Black Noir

I know that the word “Noir” is French for “black” or “dark,” but that so does not help clarify the deeper feelings that noir evokes in its readers and viewers. The term noir might help explain the so-called “aesthetic” of Noir films in terms of visuals, but it still doesn’t bring you any closer to figuring how what noir really is all about. Having said that, I struggle in trying to understand and articulate what I feel its themes are, but I still want to give it a try.
There is a feeling or more like an idea of chasing the unattainable in Noir. In the Maltese Falcon, the chase for a statue of a bird ended with every character, Spade, Gutman, Cairo, Wilmer, and Briget, ending empty-handed. Well everyone but Spade ended worse where they started off. This creates a fantasy that the characters constantly chase to achieve another aspect that is included in Noir, which is: the motivations of the main characters. In Noir films and books the main characters have their own self-interest that pushes them into action creating the common theme of cynicism. Now, this can change depending on the character, but more than likely it has to do with their greed which coerces the characters to take a duplicitous stance on their relationships. The characters in noir can be characterized, as we said in class, as “a world of bad men and trashy women.”
I’m still not confident in myself when answering “What is Noir,” but I have learned that Noir isn’t a genre that can be chopped up into single words like crime, romance, thriller, action, or mystery. It’s all of those qualities, but something is lacking. When trying to define Noir I think it’s important to focus on what it’s not. The characters in Noir give the consumers of this genre a chance to see real-life human qualities without a rose-colored glass.

Before taking this class, I had encountered Noir and film noir. Having read The Maltese Falcon and watched movies such as Sunset Boulevard, I was under the impression that the noir genre depicted dramatic, yet unrealistic stories. Having read The Maltese Falcon now for the second time, and as I begin to read Farwell, My Lovely, I would argue that while these stories are dramatic, they attempt to show the darkness and imperfections of reality and human nature through their morally ambiguous characters.  

One of the first things that I learned about Noir in high school was the translation of the word which means black. The noir genre then reflects the darkness which exists in the world; a world where there is death, corruption, and morally ambiguous characters. These characters aren’t trustworthy, are selfish, and are often making decisions that are not necessarily right, yet I would argue that noir is attempting to reflect the harsh reality that we live in. I would like to think that people are inherently good, and it is always easy to make the right decision, but unfortunately that is not the world we live in. It’s difficult to do the right thing, especially when the “right thing” counters your self-interest. Being heroic and doing what needs to be done in the name of morality is not as easy as the protagonist of other pieces of fiction show it to be, and the world of noir reflects that. 

When discussing the character of Sam Spade in class, we tried to discern if we trusted him or if we thought he was a good guy. Although it would be easy to classify Spade as someone who only cares about himself and doesn’t do what is morally right, I think it is important to remember that he is human, and in a world plagued with darkness, we are all just trying to do our best. Noir captures this complexity of human nature. Some people are selfish and are just doing whatever they can to get ahead, like Gutman or Joel Cairo, but there are also people like Spade, or even Jules from Pulp Fiction, who may at first glance be characterized as immoral characters, but rather in reality and the context of noir, they simply people attempting to do what they think is right and trying to survive, just as we the readers are.

In attempting to form a comprehensive definition of noir and how it evolves to become black noir, it is necessary to identify five common characteristics of this ever-changing genre. These pillars include a grim assessment of human nature, gritty urban settings, a femme fatale, nostalgia, and morally compromised protagonists. The central action of the plot typically revolves around crimes or mysteries that often contribute to the downfall of the protagonist, who is willing to delve into the darkest aspects of human nature to paradoxically uphold a moral code or sense of authority. 

In Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler approaches this classic American genre with an international perspective. Educated in English public schools for most of his childhood, Chandler maintains the facets of reinvention and uncharted wilderness that define American noir; the nature of society is a blank slate that the author forms from constantly-shifting socio-cultural factors. The novel is set in 1941 Los Angeles, the interwar period in which the cynicism of modernism flourishes and the social classes have lost touch with each other due to geographical compartments. 

