Devil on the Shoulder of Queenpin's Main Character

The main character in Queenpin is the perfect example of a "good girl gone bad". I think it's pretty safe to say that everyone does things that they know are bad for them, but I think the main character in Queenpin develops a habit of doing this to the extreme.  Maybe it was somewhat related to always doing what was expected of her, and having had her future essentially laid out in front of her-- a pretty dull/stereotypical future if you ask me. It seems that from the moment the main character accepted the opportunity to join Gloria in her escapades, she dived right into situations that she logically knew to steer clear from. Gloria was adamant on the idea of never mixing business with romance. Naturally, the main character immediately begins to lust for the exact type of dude Gloria advised her not to associate with. Not only that, but she then allows him to bash her face in as part of the plan to get the money to relieve his irresponsible financial burden. I don't even think that the main character was so obsessed (let alone, in love) with Vic as she was with what he stood for. It's possible that this was supposed to be the effect of the novel, but I'm led to believe that if the main character were a real person, she would eventually become capable of committing all the same brutal acts as guiltlessly as Gloria.

More noir?

I noticed while flipping through Queenpin today that Abbott borrows my favorite quote from Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man in her dedication:

We found a table. Nora said: "She's pretty."
"If you like them like that."
She grinned at me. " You got types?"
"Only you, darling -- lanky brunettes with wicked jaws."

So, on that note, has anyone read any noir/hard-boiled novels outside of class that they enjoyed? The Hammett novels I've read don't really have the same psychological depth as most of the stuff we read in class, but are really gripping and fun nonetheless. And I just read Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, which is Ripley-esque in that we experience the novel from inside the head of the murderous protagonist. Cool stuff! 

Savvy, cats?

For some post-semester reading I checked Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep out of the library and found this little gem in the beginning:

We talked a lot about the campy overuse of "baby" in works like Double Indemnity, but the heavy slang really works to create an atmosphere of exclusion, separating outsiders from insiders. I think that works well with the claustrophobia that seems to come with a lot of noir stuff -- that narrow, inescapable hidden crime world with its own lingo and behaviors. Like, unless you can use "shatting on her uppers" in a sentence, you can't be in the hard-boiled club.

Here's a much longer list of "gangster slang" in case anyone was interested: http://sginc31.narod.ru/humor/slang.htm

Thoughts on "Cotton Comes to Harlem"

I just wanted to make a post commenting on some random thoughts I have on Cotton Comes to Harlem.

First off, holy Hard-boiled!  I mean if a crutch of noir is to have a hard-boiled protagonist, then this novel is the epitome.  Here, we have two huge, hardy men who kick ass and take names.  One of them even has vicious acid-burns on his face, so you know not to mess with him.  There names are even Gravedigger and Coffin Ed, can you get more intense than that?!  However, these two characters lack that inner struggle that we saw in our other works.  Mentally, they really seem stable to me, besides their violent outbursts.  Unlike Dix, I believe these men and their violent tendencies come from their environment, not their personal struggles.  They aren't affected by any femme fatale character, they aren't stuck in the past or anything; they are just two cops in a rough area, much different from the other works.

I also wanted to make a comment on that small scene that has jazz.  It's a short little bit, but an intriguing one.  In it, both Gravedigger and Coffin Ed try to interpret jazz, but they can't.  To me, that speaks a lot about Himes's view of Harlem and the black culture there.  To me, he seems rather negative toward it. He shows this by having a novel filled with unlikable, immoral, conniving people and depicting the environment in a harsh light.  In that scene, the jazz is indescribable and all over the place, the two men can't decide why they like it or even how to take it.  I sort of think this is Himes making a comment of the black culture of american at the time and how unstable it is. Anyone think so?

Women in Cotton comes to Harlem

In all of the pieces of literature and movies we have examined this semester (with the exception of Queenpin) the female characters and femme fatales have portrayed as relatively conservative in both their dress and behavior. Even though a greedy cheating housewife in the 1940s/50s was considered to be the opposite of cultural norms for women, their depictions are hardly as lewd and their behavior is hardly as aggressive than the women who are portrayed in Cotton Comes to Harlem. Himes' descriptions of (almost ) sex scene are much more vivid than anything  we have seen in previous novels or movies. Maybe this was done because Himes was trying to exaggerate stereotypes to make the story more unbelievable or he was just into that type of stuff. But no other piece of work used the phrase "jiggling buttocks" multiple times to describe the actions of their femalescharacters.

Ripley Gets Bored Easily

I was reviewing a couple chapters in the The Talented Mr. Ripley when I noticed a trend in his behavior. When Tom's facades and costumes become of Dickie become so believable, he becomes bored with the people he is interacting with. This can seen in several instances in particular when Tom is being interrogated by the police and has exchanges with hotel employees. When the American detective is questioning him about Dickie, Tom becomes bored because he can not only predict the questions McCarron is going to ask him, but Tom has to remind himself to convey expressions of remorse, confusion, and naivete. I think his boredom also adds to his fascination with acting and trying to pretend to be others. Tom seems like the type of individual, because of his constant moving around from providence to providence, that cannot only stay in one place for an extended period of time, but remain the same person for an extended period of time. Once his costume has become so effective that acting like Dickie has become second nature, he expresses feelings of solemness and gloom. As a result he tries to shake things up by continuing to take greater risks, like forging signatures and flipping back and forth between identities even while interacting the same people.

Gender in Queenpin

When I began reading Queenpin, I thought to myself, "the author is going to beat the hell out of the idea that a woman will do this." Therefore, I assumed I was going to read a book where a woman struggles to do things because she is a woman.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  This novel didn't really focus on the fact that the protagonist was a woman.  Yes, it was obviously made it known and few comments were made on it, but I honestly believe this novel would be almost the same if the protagonist was a man.

