Noir for Dummies, and Spn s6
Some thoughts about Noir and spn s6
I don't really get Noir.
Just to put that out there, so that people will not think I'm setting myself up as an expert. Quite the contrary!! If you have taken Noir 101 or 202, please lay it on. I'm very curious and eager to hear what other folks think about how s6 is using the conventions of Noir to further the storytelling arc of spn s6.
Here are the movies that I think of when I think of Noir (I did some wikipedia research but it didn't help me much, since Noir seems to be a slippery term): The Maltese Falcon. A Touch of Evil. Vertigo. Chinatown. (Please feel free to attack any of this, or add other movies that might be more helpful.) In more recent terms, in what might be examples of "neo-Noir" the works of David Lynch, of whom I am a big fan, especially Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive.
The big themes of Noir seem to be to be: guilt, corruption, duplicity, the assumption of false identity, or the opacity of identity, the dirty secret, the Horror inside the heart of darkness. (um, Apocalypse Now as Noir?)
There seems to be a connection between Noir and detective fiction, especially the Hardboiled Detective... but in Noir, it looks like the Detective gets dragged down into the muck by the secrets he uncovers. As in the Maltese Falcon, when the Detective lets the girl go to Prison -- he's serving a greater justice, but there's something so cruel about it. In Vertigo, when Jimmy Stewart falls in love with Kim Novak, who is two or three dead women, one of them supposedly possessed (don't forget our Angel's human's name is from this film). Or when Or in Chinatown, when dude is told to "fugettaboutit. It's Chinatown" and you know very well he's been shaken to his core. Or worst of all, in Twin Peaks when Agent Cooper is finally himself possessed by Killer Bob.
Okay, so then, in Season Six. we have a guy who looks like Sammy, but who Isn't. He has a very dark gleam in his eye. He's willing to commit Patricide to save his own skin ("Bobby's my uncle -- my father -- my uncle AND my father!!!") And Dean, god help him, is the Intrepid Detective -- he loves Sammy unreasonalby, despite himself, getting pulled away from the Good Woman and the Kid back into the Darkness, into the place where he is a Killer and nothing more. In fact he becomes Death itself. But he's on the trail of Something Big. The problem is, who will it benefit when he uncovers the Truth? "You can't handle the Truth!" as we've loudly been told. (HOW AWESOME is our Show that it can so easily bring on TRUTH personified?!?! SPN ROCKS!) Is humanity all just some kind of Matrix where human souls are the batteries???
The whole theme of Trust No One was announced at the beginning of the season, and we saw right away that the Campbells were not to be trusted -- Grandad is on the make, Christian is a Demon, and only smart-mouthed Gwen walks away clean.
The interrogations of s6 make sense in the realm of Noir because of the frank admission that the torturer is sullying himself -- they take on quite a different tone from the overtly political scenes of torture in s4.
Sorry Samgirls, but you can't trust Sammy. He's at least two different people now, possibly three.
Sorry Deangirls, but you can't trust Dean either. He's gonna swim in the muck and go down.
Sorry Casfans, but come on! Did you ever really trust him?
If our Show is still the Epic Love Affair between Sam and Dean -- then how will the issues of Noir -- poisoned identity, horrible truths, duplicity and betrayal -- play out? Does Dean's righteous move, to rescue the Soul of Sam from an eternity of unimaginable torment -- turn out to be the move of a duped Detective? How does Sammy deal with the Wall, the thing in his head that separates who he might be from what he was, and what he's become?
Okay, I'm out of time, I hope I've thrown down some interesting gauntlets!
I don't really get Noir.
Just to put that out there, so that people will not think I'm setting myself up as an expert. Quite the contrary!! If you have taken Noir 101 or 202, please lay it on. I'm very curious and eager to hear what other folks think about how s6 is using the conventions of Noir to further the storytelling arc of spn s6.
Here are the movies that I think of when I think of Noir (I did some wikipedia research but it didn't help me much, since Noir seems to be a slippery term): The Maltese Falcon. A Touch of Evil. Vertigo. Chinatown. (Please feel free to attack any of this, or add other movies that might be more helpful.) In more recent terms, in what might be examples of "neo-Noir" the works of David Lynch, of whom I am a big fan, especially Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive.
The big themes of Noir seem to be to be: guilt, corruption, duplicity, the assumption of false identity, or the opacity of identity, the dirty secret, the Horror inside the heart of darkness. (um, Apocalypse Now as Noir?)
There seems to be a connection between Noir and detective fiction, especially the Hardboiled Detective... but in Noir, it looks like the Detective gets dragged down into the muck by the secrets he uncovers. As in the Maltese Falcon, when the Detective lets the girl go to Prison -- he's serving a greater justice, but there's something so cruel about it. In Vertigo, when Jimmy Stewart falls in love with Kim Novak, who is two or three dead women, one of them supposedly possessed (don't forget our Angel's human's name is from this film). Or when Or in Chinatown, when dude is told to "fugettaboutit. It's Chinatown" and you know very well he's been shaken to his core. Or worst of all, in Twin Peaks when Agent Cooper is finally himself possessed by Killer Bob.
Okay, so then, in Season Six. we have a guy who looks like Sammy, but who Isn't. He has a very dark gleam in his eye. He's willing to commit Patricide to save his own skin ("Bobby's my uncle -- my father -- my uncle AND my father!!!") And Dean, god help him, is the Intrepid Detective -- he loves Sammy unreasonalby, despite himself, getting pulled away from the Good Woman and the Kid back into the Darkness, into the place where he is a Killer and nothing more. In fact he becomes Death itself. But he's on the trail of Something Big. The problem is, who will it benefit when he uncovers the Truth? "You can't handle the Truth!" as we've loudly been told. (HOW AWESOME is our Show that it can so easily bring on TRUTH personified?!?! SPN ROCKS!) Is humanity all just some kind of Matrix where human souls are the batteries???
The whole theme of Trust No One was announced at the beginning of the season, and we saw right away that the Campbells were not to be trusted -- Grandad is on the make, Christian is a Demon, and only smart-mouthed Gwen walks away clean.
The interrogations of s6 make sense in the realm of Noir because of the frank admission that the torturer is sullying himself -- they take on quite a different tone from the overtly political scenes of torture in s4.
Sorry Samgirls, but you can't trust Sammy. He's at least two different people now, possibly three.
Sorry Deangirls, but you can't trust Dean either. He's gonna swim in the muck and go down.
Sorry Casfans, but come on! Did you ever really trust him?
If our Show is still the Epic Love Affair between Sam and Dean -- then how will the issues of Noir -- poisoned identity, horrible truths, duplicity and betrayal -- play out? Does Dean's righteous move, to rescue the Soul of Sam from an eternity of unimaginable torment -- turn out to be the move of a duped Detective? How does Sammy deal with the Wall, the thing in his head that separates who he might be from what he was, and what he's become?
Okay, I'm out of time, I hope I've thrown down some interesting gauntlets!