Yet the basic structure of cycle and repetition that serves as the foundation for British literature also plays a pivotal role in redefining the genre of noir. Chandler utilizes hyperbole to isolate objects and indicate their values. This simultaneously creates two levels of consciousness: the objective external structure of the detective story and the subjective rhythm of events that seeks to mislead the reader. The novel is initially misleading as it is introduced as a murder mystery. Yet Chandler introduces a string of jewel thieves that intertwine with more murders in a cyclical manner.

The protagonist Philip Marlowe is a private detective whose first-person perspective allows the reader to learn not only the true nature of his thoughts but that of the world around him. Marlowe is honest to a fault, a quality that characters such as Detective Nulty (a representative of the ineptness and corruptibility of the world) and Anne Riordan (the femme fatale with beauty and brains) find repulsive yet trustworthy at the same time. Moreover, his character is able to show fear; Marlowe is able to navigate the widespread cynicism and anarchy of the 1930s and 1940s because he can perceive the darkness around him without rose-colored lenses.

The female characters in Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely challenge the role of innocence placed on them, instead causing conflict in their roles that must eventually bridge over to conflict with the men of the story. The first woman in the novel, Velma, worked in a bar with implications of prostitution and currently has a criminal looking for her. These glimpses into her character portray her as an imperfect victim, since she engages in a profession that society looks down upon. Even the reveal of her death, which comes from another conflicted female character, Mrs. Florian, does not fix her image and leaves readers wondering about her true involvement with Malloy. Mrs. Florian actively creates conflict by hiding a picture of Velma and revealing her death. Besides raging alcoholism, Mrs. Florian clearly has issues she refuses to address and provides no further clues to Marlowe, which means the mystery surrounding Velma remains unsolved and a criminal remains at large. Anne has layers that slowly peel back, however due to her known lying, readers find it difficult to trust her. She possesses some sway within her world as seen in her conversation with the police, but she steals and lies and continues to complicate matters.
Until now, the violence seen directly by readers has involved men physically assaulting other men or women complicating matters, particularly surrounding the other women characters. However, these two spheres will have to bridge in order to solve the mystery of what happened to Velma. Velma and Malloy must connect in order to clarify the mystery surrounding their past and their future. Before the story ends violence and conflict will affect men and women simultaneously, equalizing them in some respects. The impure and troublesome roles women take on within Farewell, My Lovely counter the damsel in distress expectation and offer women some agency, which will only increase from this time period onwards.

It is easy to read novels passively. This past summer I indulged in reading novels in many different genres, and I did not write a single word of analysis. I just let the words wash over me and let myself be swept away into the plot and atmosphere that the writer creates. A novel like Stoner by John Williams let me live the life of a middle class man in the 1920s from rural Missouri who became a professor of no import; who was passed over for promotions and was left by his wife,  but who lived a full life by experiencing love in all its facets. This novel struck me and I found myself in it- it was inherently real and personal. It led me to question things about my life and prompted me to write about it. That is what I believe the point of good writing is. 

To be completely honest, reentering the academic scene this semester and discussing a novel like The Maltese Falcon, felt jarring. My past experiences with the Noir genre have only been in parody, for example, the Finding Mary McGuffin Phineas and Ferb episode (which is undeniably my favorite tv show); or in a passing glance at a row of dense mass market paperbacks found in a Walmart or Dollar Store. I saw the genre as cheap fiction.

I was pleasantly surprised by The Maltese Falcon, its plot was engaging, its main character charming and fun to follow, and created an atmosphere that feels unlike reality yet draws the reader in, a playground for cynicism and moral ambiguity. Some of the aspects of the novel are problematic compared to our modern sensibilities, and yet I was not quick to jump on these ideas because the genre does not feel serious to me. It feels like it is made for entertainment in the same way as a movie. 

I wanted to investigate this feeling, so I did some research and came across a work of literary criticism by Raymond Chandler entitled, “The Simple Art of Murder”. He writes that the detective novel, “is written in a certain spirit of detachment”, separating detective fiction from that of old fashioned novels which “have always intended to be realistic”.  I think the detachment from reality that characterizes Noir fiction is why I find it so hard to take it seriously. The murder mystery, Chandler writes, solves its own problems, leaving nothing left to discuss. It feels formulaic, predictable. Unlike a novel like Stoner, that left me wondering if the main character was truly happy, The Maltese Falcon left me satisfied but bored. It exists in a space that I could never imagine inhabiting. That may be because of my race and gender, but it is also because my world is not gritty and dark like that of noir. The bad guys are not always caught, justice is not always served. This white and black sense of morality makes the genre fall flat in my eyes. 

