him and stolen his money. %lthough Beff finds her, she seduces him and they run off together. When Beff2s partner tracks them down, she kills the partner and returns to Whit. Aater, they conspire to frame Beff for murder. ,n the end, she kills Whit and, when Beff tries to turn her in to the police, she kills him by shooting him in the groin, making his emasculation literal. >athie repeatedly e$ploits and betrays the men. %lthough they seem intelligent and resourceful, they are repeatedly degraded by her, and they come back for more. &he shoots and robs Whit, yet he wants her backE she gets Beff to betray his employer, his partner, and his hopes for a new life, yet he also constantly returns to her. oth men are killed by her after repeatedly demonstrating their inability, while fully aware of her treachery, to resist her spell. ,n .he !altese Falcon, rigid 92&haughnessy plays a comparable role. Near the end, when &pade hands her o#er to the police after telling her that he is not going to walk in the shoes of the dead men who preceded him in her life, he, unlike many men in film noir, re#eals his awareness of her manipulations of men and his ability to resist her. While rigid2s type of character 7uickly became a stereotype, it was so new to films when it appeared that some critics hardly knew what to do with it. 9tis Ferguson2s re#iew in .he New /epublic(9ctober H9, 4?64) pro#ides an e$ample8 .he story is one of the few cases where they ha#e their cake and eat it too, for the detecti#e is in lo#e with the mystery woman, and she might turn out in the end to be another case of (a) innocence wronged, (b) the most trusted agent of the Inited &tates 1o#ernment. ut she doesn2t, and he sends her up for twenty years. .here is bound to be a little confusion in this, for an audience likes to know where it stands, and neither !ary %stor2s lines nor her abilities abo#e them 7uite get o#er the difficulty of seeming black and then seeming white, and being both all along. .he character did not conform to traditional patterns and this new type of woman was, to some e$tent, unsettling. .he recurring in#ocation of the importance of past e#ents, of doomed obsessions, of tormented and degrading se$ual compulsions, of se$ual de#iation, of dreams and hallucinatory states, all point to the influence of psychoanalysis in forming the moti#es of the characters in film noir. &ince the second decade of the twentieth century, psychoanalysis had influenced more elitist art works (such as F 44F 1erman e$pressionist drama and film as well as such plays of 'ugene 92Neill as !ourning ecomes 'lectraand &trange ,nterlude) but by the 4?6;s its

assumptions and discourse were appearing in popular films, particularly, but not e$clusi#ely, films noir .his goes beyond the o#ert inclusion of therapists as characters in the films, whether the 7uack psychic Bules %mthor and the e#il )r. &onderborg of !urder, !y &weetor the sympathetic analysts in Now, (oyager(4?6H) and Aady in the )ark(4?66)E it can be seen in new elements of character moti#ation as well as imagery. %n e$ample of this can be seen in some films starring Bames "agney, who was famous for playing sociopathic gangsters. ,n the 4?J;s, films such as .he +ublic 'nemy, .he /oaring .wenties, and %ngels with )irty Facestended to associate the roots of his characters2 criminal beha#ior with social problems such as urban po#erty, +rohibition, and the )epression. ,n the late 4?6;s, howe#er, he played a psychopathic gangster with an 9edipal comple$ in White @eat. .he roots of this character2s criminality had little to do with social problems but rather with a profound psychosis that manifested itself in debilitating headaches and an obsessi#e and unhealthy relationship with his criminal mother. %t one point, this middle*aged man sits on her lap to ha#e his headaches soothedE when he learns of her death he erupts into a psychotic e$plosion of #iolence and winds up in a straitjacket. &uch o#ert employment of psychoanalytic notions in character construction had become fairly common by the late 4?6;s but had seldom appeared in popular genres in the 4?J;s. .he !altese Falconjoins with many films of its era from different genres in demonstrating a distrust of things foreign. Non*I.&. characters, places, and things tend to be e$otic at best, and often per#erse, se$ually o#ercharged, and dangerous. .he Falcon itself is foreign=!altese. 1utman, "airo, and 92&haughnessy ha#e tracked it in their e#il and murderous tra#els through foreign lands before winding up in &an Francisco and encountering &pade. .he #ery o#erlay of foreign cities and countries, gi#en the cultural climate of the 4?6;s, compounds the e#il of their murderous deeds. &pade himself is no saint. @e is ha#ing an affair with his partner2s wife and has a reputation for balancing on the borders of the law, and perhaps crossing o#er to the outlaw2s domain. @e is clearly comfortable with criminals and maneu#ers well among them in ways they respect. %t the same time, he is not gleefully sociopathic as 1utman, "airo, and 92&haughnessy appear. @e is de#eloped as ha#ing his own moral calculus that separates him from them e#en while he is in#ol#ed with them. @uston repeatedly photographs him in ways that suggest a dark, inner turbulence o#er the implications of the acti#ities in which he is in#ol#ed, and he beha#es morally, with clearly stated reasons, at the conclusion while the others prepare to continue their life of crime. .he film establishes &pade2s %mericanism, while flawed, as the desirable norm, sharing widespread isolationist %merican prejudices on the e#e of World War ,,. .hat same year, @uston worked on the screenplay of the %cademy %wardwinning &ergeant Kork. .hat film, about the most decorated soldier of

