Leo D.M.J. Aurini - May 06, 2014


What is Film Noir？


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

120.28456

Word count

1,843

Sentence count

163

Harmful content

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Film noir has become a thing in and of itself. Is it just a stylistic choice? Is it a way of storytelling involving specific characters and storylines with its own nature? Or is it the perfect distillation of the post-World War II era?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Film noir. What is it exactly? Is it just a stylistic choice? Is it just the use of black
00:00:13.500 and white, of particular costumes, particular settings? Or is it more than that? Is it more
00:00:22.860 than just a film genre? Is it a genre unto itself? Is it a way of storytelling involving specific
00:00:32.400 characters and specific storylines with its own nature? Well, I'd argue that it's the latter. I'd
00:00:40.800 argue that it's the perfect distillation of the post-World War II era. That there's a reason 0.99
00:00:47.580 that The Matrix, despite embracing film noir stylistic choices, doesn't feel like a film
00:00:55.440 noir movie. Whereas the novels by Michael Connelly, despite being novels and not really embracing all
00:01:04.200 the important elements that you typically have with film noir, very much are a part of the film noir
00:01:10.700 genre. And to explain what it is exactly, what film noir has become, it may have developed as a
00:01:20.240 stylistic choice, but it has become a thing in and of itself. To explain what that is exactly, we're
00:01:28.920 gonna have to borrow from the writings of John C. Wright, the science fiction author. A link down
00:01:34.220 below to him, but I'm going to be borrowing heavily throughout this video. And I think the best place
00:01:40.580 to start is with analyzing the protagonist. Now the film noir protagonist is what John C. Wright would call
00:01:55.220 the noble pagan. See, he differentiates between the Christian and the noble pagan. The pagan doesn't 0.93
00:02:07.940 really know God. He knows the gods, the random forces of the universe. He understands hubris and
00:02:16.820 nemesis. He understands karma, but he does not believe in a higher purpose, a destiny for mankind. Rather,
00:02:26.780 he is entirely locked in with the cycles of the seasons, the cycles of history. And with the barbarian, 0.99
00:02:35.540 his only future to look forward to is death. It is to be rotting in the grave. And so you get two types of 0.81
00:02:44.660 barbarians. You get the hedonistic barbarian, the one who goes out and tries to live life to the fullest 1.00
00:02:51.920 every single day, and don't worry about the morrow, for on the morrow we die. Eat, drink, and be merry.
00:02:59.480 And then you get the noble pagan, the one who believes in the four cardinal virtues.
00:03:10.100 He believes in courage. He believes in temperance. He believes in justice. And he believes in wisdom. He
00:03:24.340 tries to live the best possible life he can, yet he has no hope for the future. The three theological
00:03:30.920 virtues, faith, hope, and charity, he has none of those. Because he knows he has an earthen grave that
00:03:38.840 he's headed towards, no matter how he lives. Yet he chooses to pursue the virtues nonetheless.
00:03:46.280 And that is the protagonist of the film noir genre. Living in a society that has fought its last war.
00:03:54.600 The last war worth fighting has been fought. We will not see its like again for a minimum of 500 years.
00:04:01.560 The film noir protagonist. He embraces the four cardinal virtues. Justice. The film noir story is
00:04:14.120 always about justice. This is why it is so frequently a police officer or a private investigator pursuing some
00:04:23.080 crime that has committed. Seeking justice for that crime. Courage. The film noir protagonist embodies courage.
00:04:35.640 Getting involved in something that's bigger than themselves. It doesn't even involve themselves.
00:04:40.600 They have the courage to fight for justice.
00:04:43.800 Temperance. Temperance? You better believe they have temperance. These are people living on the line.
00:04:53.560 They live without hope. Most of them drink too much. They have troubles with love. They are very tempted
00:05:03.560 to be just as bad as everybody else in their society, and yet they keep it in check. They have temperance.
00:05:11.160 And finally, wisdom.
00:05:18.440 The film noir protagonist is a man of the world. Maybe he's never left his hometown. Maybe he served in the
00:05:26.840 military then came back and has just done what he was supposed to do his entire life. And yet he is a
00:05:33.720 man that understands the world. Who looks at people and is able to see through them. Who is
00:05:41.560 able to see into their soul. To see the consequences of their actions.
00:05:45.880 He's a man who is quick on the draw and who can figure people out.
00:05:57.000 But what about the theological virtues? What about hope? Well, the film noir protagonist doesn't have any hope.
00:06:06.280 In fact, we'll get to that analyzing the story, but the film noir protagonist knows that all these people
00:06:13.960 he sees are constantly damning themselves. And that they're going to suffer the consequences. They're
00:06:19.560 all going to wind up a cadaver in a morgue somewhere because of their own actions. And yet it's still
00:06:26.600 going to be his duty to investigate these murders.
00:06:29.400 Faith? The film noir protagonist doesn't believe in anything. If he's a cop, he knows how corrupt the
00:06:39.800 entire police department is. If he's a private investigator, he knows how corrupt his very own
00:06:45.480 clients are. As for God? Well, we fought the last righteous war back in the 40s. We ain't gonna see