The only real focus I can think of that stressed the fact our narrator was a woman, was the focus on her looks.  In order to be in the business, she had to look the part, dressing sexy and sophisticated all the time.  I could be wrong, but I don't exactly remember another instance in the works we studied where our male protagonist needed to dress a specific way (except for perhaps Tom Ripley).  Other than that, the male and female protagonists we studied in class really aren't that different.  They all struggle in their ways and have their pressures.  Hell, the narrator in Queenpin even had her own "femme fatale" in Vic.  The narrator could have been a male and Vic could have been Victoria and I really don't see anything happening differently.  This is an interesting choice for the author to make, but It made me enjoy the novel more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZnfM2-4lPg

Does Gloria Really Want to Test the Narrator?

After reading Queenpin, one of the plot details that stuck with me is how Gloria keeps the narrator’s bloody dress after Vic’s murder. We mentioned this detail in class, but I wanted to further explore this plot point since I think it reveals a lot about the role perspective plays in the novel. As soon as the narrator discovers the dress, I just knew that Gloria would validate keeping the dress through an excuse, but I honestly thought she was going to plant the dress on Regina and frame her for Vic’s murder.

Once the narrator calls out Gloria for keeping the dress, Gloria justifies this by saying she was just holding onto it to make sure the narrator “had her head on straight” (158). Gloria then says, “What do you think I could be scared of? Nothing you could throw my way, junior… If I found out you really tangled with me, kid… I think you’d know what I’d do. I take care of my own business. Right?” (159). Through this explanation, it really does seem to be a credible excuse for Gloria to keep the dress to test the narrator, but a few of the plot details invalidate this claim. Initially, if Gloria wanted to test the narrator, why wouldn’t she leave more pieces of evidence for the narrator to find? Gloria doesn’t leave any evidence that could pin the murder on herself; she only leaves the dress as the one piece of evidence that could incriminate the narrator. Also, once Gloria is aware that the dress is missing, why does she leave the closet open for the narrator to see that the dress is gone? The only purpose this serves is to threaten the narrator to show her that Gloria knows she took the dress. The final piece of evidence going against Gloria is that she doesn’t tell the narrator that she knows that the dress is missing. If she was really testing her, she should have congratulated the narrator for passing her test and discovering the dress.

Through this justification, it seems to me that Gloria held onto the dress as a way to blackmail the narrator, but to counter this assertion, Gloria does seem to be too methodical in her planning to leave the dress in a spot where the narrator could easily find it, like the back of a closet. And also, at the novel’s end, Gloria seems to be too appreciative of the narrator through giving her a new letter opener to want to blackmail her.

This uncertainty about Gloria’s intentions is one of the details that I really love about the book. As a reader, I doubted whether or not Gloria was trustworthy throughout the entirety of the novel. This uncertainty and doubt can be attributed to Abbott’s writing style since she leaves most of the interpretation about the characters open to the reader. Any analysis of plot details is subjective through the narrator’s perspective, and I think that a lot of scenarios in the novel could be analyzed in different ways.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about Gloria keeping the dress, or if someone could argue that Gloria really meant to keep the dress as a test for the narrator.  

Gloria's Toughness

We kind of touched on it the other day in class, that Gloria and the protagonist have to be much more tough than the men that surround them. They have to go above and beyond in order to prove themselves. I definitely understood why Gloria acted the way she did and was the way she was. For example, when she kills Vic and the men come in to clean up they are shocked. The narrator mentions that the look on Gloria's face is one of satisfaction. I felt like this was the ultimate example of Gloria trying to be bigger and better than the boys because she was so proud that these men who have seen it all, couldn't believe what they walked into, and that a woman did it.
I also have to say I really liked Gloria. I know that she is a criminal and yada yada yada but in the context of the novel, she was pretty badass. Even in the ending, when she realizes what's going on, she's so calm about it and then just slits her throat. \m/

Lastly, I couldn't help but feel that the narrator took Gloria down too soon. I guess it was circumstantial but I kind of felt like she wasn't really ready for the crime world on her own. Up until the end, she was still making mistakes. I think she handled herself with the cops/Regina pretty well but she didn't realize that Vic had pulled one over on her until Gloria lays it out. Maybe the intuition that Gloria has will come with time and experience.

The Role of Femme Fatales

I liked how Queenpin reversed the stereotypical role of women in noir by making a man into the "femme fatale" (known as the "homme fatale") character of the story. It was refreshing to see at least one female character (Gloria) who was empowered and did not have to rely on her sexuality to manipulate others to get ahead. It seems that Abbott used the Vic character to counteract all the misogynistic portrayals of women in previous noir by making him into a general loser; however, his sexual power over the unnamed narrator complicates this notion. Since the narrator is the one who wins at the end of the novel, I wonder what commentary Abbott is making about how the quest for power for females is different than it is for males. It seems to me that Abbott is showing the ugly reality of how women must serve their own self interests and align themselves with men in order to become more powerful and wealthy. Gloria's attempt to create a feminist/"girl power" loyalty between her and the narrator ultimately failed, and even though the narrator felt bad about betraying Gloria, she ultimately decided to anyways. I think it would be useful for the exam  to compare the role of Vic in the novel compared to the typical role of the femme fatale in noir and how he is written differently, so if anyone cares to elaborate, go ahead...

Dialogue In Queenpin

As we've seen throughout the semester, the noir style uses action and fast-paced dialogue to advance the plot, and Queenpin is no exception to this characteristic. I found the novel to be a speedy read due to the clever dialogue and fast paced interactions between the characters. 