World F4HFWar ,, also re#eals a strong pro*I.&. bias. %s @uston2s career progressed, he would mo#e away from these assumptions, shooting more and more of his films in foreign countries, using foreign themes, and e#en renouncing his I.&. citi3enship to reside in ,reland and !e$ico. .he !altese Falconser#es as a kind of baseline against which to measure @uston2s later criti7ue of %merican $enophobiaE it also reflects widespread %merican cultural presumptions less than a month before its entry into World War ,,8 ,n it, things from foreign lands are associated with e#il, per#ersity, and death. .he "onte$t
In the 30s America was struggling with Depression. This era of depression led to a widespread unemployment, and was in general a difficult time for the American people. Roosevelt had his New Deal, ut the pro lems would not go away. !urthermore the country led an isolationist politic, had eliefs of lasting world peace and pledged neutrality. Thus they had among other things a very small standing army. Their entrance to the attlefields of "orld "ar # was a out to change the $nited %tates forever. The $.%.A emerged from the war as the one great victor. The war actions had left ehind a devastated &urope and a shattered Asia which had led ma'or economic an military losses. America on the other hand had not had warfare on its own territory, and during the war it had managed to leap out of the depression and reach almost full employment for its inha itants. It was also in possession of the worlds largest military force and the worlds most threatening weapon. In addition the country now had interests and responsi ilities all around the world, ut especially in democratic &urope. Thus, as the americans emerged from war they were elated and proud, happy with their victory and proud of their military and industrial might. The postwar era presented an unprecedented prosperity to the american people, at a time where the last fifteen years had een filled with deprivation and sacrifice. The (0s and )0s were an era of economic oom, mainly upheld y military demands during and after ""#, and partly y the American peoples new consumer demands. The earlier fifteen years of saving and sacrifice naturally gave way for increasing consumer demands when the population now lived in increasing prosperity. *ost people now wanted new and etter things, which they also could afford. The federal government participated in this development y sustaining the military demands to some level, and y the creation of the +.I.,ill of Rights. The government also had campaigns directed to increase and sustain the consume of the people. Among other things advertising was a phenomenon that came to show its full potential during the postwar

years. The government was interested in ma-ing the pu lic elieve that the affluent times were there to stay, and all of the things earlier mentioned along with the successful remains of the New Deals social program helped supporting this elief. The +.I.,ill was a veteran funding system that led to an increase in oth college education and the founding of the su ur an homes of the )0s. This was -ind of a social revolution with conse.uences li-e democrati/ation of the education system and the mere fact that more people got higher educated. The veterans also returned to create a a y oom. After the war there were a high increase in marriages and new house owners, and alongside this the new a y oom came. These new a ies contri uted to the e0panding society and consumers culture with their massive demands for things such as diapers, a y food and schools. Another new phenomenon in postwar America was the e0plosion of su ur an communities. All in all there was a metropolitan increase and a population decrease in the agrarian areas. !or one thing the new affluent populations cry for their own homes created a need for uilding new houses. The easy answer for the place to uild and the way to do it was lying in the su ur s. Alongside this came a demand for cars and highways which went trough an increase. 1eople had a num er of reasons for wanting to live in su ur s. They were longing for more spacious homes, greater security, and etter education for their children. %ome also moved to su ur s ecause of racial issues. 2The su ur s were mainly segregated3 All of this could these minor societies provide. The su ur an lives encouraged uniformity4 all the surroundings were similar, there was a need of a sense of elonging. There were created a conforming culture where social life had a homogeni/ed character. The conformity of su ur an lives gave way to a drastic increase in mem erships in social institutions, the religious participation was especially renewed. Religion was set in loom partly ecause of the 5old "ar where 5ommunists were seen as anti +od. 6ence ecame religion an e0pression for patriotism. This was underlined y president &isenhower among others. The American people wished that their own comforta le way of life could e reassured through religion, and so came an up eat and soothing religious tone to e for sale4 the gospel. In corporate life ig usiness grew igger, and this had an effect on the wor-ing man. 6e went from eing a hard7wor-ing individual, advancing y means of his own creativity and a ility, to ecoming a person within a collective cooperation and achievement.These things had conse.uences at home. The women were led ac- to the roles they played efore the war. 5ampaigns were led to lead the women ac- to the -itchen. They were considered o liged to leave their 'o s in the wor-force so that the