00:06:53.160 his life again. He has faith in nothing. Except his own pursuit of the virtues.
00:06:58.360 Charity? Absolutely not. The film noir protagonist, he might feel empathy, he might feel pity for these
00:07:09.720 people damning themselves. But charity? No. He's not a bleeding heart. He does what is righteous because
00:07:17.800 it is what is righteous. Because he himself is a man that pursues virtue, not because he has charity for
00:07:26.440 all of these other people who have damned themselves. Just as the style is very black and white, the storylines
00:07:35.640 of film noir are extremely black and white. The film noir protagonist is the noble pagan.
00:07:47.320 Now let's consider the storyline of the film noir. The most classic storyline of film noir
00:08:05.000 is that the protagonist, the investigator, the detective, he gets involved in a case about a dead
00:08:12.440 prostitute. Just another dead prostitute. Nobody cares about prostitutes. Yet it doesn't matter. 0.98
00:08:22.200 Except he, he cares about justice. He investigates this crime because it is a crime. He puts his energy
00:08:30.440 into finding out who didn't. And in the process of investigating this crime, he winds up getting
00:08:38.760 embroiled in this giant conspiracy. He gets embroiled with Paula, the last politician that slept with this
00:08:45.720 prostitute. And then he finds out this politician was bought off by the mob. And so now he has organized 0.99
00:08:51.160 crime after him, trying to silence his voice. He fights off all these corrupt, venal degenerates, 0.99
00:08:58.680 only to find out at the end. The dead prostitute. It was her ex-boyfriend that killed her. 1.00
00:09:12.040 The society he lives in. It has corruption at the highest levels. The politicians, the organized crime,
00:09:20.440 the whole thing is corrupt, even his own trade. And yet, the solution to the crime is corruption at the
00:09:30.760 lowest level. It's venal, evil people doing evil to one another. And even the prostitute. Well, she was
00:09:41.000 no saint. Because there are no saints. Not even the protagonist himself, who's just another alcoholic womanizer. 0.57
00:09:51.720 Trying to do the best he can in the broken world.
00:09:58.440 So The Matrix, despite having the stylings of film noir, is not film noir.
00:10:05.400 Whether you take the standard interpretation of The Matrix, where Neo is Jesus. Where Neo is the chosen 0.98
00:10:16.760 one. Where Neo redeems both mankind and the machine race. No, there's no redemption in the film noir story.
00:10:26.760 Because the next chapter is exactly the same as the first.
00:10:29.720 If you take the alternative interpretation, where Neo is still in The Matrix. Where this
00:10:38.680 whole ridiculous thing where he had magic powers in the real world. Well, that's just part of his 0.56
00:10:46.120 delusion. He's still part of The Matrix. Except it's not film noir, because he's not aware of that fact. The
00:10:52.360 film noir protagonist knows perfectly well that his struggle is futile.
00:10:57.000 And yet he struggles nonetheless. Because courage is a virtue.
00:11:06.680 And so for film noir, we need to look in other directions. Michael Connolly, as I mentioned.
00:11:14.920 His detective Hieronymus Bosch, whose one calling in life is to listen to the blood music.
00:11:22.360 Is to solve the crimes that nobody cares about. To find murderers and bring them to justice.
00:11:30.360 And yet,
00:11:32.360 in one of the novels,
00:11:34.040 he comes across the La Brea tar pits. And they just unearthed the body of a woman drug out of them.
00:11:42.360 Whose skull was smashed in, in what was clearly a murder 5,000 years ago.
00:11:49.640 And for all he knows, that murderer escaped.
00:11:51.880 And yet he continues to fight on and solve these murders. These murders that nobody else cares about.
00:12:01.560 Because that is what he does.
00:12:03.320 We've got the novel. Do androids dream of electric sheep? 0.99
00:12:16.440 We've got the film Blade Runner.
00:12:19.400 Which is a movie all about living life during the brief period that you have it.
00:12:24.280 These artificial people that have been created.
00:12:28.840 Whose job it is, Decker's job, to hunt them down and retire them with his gun.
00:12:39.000 These people who know that they're only going to live for a few years, three or four years maybe,
00:12:45.240 if they're lucky. These artificial constructs created by humanity to do their dirty work.
00:12:51.240 They're only going to live for a few years, and they're rebelling to try and experience life
00:12:56.040 during that brief period of time, and to do something that matters.
00:13:02.360 They are the hedonistic pagan. 0.92
00:13:08.360 And Decker himself? Well, Decker, it turns out, it's heavily implied, it's in the subtext.
00:13:16.680 He himself is not a real person either. He just thinks he is.
00:13:21.160 And he eventually comes to suspect that fact. That he, likewise, is an artificial person who's
00:13:29.720 going to die in a few years. And yet he struggles on, and he finds what virtue he can before the grave.
00:13:38.440 Unlike regular people, these, these symbionts don't have souls. And yet, even without those three
00:13:47.000 theological virtues, they still can follow the four cardinal ones.
00:13:53.480 And so this is why I say that film noir is the modern society summed up in narrative.
00:14:04.920 Because we've got no hope and no direction, and yet we continue to struggle to do what is right
00:14:14.280 in a world that doesn't believe in right or wrong anymore.
00:14:17.240 Greeny out, folks.
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00:15:03.000 this great film noir martial arts action film. Cheers, folks.