So, I have to ask, what particular scenes or interactions did you find clever or amusing within the novel? I particularly liked this exchange between the narrator and the man that is hired to test her loyalty at the racetrack:

“That’s a nice hat you have, miss,” he said, standing in the row behind me.

“Thanks,” I said, turning slightly, tucking my purse tight under my arm. “I’ll tell it you said so.”

"Double Indemnity" at Happy Hour

Ok, so I know everybody is stressing out right now as classes are abruptly coming to an end and, if your anything like me and my friends, some happy hour/going out to eat action can really recharge the batteries. So tonight while I was attempting to reboot a bit before continuing work, it seems that a Temple student during finals can't truly escape their fate of looming finals. As we sat down, the bar was playing, as the title suggests, "Double Indemnity". I literally just had to laugh. I have to admit that "Double Indemnity" is still one of my favorite things that we have looked at so far this semester and, I know that I've seen a couple of polls about who liked what, but I figure I'll ask again. What was everybody's favorite film/book/character/whatever that we looked at with Lukin this semester?

Random and not very educational, I know, but don't worry guys, the semester is almost over.

Christy Wampole's Irony- What's the problem?

I'd like to know, what do people find so wrong with Wampole's article "How to Live Without Irony"?

Overall I find it to be pretty true and similar to my own views.
I can understand that maybe her publication has been scrutinized so thoroughly that the essence of her point has been overlooked.. but honestly I don't see what the big turn-off is in her writing.

Here's a link
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/how-to-live-without-irony/

Highsmith and Gloria

Highsmith interested me a lot while writing my third paper and I couldn't help relating her to Gloria while I was reading Queenpin. Highsmith felt unattached to people and was similar to Gloria in that she never wanted a relationship with anyone. The difference is that she had sex and affairs with everyone, while Gloria refrains from it all. Highsmith had a love for destroying other relationships and loved to be the other women. She found some satisfaction in breaking love as the way Gloria reacts when killing Vic I think, a strong need to destroy. In an biography written about her there was a quote taken from Highsmith where she says, “I learned to live with a grievous and murderous hatred very early on. And learned to stifle also my more positive emotions.” I think this is the way the mobsters work, they all have the same mentality. Gloria is training her new girl so that she can learn to live with murderous hatred and stifle her positive emotions to become more successful. 

Here's the interesting article on the review of her biography: Highsmith

Women in Cotten and Queenpin

The portrayal of women in Queenpin and Cotton Comes to Harlem is something I've been thinking about lately. In Cotton the women are used so vulgarly as sexual beings, while some of them tend to have strong personalities it seems whenever a women is discussed sex must be mentioned. Then when it comes to Queenpin sex is used again in a vulgar manor as our main character can't get enough of it and it drives her insane. Yet the whole time Gloria is trying to teach her "how to keep her legs closed" while in cotton women use their sexuality as a tool. So which is more effective? The women who use their celibacy as a weapon or the women who use their bodies as a tool? I think refraining from sex is what helps them the most, sex for women makes them seem weaker and uncontrollable even though it works to their advantage at times. When it boils down to it women cannot be respected by men if sex is put on the table I think in these two novels.

Immaturity with Tom and Dix

I know we stopped talking about Tom Ripley and Dixon Steele, but I just thought I'd throw this idea out for you.  Are Dix and Tom immature?  The more I think about it, they kind of are.  Tom does rather childish things, such as wanting to travel to Paris in coffins.  And then when Dickie understandably turns down the idea, he gets upset, like a child would.  There is no denying that Tom is definitely confused mentally, however I would argue that many of his tendencies come from his immaturity.

Dix on the other hand may not look immature on the surface, but I really think he is.  He is so quick to act with violence, it's like he is a bully in high school.  The second you step to him, he resorts to violence.  In addition, his work ethic is even immature.  He refuses to read the book he has to adapt, he gets a girl to read it for him, and when he does finally decide to do work, he acts like he is the only person in the world.  To me, that is very childish.  As a grown adult, you have to live by certain standards and jumping to violence and being a needy worker are not those standards.  I know there are so many readings of Tom and Dix, but I just think the immaturity aspect is certainly plausible.

Who's Your Favorite?

Just curious. I think we've got a wide enough range of characters with a wide enough range of personalities and motivations that there could potentially be a lot of different answers. For me, my favorite has gotta be the talented Tom Ripley, issues and all.

Weakness in "Queenpin"

This was an entertaining but, overall, disappointing read- our nameless narrator is a wet noodle, displaying almost no agency and just generally getting swept along. The bulk of the plot centers on her heedless manipulation by an alcoholic/gambler on an endless losing streak. Then, even after realizing that she'd been played both sexually and financially, the narrator is still unable to pull the trigger, and Gloria has to kill Vic herself. In the end, it really just seems that Queenpin's narrator is a lens from which to view Gloria, and not necessarily a strong character herself.

This is why I find it laughable when reviews say things like "Queenpin is a story about crossed loyalties and personal rebellion" (James Winter, http://januarymagazine.com/crfiction/queenpin.html). Where is the rebellion? The narrator is a conformist trying, and failing, to become a clone of Gloria Denton. Her relationship with Vic certainly does not constitute a rebellion precisely because she does not initiate it- she is played, and simply swept along. Nearly everything that she does professionally is the result of some direction by Gloria- the narrator merely follows orders.

I suppose that Gloria is a more compelling character, but it still feels like she's trying to be hardboiled and just not cutting it. Maybe at first she was passably so, but when she kills Vic by needling him a thousand times she loses that credibility. It just doesn't seem to work when a character talks sharp and hard but then gets all hyper and hysterical when the knives come out- it's not cold-blooded or as deliberate, and this is what made Frank Chambers and Johnny Marr so interesting.