veterans could get 8their 'o s8 ac-. The most honora le thing women could do were considered to e fostering a family at home. As shown there e0isted a conforming culture consisting of affluent, consuming and content american people. These people were satisfied with what the new America had to offer, and at ease with their lives such as they were. ,ut at the same time there were people .uestioning this contentment. These were americans that e0pressed a growing sense of unease. They felt that may e the american society was ecoming too conformist and too materialistic. The attle etween idealism and materialism had egun. The same events that had created the earlier mentioned cultural e0pression, had also created a reaction upon it self. The new situation in which America was placed did not always give people a feeling of ease. The fact that The %tates now had glo al influence and responsi ilities was reason enough to give some of the american people a scare. Also in postwar America a paranoid feeling developed. As mentioned earlier, the americans view of communists was not very pleasant.1resuma ly they felt their new interests threatened and as a guardian of democracy there developed what 5hurchill called 8the iron curtain8 etween east and west. I do not intend to discuss the out rea- of the 5old "ar, ut merely point out that it e0isted. "ith *c5arthy this Red %care developed to a countrywide plague. This of course could as easily result in a feeling of suspicion and an0iety as in neglect 2as in the cultural e0pression a ove3. In addition the mere fact that much of the american might and welfare were uild on military power contri uted to an uneasy feeling amongst a people -nown to e isolationistic in a country which in prewar times did not go for a ig military force, ut for lasting peace. 9nly a short time after "orld "ar II America got involved in the :orean war. ,ut the two iggest conse.uences of The "ar were that the american people were given insight in the cruel capa ilities of humans 2i.e. concentration camps3 and were given the -nowledge of the annihilation powers of their new weapon77the nuclear war heads77at the same time. All of the a ove contri uted to giving some of the americans a feeling of unease. This is mostly e0pressed in art wor-s of the time, often as a feeling of alienation and disillusionment. A result of these feelings could easily end with nihilism. The %u te0t
Niet/sche holds a version of what we might call a ;flu0 metaphysics,< the idea that the world, everything, is continually changing, and nothing is sta le and enduring. 5onse.uently, he argues, any concept of ; eing<=something which remains the same throughout change, li-e 1lato>s forms, +od, or even the self or ego=is a fiction. Interestingly, he argues that language is one of the primary

sources of this fiction. That is, it>s impossi le to grasp and articulate a world that>s continually in motion, in which nothing ever stays the same. Thus, ;understanding< the world and articulating that understanding ecomes a matter of ;seeing< parts of the flu0 as somehow enduring and sta le, i.e., it means falsifying what our senses tell us. 9ne of these falsifications is the su 'ect?predicate distinction that>s uilt into language. !or e0ample, we say ;lightning flashes,< as if there were some thing or su 'ect ;lightning,< which somehow performs the action of flashing. %imilarly, we say ;I wal-,< ;I tal-,< ;I read,< as if there were some sta le ego, self, or su 'ect which was somehow separate from those actions. Niet/sche says@ ;,ut there is no such su stratum4 there is no A eing> ehind doing, effecting, ecoming4 Athe doer> is merely a fiction added to the deed=the deed is everything.<B3#C In other words, in a world in flu0, you are what you do. !urther, the ;doer< or su 'ect created y language, Niet/sche argues, is the source of the concept of eing=a sta le, unchanging, permanent reality, ehind the ever7flowing flu0 of the world@
"e enter a realm of crude fetishism when we summon efore consciousness the asic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language, in plain tal-, the presuppositions of reason. &verywhere it sees a doer and doing4 it elieves in will as the cause4 it elieves the ego, in the ego as eing, in the ego as su stance, and it pro'ects this faith in the ego7su stance upon all things= only there y does it firstcreate the concept of Athing.> &verywhere A eing> is pro'ected y thought, pushed underneath, as the cause4 the concept of eing follows and is a derivative of, the concept of ego.

