SimonDoom
Kink Lord
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2015
- Posts
- 20,122
Not all detective stories are noir. Noir is a particular type of style. It's hard to define but it's usually identifiable when you watch it or read it.
Magnum PI, for example, is definitely not noir. He's too much of a good guy, and the tone of the series is too positive, even lightly comic at times. His side kick is definitely not a noir character. And it's in Hawaii, an un-noir setting (at least as portrayed in the series).
Elements characteristic of noir include:
A dark, cynical attitude that pervades about the world, people, and their motives.
People are easily corrupted by sex and money.
The hero, often a detective, usually has some good qualities, but he's not perfectly good. He's in it for the money, too. He is cynical, not optimistic, about the world. He doesn't expect much from people or the world. Usually, he finds people disappoint him.
Women are often femme fatales, temptresses, and instigators of bad stuff.
Authorities are often corrupt, or at least not to be trusted.
If there's humor, it's dark and bleak and sardonic. It's never light.
Noir is unpretentious. It appeals to the reader's basic desires for sex and violence, told in clear prose.
Sometimes it's hard to put your finger on.
Chinatown is definitely noir. Jack Nicholson's character Jake Gittes is noir. But French Connection, made around the same time, is NOT noir. The Godfather, even though it's cynical and full of bad people and violence and sex, is not at all noir.
Blade Runner, though it's sci fi, has many elements of noir.
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