Follow the Money

Cotton Comes to Harlem got me thinking about the trajectory of money. Think about the Greenleaf money. It starts with an old-time bourgeois who actually builds things and has a hands-on involvement with his business. Then it goes toward a cheerful idler with no interest in such things. Then it ends up in the hands of a psychopath who has better tastes than the cheerful idler and whose remunerative labor is basically personality-work: he runs on charisma and performances. Do any aspects of this trajectory remind you of other texts?

The "Irony" Article

Get a load of this! Christy Wampole, part of whose article on irony we dissected in class, has a band! Also, a Drexel professor gave a big wtf to her article too.

Cotton Comes to Harlem

I must admit, this was my least favorite book that we've read so far.  I felt like it wasn't so much about the mystery, but more about racial differences.  There were also too many sexual undertones for my liking.  In fact, some of the novel had blatantly sexual comments from the women, which led me to feel disgusted.  I'm not sure if Chester Himes was purposely playing this up to exaggerate the differences between the races or social classes, but I found it tasteless.  From the start of the novel, I figured that the stolen money had been stashed in the bale of cotton, so it didn't seem like much of a mystery.  In the other noir novels we've read, the characters haven't been as in your face with their sexuality.  In general, this was a difficult novel for me to get through.  Did anyone else have that same reaction?  I felt as if Himes were shoving racial inequality and class differences down my throat.  I understand that during the time period there was racial unrest, but in my opinion, this was a poorly concealed race plot hidden within a somewhat noir plot.

Also, on another note.  I found an amusing article about Patricia Highsmith http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-kornbluth/the-talented-miss-highsmi_b_382551.html

What's the Deal Aunt Dot?!

In The Talented Mr. Ripley, I believe Highsmith was very effective in constructing fascinating characters, in addition to Tom Ripley, that one feels compelled to psychoanalyze. While reading the novel and writing my paper, I found myself really trying to understand what Aunt Dottie's deal was.  Is she really just some cold-hearted, bitter woman who targets her anger on her innocent, young nephew? Consequently, does she resent having to care for Tom? Is the portrayal of Aunt Dottie biased, given that you only really learn about her during Tom's reflections upon the past?

It could very well be possible that Tom only ruminates on the times when Aunt Dottie was cruel to him, and does not give her credit for the good that she has done for him. Tom has such a passionate hatred for Aunt Dottie, but it can also be argued that has a completely unjustified hatred for Dickie as well. Are these two different kinds of hatred? One might even conclude that Highsmith doesn't provide enough information concerning Aunt Dottie to make any solid inferences. Regardless, I feel as though it is worthwhile to put some thought into the mentality of not only Tom, but also Aunt Dottie, given that she played a significant role in Tom's upbringing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k29jna3p1gE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k29jna3p1gE

"Trying to Get It Funny": Humor in Chester Himes

I've suggested that Himes conveys a grim worldview, one in which oppression messes people up all around. But if the Harlem novels work as satirical, it's gotta be in part 'cause they're funny. What did you find memorably amusing in Cotton Comes to Harlem?

Tom is the creepiest

I find that out of all the characters we have encountered that Tom Ripley is by far the weirdest. Like he is the strangest. I can understand every other character's motive for committing the crimes that they did, even though they were irrational they make sense. What adds to his mysteriousness is that fact that he is sexually ambiguous, and is strangely attracted to Dickie in a nonsexual kind of way. I think Patricia Highsmith was able to create such a peculiar character because she is a woman. In The Postman Always Rings Twice Cora said something to Frank about Nick that made me come to this conclusion. She stated that a man can never really know what it feels like to be in the presence of someone who is greasy, because a man could never understand the awkward feeling of someone making your skin crawl and stomach turn. I feel like female writers would be better at creating creepy characters because they know exactly what makes a man's personality and mannerisms particularly queer and unattractive. A guy writer can't really capture a creep in all his creepiness because he might not be able to capture and describe a disposition that turns people completely off.

Importance of Materialistic Drive

After class discussion on Friday, I was really struck by the importance of materialistic wants.  I understood that Ripley was a psychopath and enjoyed material possessions but I guess I had never completely comprehended that his want for the material possessions may have been the driving factor for Dickie's murder. I always believed that Ripley had enjoyed the social status change, but that the money and materials came second to being treated much differently.  Instead, class clarified that his desire to have better things, his materialistic desire, was what drove his actions.  His impression of the rich and their belongings was what drove him to act.

I found this surprising since I had believed that he had murdered Dickie because he felt rejected, but the materialistic reasoning also made sense.  Even without reading Strangers on a Train, Dr. Lukin's article was very informative and I found many similarities between Tom and Guy in terms of their material wants.  Who knew that envy of material possessions could drive someone to murder?

Drag Queens Vs. Tom Ripley

I honestly was super excited to see Professor Lukin's connection of Paris is Burning to Tom Ripley. I did read Linden's post and do agree that in the case of transgenders it is not the same. As Linden said, transgendered folks do identify as the opposite sex. Tom Ripley was not identifying as another person he was choosing to impersonate them.
In that sense,  I think that drag is very similar. I think for many of the queens in Paris is Burning drag is an escape from their reality. The reality of their lives can be extremely difficult. As said by Dorian Corey, they do not have the opportunity to be an executive in real life, so they choose to do so at the balls. I think this is similar to Tom because in his real life he cannot be the charismatic, exciting person that Dickie is. He is unable to change who he is to fit this ideal. By impersonating Dickie, he is able to get the thrill of being someone everyone loves.
A big difference I see between the drag culture and Tom is that the imitation stops after the queens go home. They have their own lives that they go back to after the balls. Tom is living the life of someone else. There is no stopping it until he has to go back to being Tom Ripley. 