The fiction egins as merely a sta le self, the idea that the ego is something enduring and unchanging and separate from its actions 2as opposed to eing constituted y those actions3, ut soon is translated into eing4 that is, for e0ample, into 1lato>s forms and a divinity. Niet/sche says@ ;I am afraid we are not rid of +od ecause we still have faith in grammar.< This falsification introduced y reason and language certainly ma-es truth, o 'ectivity, and indeed definition pro lematic, to say the least. In an early and influential essay, Niet/sche says@ ;Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions . . .< &lsewhere, he says@ ;BACll concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition4 only that which has no history is defina le.< Niet/sche here seems to e agreeing with %ocrates@ a definition must capture the essence of the thing, that which doesn>t change and thus has no history. The catch here is that, as we>ve seen, Niet/sche denies that there is any such thing, and so he>s denying that anything at all can really e defined. This is a radical position and seems not to ode well for the pro'ect of defining film noir. 6owever, and perhaps ironically, I thin- it>s Niet/sche who will help us etter understand what noir is. To discover what ma-es a film a film noir, i.e., what the noir element in the film is, it might e instructive to loo- riefly at noir literature, and especially so if it>s

through the hard7 oiled literature that noir films get their e0istential, pessimistic outloo-, as 1orfirio says. I>ll ta-e as an e0ample of this literature a wor- y David +oodis, who was the author of Dark Passage, which was later made into a film starring ,ogart and ,acall. The first paragraph of +oodis> Night Squad reads@
At DD@#0 a fairly well7dressed oo/ehound came staggering out of a ootleg7whis-ey 'oint on !ourth %treet. It was a !riday night in mid7Euly and the humid heat was li-e a wave of steaming lacsyrup confronting the oo/ehound. 6e wal-ed into it and ounced off and raced himself to ma-e another try. A moment later something hit him on the head and he sagged slowly and arrived on the pavement flat on his face.

"e instantly recogni/e here the clipped, gritty phrasing of the hard7 oiled school4 the dirty gutter setting4 and the down7on7his7luc- character. The oo/ehound is eing mugged y three men, while a fourth man, 5orey ,radford =who turns out to e the protagonist=watches from the other side of the street. ,radford is a former dirty cop and forces the muggers to give him the oo/ehound>s money. 6e -eeps most of it for himself, ut returns a dollar to the oo/ehound for ca fare home. Instead of going home, however, the oo/ehound ta-es the dollar=his only money=and goes ac- into the ootleg7 whis-ey 'oint for another drin-. ,efore he does, he mutters, ;The trou le is, we 'ust can>t get together, that>s all.< ,radford interprets this to mean, ;we 'ust can>t get together on what>s right and what>s wrong.< The story largely ta-es place in a 1hiladelphia neigh orhood called ;The %wamp,< where ,radford grew up. The area is 'ust as run7down, dirty, and crime7infested as its name implies. In an interior monologue a out the neigh orhood, ,radford reflects on how tough the place is, and he has nothing ut good things to say a out the prostitutes. They>re ;performing a necessary function,< li-e the sewer wor-ers and the trash collectors. 6e says@
If it wasn>t for the professionals, there>d e more suicides, more homicides. And more of them certain cases you read a out, li-e some four7year7old girl getting dragged into an alley, some si0ty7 year7old landlady getting hac-ed to pieces with an a0e.

If the deni/ens of the swamp couldn>t vent their violent and se0ual impulses with the prostitutes, they>d ta-e them out on little girls and old ladies. %o it>s a good thing we have the pros. Fast, I>ll mention in passing that the femme fatale of this story, Fita, is married to the gangster who runs The %wamp. "hen ,radford first meets her, +oodis descri es her thus@ ;%he was of medium height, very slender. 6er hair was platinum londe. 5ontrasting with her deep, dar- green eyes.< And she>s holding a oo-@ ;5orey could see the title on the cover. 6e didn>t -now much a out philosophy ut he sensed that the oo- was strictly for deep thin-ers. It was Niet/sche, it was Thus Spake Zarathustra.<

