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I've always loved noirs. One of my fave definitions of them is from Nino Frank: "They are essentially psychological narratives with the action—however violent or fast-paced—less significant than faces, gestures, words—than the truth of the characters.” Nowadays, they are not--
so popular, at least in publishing. Editors have told me it's because the current preference is for 'domestic noirs,' which have become almost synonymous with white women in peril narratives (and which to me read like updated Gothic novels).
But I love the microscopic power of
But I love the microscopic power of
the old fashioned noir. How it zeroes in on the grime and the people. My favorite writer of noirs was probably Charles Williams. But Cornell Woolrich has many books to recommend. At his best, as this article says, he writes from "a well of pure emotion" https://crimereads.com/the-noir-poetry-and-doomed-romanticism-of-cornell-woolrich/
It's funny, I think, how old noirs have become associated in the public's imagination with a certain manliness and stoic quality, when despite their hard edge they often do have this focus on emotion. The Grifters, for example, spends as much time exploring the art of the con as-
much as the bitter childhood and lingering mother issues of the male character.
I don't have time to write an essay, but the noir is a space not only for crime but for emotion. Anyway, yes I have a noir out this August so you'll probably hear me talk about it a lot more.
I don't have time to write an essay, but the noir is a space not only for crime but for emotion. Anyway, yes I have a noir out this August so you'll probably hear me talk about it a lot more.