"Identity Shopping" article/Strangers on a Train AND Talented Mr.Ripley

Although I haven't read Strangers on a Train, it's clear there's some obvious connections and similarities with the two books that allow critique on one to applied to the other. So, while reading Lukin's article, I tried to think of ways I could connect The Talented Mr. Ripley with what he says about Highsmith's other novel.

A couple things popped out:
How Guy is "kept from being satisfied in the 'neither here nor there' position" (32); that reminded me of how Tom is kinda in the "neither here nor there" position of identity. He isn't Tom anymore, but he isn't Dickie either. Although he truly is Tom, he doesn't recognize/accept that- but at the same time when he takes on Dickie's identity, he'll never fully be Dickie because that's just impossible. He's stuck in an place void of identity, 'Neither Tom nor Dickie'.

 Bruno seems to have homosexual thoughts; "'If he could strangle Anne, too, then Guy and he could really be together'" (Lukin 34).
That drew me back to Tom, and how he wanted to get Marge out of the picture so that he and Dickie could be together. He does try to keep Dickie to himself and cut Marge out of plans, so I feel like Bruno and Tom have similar feelings regarding this.

"'The patient wants, by knowing and looking, to conquer and merge with the partner into an all powerful, autarchic union, and thus to incorporate the other person's strength and value'. Bruno, bring a suppurating mass of narcissistic wounds, needs that strength and virtue to compensate for his own felt emptiness. He craves the loss of ego through drinking, the focused activity or arranging murders or the introjection of someone whom he believes to be authentic" (Lukin 34).
-This seemed like he was describing Tom. I feel like Tom wants to merge his qualities with Dickie's qualities. It's pretty self-explanatory.

Those are just a few that I noticed right away while scanning over the article again. What other things did people find in Lukin's article that can be applied to both of the novels?

Minghella's "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

Out of curiosity, I decided to watch Anthony Minghella's adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley. I think Professor Lukin's assessment of it was quite spot on.  Visually it was wonderful and the acting was superb, however it was definitely lacking the depth of of the novel.  Minghella changed the characters in ways that took away the ambiguity of the novel.

 More specifically, he took the psychopath out of Tom Ripley.  For example, when he killed Dickie, I didn't care at all.  In the novel, I was rather affected by the murder of Dickie because of Tom's sort of nihilistic attitude toward it.  However in the film, Minghella made Dickie such a mean, unlikable character, I was happy to see him die.  I mean this guy was simply an asshole (pardon my crudeness).  He was so mean to Marge, cheated on her, got another woman pregnant who then killed herself, and then insulted Tom to his core.  I couldn't blame Tom for whacking him with that oar.  However, in Highsmith's novel, I didn't see Tom having a reason for killing Dickie other than his own insanity, which made the murder much more powerful.  Same goes with Freddie.  Philip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant in the role, but Freddie was similar to Dickie in his un-likability, I thought "good for you" when Tom smashed him in the back of the head.

Minghella made a valiant effort in adapting this classic, however I do think he missed the key components that made the novel so great.  Like I said, he took the psychopath out of Tom, in my opinion, that takes the life out of the story.  As a stand alone movie, however, I would say it is pretty solid.

Is Tom's Portrayal of Dickie Accurate?

Our discussion today about impersonation made me think about what exactly drives Tom to kill Dickie and assume his identity. I was trying to decide whether I thought that Tom killed Dickie in order to achieve Dickie’s social status, or because Tom is gay and lashes out against Dickie because he is in love with him. Initially, I had assumed that Tom killed Dickie simply because he is gay, and Dickie dies as a result of the shame Tom feels due to his homosexuality, but after today’s class, I think that Tom killed Dickie in order to assume Dickie’s status.

Tom assumes Dickie’s identity for the purpose of convincing others that he is Dickie Greenleaf. He wears Dickie’s clothes, Dickie’s rings, and even has his luggage marked with Dickie’s initials. Just as we saw in the clip of Paris is Burning, success in a portrayal comes when the individual is able to convince others on the street that he or she is a man, woman, businessman, or in this case, Dickie Greenleaf. Tom is able to convince many people that he is, in fact, Dickie Greenleaf due to the careful attention he places on the details of Dickie’s style, clothes and mannerisms.

I think it’s interesting that Tom is never fully able to embody Dickie’s real identity since he must remove his created persona of Dickie away from Rome so that Tom will not be recognized and found out as an imposter. Since Tom removes “Dickie” from his life in Rome and takes him away from Marge and the rest of Dickie’s friends, Tom is only able to become a caricature of how he would like Dickie to be perceived by others. Tom is never able to fully become Dickie since he removes certain elements from Dickie’s life, and Dickie becomes Tom’s own creation. 

Authenticity in Ball Culture

To use the ideas of Authenticity-and its importance to social and emotion health-as a critique on Ball Culture is a bit of a mistake. I agree whole-heartily that remaining true to your authentic self is paramount to your psychological well being. When you try to hide your true identity by taking on the attributes of a specific person or society you deny your own wants and needs, and create self-esteem and identity issues (as you may realize that you are unable to really conform to this ideal). You see this often in Middle and High School when kids are trying desperately to fit in, and to figure who they are.

For the transgender individuals found in drag culture, the female impersonation IS their true identity. They are making their outward appearance match the gender identity they experience on the inside, and not denying their identity in the least. What is damaging to these individuals isn't the time they spend at the Ball, its in Normative-Straight society when they play at "being a man." You must ask yourself, what defines who a person truly is? Is it their outward appearance or their heart and minds? If you (like me) define a person by what's inside, you must not deny a transgender person his/her true identity.