"hat we see here, and what ma-es this story noir, is the tone and mood, and the sensi ility, the outloo- on life, that the critics and writers mentioned a ove discuss. "e see lea- cynicism 2Durgnat3, for e0ample, in the protagonist saving the oo/ehound from getting mugged, only to -eep the latter>s money for himself. "e witness the loss and lac- of clear priorities 2%chrader3 in the same scene, and in the ,radford>s appraisal of the prostitutes. Alienation is clearly present 2,orde and 5haumeton34 the whole story is one of a man adrift, a man who has lost alance and the meaning and value of his life. And we see e0istential pessimism 21orfirio3. This is clearly evident in the image of the oo/hound going ac- into the ar to spend his last dollar on another drin-4 and in the dar- picture of human nature that +oodis paints when he discusses the need for prostitutes to vent our violent urges. 9ne other thing, which is related to all these other elements, and which some writers discuss, ut which I want to emphasi/e, is what we might call the inversion of traditional values, and the loss of the meaning of things. That is, at the heart of the noir mood or tone of alienation, pessimism, and cynicism is, on the one hand, the re'ection or loss of clearly defined ethical values 2we can>t ;get together on what>s right and what>s wrong<34 and, on the other hand, the re'ection or loss of the meaning or sense of human e0istence. In essence, I thin1orfirio is on the right trac- in tal-ing a out the noir sensi ility as a -ind of ;e0istential outloo-< on life. !urther, I>m agreeing with those who say that what ma-es a film a film noir is a particular mood, tone, and sensi ility, an outloo- on life. This is clear ecause it>s that tone and sensi ility which, as I said, lin-s the literature and the films. Thus, I thin- that the narrative elements 2story7telling conventions3, and the filmma-ing techni.ues 2o li.ue camera angles, deep focus, low7-ey lighting, etc.3, are secondary to the mood and sensi ility. They are used to communicate that mood and sensi ility, ut it>s the latter which ma-es the film a noir. As I mentioned, Niet/sche can help throw light on what film noir is, despite his s-epticism a out truth, essences, and definition. 9ne of Niet/sche>s most infamous and provocative statements is that ;+od is dead.< "hat he means y this is that not only "estern religions, ut metaphysical systems such as 1lato>s, have ecome untena le. ,oth 1latonism and 5hristianity, for e0ample, claim that there is some permanent and unchanging other7worldly realm or su stance, 1lato>s forms or +od and heaven, respectively. This unchanging other7worldly something is set in opposition to the here and now, the changing world around us 2forms vs. particulars4 heaven vs. earth, etc.34 and it>s the source of, or foundation for, our understanding of human e0istence, our morality, our hope for the future, amongst other things. Again, Niet/sche says that the fiction of eing is generated originally through the falsifications involved in reason and language. This concept of eing is e0posed

as a fiction eginning in the modern period, Niet/sche argues, when natural empirical science egins to replace traditional metaphysical e0planations of the world. "e cease to elieve in the myth of creation, for e0ample, and modern philosophers tend to re'ect 1lato>s idea of other7worldly forms. Thus, throughout the modern and into the contemporary period, religion and philosophy=as metaphysical e0planations of the world=are supplanted y natural science. At the same time, we try to hold onto our old understanding of human e0istence, our ethics, an ever7more7fee le elief in an afterlife, etc. "hat finally, and gradually, dawns on us, says Niet/sche, is that there>s no longer any foundation or 'ustification for these ad'uncts of metaphysics, once the latter is lost. "e reali/e more and more the hollowness and untena ility of our old outloo-, our old values. The result of this is devastating. "e no longer have any sense of who and what we are as human eings4 there>s seemingly no foundation any longer for the meaning and value of things, including ethical values, good and evil4 there>s no longer any hope for an afterlife=this life has to e ta-en and endured on its own terms. ,efore the death of +od, as good 1latonists or 5hristians 2or Eews or *oslems3, we -new who and what we were, the value and meaning our lives had, what we had to do to live a righteous life4 and now we>re set adrift. "e>re alienated, disoriented, off7 alance4 the world is senseless and chaotic4 and there>s no transcendent meaning or value to human e0istence. This death of +od, then=the loss of permanence, a transcendent source of value and meaning, and the resulting disorientation and nihilism=leads to e0istentialism and its worldview. 1orfirio characteri/es e0istentialism as@
an outloo- which egins with a disoriented individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept. It places its emphasis on man>s contingency in a world where there are no transcendental values or moral a solutes, a world devoid of any meaning ut the one man himself creates.

As a literary?philosophical phenomenon, set in its particular place in history, e0istentialism is continental &urope>s reaction to the death of +od. *y proposal, then, is that noir can also e seen as a sensi ility or worldview which results from the death of +od, and thus that film noir is a type of American artistic response to, or recognition of, this seismic shift in our understanding of the world. This is why 1orfirio is right in pointing out the similarities etween the noir sensi ility and the e0istentialist view of life and human e0istence. Though they are not e0actly the same thing, they are oth reactions, however e0plicit and conscious, to the same reali/ation of the loss of value and meaning in our lives.

Bibliography The Philosophy of Film Noir (The Philosophy of Popular Culture) Paperbac by !ar T" Co#ar$