This leads me to a question that has plagued my study of English: What is the purpose of the novel? Is it supposed to be so close to reality that we see ourselves in it, or should it be a form of escape from reality? Is a novel art? If so, how do noir novels fit in? What makes something art? Do I, as a reader, need to feel a connection to a form of media for it to be art? And, how does the author’s position change how we view their art? Does the fact that Dashiell Hammett wrote to make a living change how I view his fiction? Should it matter who the author was when looking at their work? Should an author always have deliberate artistic aims in order for us to respect the work as art? All of these questions frustrate me and my study of the noir genre, and they may not be answered. But I assume that as I read more of the required texts in Black Noir that I’ll get closer to an answer.

Real life is a myriad of grays that rarely fall into the binary of black and white. Contrasting from “The Maltese Falcon,”  “Farewell My Lovely” dives much deeper into the underbelly of real life, and the inherent biases of the white middle class in the wake of the wave of immigrants coming to the United States for a better life. We talked about the opening scene of the book with the complete depersonification of the black boy thrown out of the bar by Moose Malloy. Instead of a “he”, the boy is described as an “it” even though the only thing different about him from the neighborhood of the past is the color of his skin. The issue of race goes deeper than simply the color of your skin. Simply because the receptionist on the phone has a thick accent, Marlowe feels the need to belittle her by spelling everything he says over the phone, even when unnecessary. The assumption of lesser education and language proficiency is an inherent racial bias. Similarly, when Marlowe visits Amthor, the psychic, he is completely occupied with the smell of the Indian bodyguard who picks him up. While the smell may be something he is not familiar or comfortable with, Marlowe solely characterizes the man by the smell that follows him around in pure Chandler fashion. The “occasional whiff of his personality,” drifts unpleasantly around Marlowe, but Amthor recognizes his value saying, he is “rare” like diamonds and “like diamonds, sometimes found in dirty places” (Chandler 144, 150).  Amthor’s race is unclear from his description, but it is clear he lives on the fringes of the acceptable allowing him to see past the unfamiliar smell, whereas Marlowe is consumed with the foreign odor. Marlowe is the status quo of the grizzled white man, while Amthor is delicate and beautiful, which is the antithesis of what a man should be in the 1930’s. This earns him a place with the misfits, ostracized for Western society because they do not fit the mold. The world becomes a tiny place when society decides the world is only made for a select few. In order to cope with being strangers in the white world, the identity of the “other” forms, and we can begin seeing this camaraderie between people in the pages of the book as Marlowe dives deeper into the case of the missing Fei Tsung Jade. 

As a neophyte in the noir genre, both Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely have given me insight into what the genre consists of. As I have mentioned before, it was originally difficult for me to distinguish between a show like CSI and the noir of The Maltese Falcon. What I have come to appreciate, however, having read several examples and watched accompanying film is that the noir genre revolves around an atmosphere. As far as I can tell right now, the genre often revolves around these detective stories because they most efficiently communicate the noir vibe. That is, you immediately get the sense that the characters are operating in the gray areas of the world. While the main character may not be doing anything illegal himself, he is at least around a world of criminals and is always invited to join the world of criminals. At the same time, the main character has many shady aspects about himself anyway. Whether it involves getting involved with married women or abusing power by violently getting revenge for someone that hired them, it is an atmosphere of mistrust, double-crossing, and unpredictability. The noir genre forces the audience to remember, undeniably, that they are living in a dark world where people will do illegal and shady things to achieve their end. Whether the end is catching a criminal, satisfying a vice, or something else, noir exposes the dark side of human nature. What’s more than that, noir does not always give the audience a clear indication at the end that the “good guy” has won. First of all, it seems that there is not always a good guy, and, second of all, if there is, they may not be the big winners by the end. All of these factors about the stories and the structure of the stories within the noir genre combine to make the chief characteristic of noir its atmosphere of darkness in all aspects.