As for the men that identify as a drag queen, the female impersonation also doesn't compromise their authenticity, as they still feel like a man. Drag for them is an art, and even while they may look incredibly "real," if you would ask, they still feel like a man in a dress. It would be like questioning the authenticity of an actor because they enjoy portraying people different from their own personality. They make no claim of "becoming" a woman, they simply enjoy playing like one.

This is why I believe these critiques aren't really applicable to Ball culture, while they are quite relevant to the social-emotional issues faced by Tom Ripley.

Self-awareness in "In A Lonely Place"

One aspect I really enjoyed with In a Lonely Place was it's self-awareness as a film.  It was sort of like a meta film, much like the Scream franchise.  Employing Dix Steele as a screenwriter gave him the ability to make comments on how the film works and even comments on the film industry at the time.  For example, there was one scene where Mildred said she always thought actors made up their own lines and Dix responds, "When they get to be big stars, usually they do."  This line could be read as a stab at the stars of the time and how difficult they could be to the actual creators of a film. Or when Mildred comments on how wonderful it must be to be a writer and Dix responds with sarcasm.  

But this self-awareness could be a comment on how the average Hollywood film was structured at the time and how the noir style wants to break it.  One of the great meta-instances of the film is when Dix and Laurel are discussing the love scene in the new script he is writing.  Dix says, "Well that's because they're not always telling each other how much in love they are. A good love scene should be about something else besides love. For instance, this one. Me fixing grapefruit. You sitting over there, dopey, half-asleep. Anyone looking at us could tell we're in love."  Dix is describing exactly what is occurring in the film by talking about how this his script works, a very meta moment.  He is taking the common scene structure of films and twisting it in a fresh, new way.

That all being said, I'm not quite sure if the use of self-awareness is common in all film noir.  I suppose the argument could be made that a highly stylized film is always a self-aware film.  This applies to noir in the way that the lighting always looks as if its a painting and the dialogue is so snappy it seems impossible anyone would speak that way in reality, therefore it is aware that it is a film.  I don't know if that holds much water, but when watching In a Lonely Place I was struck by how aware it was.  Any thoughts?

NoirCon Article and Its Connection to Tom Ripley

Hey everyone,

There was an article about NoirCon on philly.com today. The article discusses how the noir style has expanded from movies like Out of the Past or Double Indemnity, and still currently exists in art, TV shows and music. It further explains that because of the current pessimism in society due to the disillusionment brought about by 9/11 and other contributing factors, the noir style will probably continue to exist in pop culture.

One particular quote in the article caught my attention as a way to understand the fate of Tom in The Talented Mr. Ripley. In discussing noir, the author of the article, Tirdad Derakhshani, interviews Otto Penzler, a noir author. Penzler says noir characters, “may not die in the end … but they sentence themselves to a life of imprisonment or abject sadness." This quote helped me categorize exactly how to feel about Tom Ripley. Although Tom doesn't die or get caught by the police, he becomes imprisoned as Tom Ripley at the end of the novel. In the novel, there is an underlying sense that Tom wishes to be Dickie because he does not like himself. Since Tom’s wish to become Dickie is rooted in his desire to take on a new identity to achieve the social and financial status of Dickie, his “life of imprisonment"  comes when he must stop being Dickie and become Tom again. Although Tom does not get arrested, he actually does get his comeuppance for his misdeeds since he must give up pretending to be Dickie.

Tom Resents Dickie, or Dickie resents Tom?

We talked in class Wednesday about how Tom wanted to morph into Dickie, so I was thinking about how Tom resented Dickie for being well-off and having his own income, home, and career in Rome. Originally, Dickie and Marge are welcoming of Tom, but once Tom overstays his welcome, Marge and Dickie start to become annoyed by Tom. Tom had no real motive behind his resentment of Marge and Dickie, except for the fact that they had it better off than him. Tom feels a sense of jealousy towards Dickie for having so much expendable money and having a father who is loaded with cash.
Honestly, I think Dickie begins to resent Tom once Marge accuses Tom of being in love with Dickie. Tom begins mimicing Dickie's mannerisms and trying on his clothing, which really makes Dickie mad. Tom resents Marge for petty things, such as her appearance, which is "unsophisticated," her clingy nature, and just the fact that she is a blockade Tom has in spending all his time with Dickie. Marge and Dickie had a weird relationship, which made assessing both her and Dickie hard. Was she in love with Dickie, which is why she was so mad at Tom for taking Dickie away from her?

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Marge, and Sexuality

I found The Talented Mr. Ripley to be a disturbing novel.  However, I thought that Ms. Highsmith did a good job with getting me to feel Tom's annoyance and hatred towards Marge.  Her character was very unappealing and seemed to me to represent the negative aspects and stereotypes about women.  Marge was excessively clingy and how she was described made me resent her.  I didn't think that she was a likable character, and maybe that was Ms. Highsmith's intention.  From today's class discussion about Ms. Highsmith's personal life, we learned that she was a very open lesbian.  I wonder if that had anything to do with her characterization of Marge.  Maybe in the past she had an annoyingly clingy girlfriend or was just upset by how some women acted and decided to vent through this character.  Did anyone like Marge?

In terms of Tom's sexuality, I don't think that he was necessarily gay.  I think that he was more disgusted by Marge as a person than by the whole female population.  He doesn't describe his friend Cleo with disgust, only Marge.  I felt that there were more hints that Dickie was gay and didn't want to acknowledge this fact, and since he was in denial, decided to pin it onto Tom.  I thought that Tom was a psychopath that couldn't form attachments, more than a gay man coming to terms with his sexuality.  What does everyone else think?

