Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Otto Penzler Defines Noir Fiction

Otto Penzler: Noir Fiction Is About Losers, Not Private Eyes: "Noir fiction has attracted some of the best writers in the United States (mostly) and many of its aficionados are among the most sophisticated readers in the crime genre. Having said that, I am constantly baffled by the fact that a huge number of those readers don't seem to know what noir fiction is. When they begin to speak of their favorite titles in the category, they invariably include a preponderance of books and short stories that are about as noir as strawberry shortcake."

7 comments:

Richard R. said...

An interesting essay, and the comments runt he gamut from insightful to inane. Not surprising.

Mel Odom said...

Wow. I'd always thought of noir as good versus evil, light versus dark, and endings that satisfied, were understandable, but not necessarily happy. I'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

And noir came from the French movie lighting, if memory serves. They just happened to use that style on a lot of crime films. Wouldn't be the same on Westerns and wide open places.

Gerard Saylor said...

Eye of the beholder.

Anonymous said...

I gotta agree with Otto on this one: definitely not noir.

What?


Jeff

Richard R. said...

I'm in agreement with Otto's assessment as well,and he is an expert. This is in line with everything I've learned about noir fiction over the last few decades.

Max Allan Collins said...

These definitions are probably a pointless enterprise, but...

The term noir flowed out of the Serie Noir books in France (black-covered paperbacks reprinting American crime novels, including private eyes) and the term was appropriated by French film critics for the American films of the '40s through about '55 that used black-and-white moody lighting techniques (often to conceal low budgets).

Separating the private eye from the other noir heroes doesn't make sense to me. The P.I., classically, is probably considered a loser by society, and he is certainly an outsider in a dark, crime-ridden world. And there are plenty of noir tales with heroes who are not private eyes or cops who have a "moral center." Ned Beaumont in THE GLASS KEY and Sam Spade in THE MALTESE FALCON are brothers, no matter what their profession.

Anonymous said...

"Wow. I'd always thought of noir as good versus evil, light versus dark, and endings that satisfied, were understandable, but not necessarily happy. I'll have to agree to disagree on this one."

I've heard a lot of people try to define noir over the years. But this is a new one to me.

(And for the record, the French may have gone around coining phrases for the American style of lighting "noir" films in the 40s and 50s, but that style came out of Germany in the 20s and 30s. When the German cinematographers and directors fled from Hitler and emigrated to Hollywood, they brought their style with them.)

TL