The "incompetency" of noir police

I find that police in all of the novels and movie we have encountered are not really incompetent but rather a nuisance. They are like a thorn in the side whose only accomplishment is to further irritate and creating more paranoia within the protagonist. Not only that, some of them are depicted as kind of corny. For example, in In a Lonely Place, they accuse Dixon of murder, but Dix, being the witty, suave, cynical guy that he is completely plays the police captain and detective. What I mean by "plays them" is that he answers their questions honestly, but does it in a way that is completely condescending. We see the same thing in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Tom completely dupes the detectives in pursuit of him. They are not incompetent because they do manage to attract the attention of the protagonist, and make him change his behavior, but Tom easily shrugs them off with his trickery. This also happened in The Postman Rings Twice. He is not a cop, but it seems like the judge has Chambers cornered, but by luck and a little help he is easily able to evade him. To me, I get the feeling that the law enforcement in noir are bitches. Like when they are presented in any of the movies and stories, I kind of can already predict they won't do shit. Even though some protagonist commit some pretty heinous crimes, I still root for them against the police. They may scratch the surface of a crime, but the protagonist is easily able to out clever them. In light of all this, I found this video would describe the protagonists' attitudes towards police:

Is Dix Different?

I was thinking about the characters that we've been exposed to in the various types of noir fiction that we've consumed, and I have to say, I think Dixon Steele, despite having the most impressive name of the lot and being played my Bogart himself, was much, much different than how I imagined a noir protagonist to be. I don't think it can be argued that he's not a noir guy, but I do think that he is different in some fairly key ways. He's hardly hard-boiled at all! He's just a talented guy with some anger issues. He's the only noir protagonist that we've come across that I think wasn't the agent of his own destruction - at first, at least. He definitely had some hand in his eventual unraveling later, mostly due to the aforementioned anger issues. But I feel that if the police hadn't decided to single him out, everything would have worked out for him. He was in a relationship, he had a really good script going on, it doesn't seem like there's anything stopping him until he starts to come under suspicion by the police. Even his personality is different, it seems. He's obviously intelligent, but he doesn't sling around one-liners and stays mostly away from "baby." His affections towards Laurel seem more genuine than the other relationships we've explored, especially when contrasted with Walter Neff, whose relationship with Phyllis was always tenuous at best. He definitely elicits some pity from me. I'm not sure that he deserved what he got, anger issues or no anger issues.

Dix: Victim?

In Friday's discussion, everyone seemed quick to condemn Dix for his short temper, as well his apparent lack of sympathy after Mildred's death. Sure his near-strangling of Laurel near the end is worthy of condemnation, but I also can't help feeling that Dix is, to some extent, a victim here. For one thing, nearly all of the characters present in the restaurant scenes are sycophantic leeches intent on feeding off of Dix. Mel, who is Dix's agent and claims to be his friend, is caught spying through his window shades and brazenly steals an unfinished script. Mildred's interest in Dix was wholly superficial, obviously arising from her star-struck desire to rub shoulders with a Hollywood screenwriter. When asked, Laurel merely stated that she “liked his face.” Even the (kids?) outside looking for autographs outside the restaurant accused Dix of being “nobody.” Perhaps the only character who comes across as genuine is the drunk actor, Charlie. It just seems like Dix's anger stems more from being fed up with greed and Hollywood superficiality than war induced post-traumatic stress disorder.

Masculinity in "In a Lonely Place"

Since this was brought up toward the end of class on Friday, there wasn't much time to talk about. After seeing the film and reading the article on shame it seems like we could connect Dix to a type of person talked about in the article..maybe the best fit would be Dix as someone trying to exert their masculinity..? Or other ways he could be seen as someone 'shamed'? (reminds me of the Ressentiment article)

Here's just some things I noticed in "In a Lonely Place" that could be tied to Dix trying to fulfill the masculine role.
- obviously his anger/aggressiveness-especially the scene when he almost hits the guy in the car. His first response to situations is anger.
- The part when he wants breakfast, and just yells to Laurel what he wants without even thinking twice about it
- He attempts to make breakfast one morning- but he's so awkward at it; bending the grapefruit knife back to the shape of a normal knife- shows his lack of domesticity. But, he's trying to change it seems-

What other things did anyone notice about Dix and masculinity?

The Talented Mr. Ripley is UNSETTLING

After completing this novel, I sat on my couch thinking about what exactly made this novel so different from the ones studied previously in the course, and why I was unhappy with the ending...it came down to two main differences: one, that I wasn't rooting for Tom after the murder of Dickie, and two, that he never learns his lesson!

During the last half of the book Tom was literally a half step in front of the police, and I was just WAITING for it to all come undone. Tom had this keen sense of entitlement that really turned me off to him, and when he discussed his past concerning his Aunt and his feeble attempts to make an honest living, I knew that he felt that the world owed him something (specifically the part about stealing a loaf of bread after he gets fired from his job).

And let's be honest, his obsession with Dickie is beyond intense. Right from the start, it was as if his whole purpose in life would be shattered, if he didn't get himself well-liked by Dickie. He was also resentful and jealous of the time he spend with Marge, which raises the question of homosexuality. I'm unsure if his obsession was based on love, sexual attraction, or just an unsound mind, but it also made me unable to empathize with Tom's plight.

So all of this is going on, and I'm expecting that at any point, Tom is finally gonna get what he deserves....but it doesn't happen! For almost all of our other Noir characters, the mistakes they've made lead to their eventual destruction, but not for Tom. He's able to get away scot-free and rich, and it leaves you wondering....is it really that easy?

Prominence of the Telephone and In a Lonely Place

I noticed that at the beginning of In a Lonely Place, Dix neglects to answer his telephone, and instead, prefers to let it ring and never call anyone back.  After meeting Laurel, he is more willing to answer phone calls and be more social.  In a way, this is representative of the fact that Laurel is normalizing him and bringing him back into the social scene.  It can be assumed that he keeps up his good behavior of answering his telephone when he's at home because he is the one to inform Laurel of the fact that they've been invited to attend a beach party thrown by his friend Brub and his wife Sylvia.  At the end of the film, it is the telephone ringing that saves Laurel from Dix strangling her.  The fact that Dix stopped to answer the telephone shows the effect that Laurel had on him, as well as the fact that there must have been some redeeming quality about him even though he almost killed the woman he loved.  He was willing to stop for something as insignificant as a phone call, which, in fact brought them great news about the murder, but it was too late.  The timing was off, and the really sad thing is that if the phone call had come earlier, Dix and Laurel may have lived happily ever after.

In contrast, Laurel always answers the phone until towards the end when she doesn't want Dix to find out that she plans to leave him and refuses to answer the call in front of him.  He gets violent and demands to answer the phone call and starts to realize that she plans on leaving him.  He follows her home and there, once his suspicions are confirmed, he proceeds to try to strangle Laurel since he doesn't want anyone else to have her if he can't.  As stated earlier, the irony is that the phone call from the police is what saves her life.  However, once Dix tells her to answer the phone, she's reluctant to do so, possibly because she is fearful of Dix at that point.  It just shows how the movie did a turnaround of who is willing to answer the telephone and who is not, as insignificant as that may be.

In a Lonely Place as Not a Stereotypical Noir

It was interesting to watch film noir that did not typically fit into the mold of classic noirs. Laurel was in no way manipulative towards Dix, or in general. The whole time I was waiting for Laurel to turn out to be the murderer of Mildred; however, neither her nor Dix turned out to be guilty. Laurel starts a romance with Dix and assumes that he didn't kill Mildred, yet she is still afraid of him because of his tough-guy mentality and attitude towards life. Dix is a classic noir antihero; he is a run-down screenwriter, who has had a few incidents with the police over the years. He is dark character and a suspect for Mildred's murder since he saw her last the night she was killed. Another thing --- the police aren't seen as corrupt in this film. It was depressing to see Laurel and Dix's relationship crumble not as a result of the murder, but as a result of Dix's uncontrollable inner rage. Of course, since it is a noir, relationships are destined to fail, and the film's ending is never going to be a happy one.

Bogart/Grahame/Director Nicholas Ray on the set of "In A Lonely Place".

Wat a face he got!

I meant to post about this last week, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  However, one thing I noticed in the stories we have been looking at is the use of flashback.  These tales have a tendency to be told as the protagonist recalls the past.  In "Double Indemnity," Walter Neff relates the whole film by telling Keyes the story through a recorder.  Then we can look at The Postman Always Rings Twice, where the reader finds out at the end of the novel that it is a confession before Frank gets executed.  And then lastly with "Out of the Past," a solid chunk of the film is Jeff recalling his past life.

Why do this?  I don't know if that's a common characteristic of noir, but it is definitely present in these works.  Is it because people are nostalgic of the past and therefore want their entertainment to be told to them in recollection form?  I don't have an answer, but I certainly would like to hear possible theories as to why these works use this technique.

Noir Parody

If you’re interested in noir parody, there’s a Steve Martin movie called Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid which pays homage to the noir style. The movie stars Steve Martin as a private investigator named Rigby Reardon who is hired to investigate the supposed murder of a woman’s father. The movie pays tribute to noir films by intercutting scenes from movies like Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice into the plot of the story. Steve Martin’s character interacts with actors like Humphrey Bogart, Lana Turner, and Fred MacMurray through the insertion of scenes from various noir films.

Here’s the trailer:

As evidenced in the trailer, the film parodies the noir style through the use of action, shadows, and violence. Steve Martin’s character uses a voiceover in order to evoke the noir style in a comedic sense. The movie also references some of the anxieties about World War II demonstrated in noir films through the use of Nazis as the antagonists in the film.

Femme Fatale

So, I kind of feel like this just needs to be on here...

Also it's hard to get tired of Nico's pronunciation of "clown."

Flashbacks in Film Noir

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Saw this on Xfinity earlier. Danny Devito, “Noir” in the title – the film is obviously satire, but I think its use of flashback storytelling is interesting. Both Out of the Past and Double Indemnity also used flashbacks. In both of those films, the flashbacks seemed didactic and confessionary. Even though Walter Neff's confession did little to exonerate his character, and despite his stated desire to escape, it still seemed to be as much about getting the murder off his chest as gloating before Keyes. Likewise, I think that Jeff's car-ride confession to Ann, in Out of the Past, definitely changes the way that we view his character. If he'd kept the business about Fisher's murder and Kathie to himself, rather than telling Ann, we might, for example, view his character is being dishonest and unrepentant about his criminal past. I'm not sure what else to make of the flashbacks, but they do seem to inject a bit of morality into the otherwise questionable characters.

Nontraditional women in noirs

It is interesting to see how independent the women are in noirs. Kathie, in Out of the Past, is strong-willed, defiant, and very much a not-so-typical woman. Kathie does not act like a stereotypical female, as the other female character, Ann does. Ann cherishes relationships and marriage. She is innocent and traditional compared to Kathie. We are not interested in Ann, though, as much as we are the fearless Kathie. We never  see happy marriages in noirs. There is no aspect of marriage in Out of the Past. Kathie wants Jeff to run away with her, but she never asks him to marry her. Kathie brings on her own death in the end because she refuses to be taken down by the men in her lives. She is the one giving Jeff the ultimatum in the end: either run away with her or take the blame for the murders. I just found this to be particularly interesting because we typically see it the other way around. It seems like the reason that this women are so deadly and destructive is because they are confined to a certain role in society and have no room for any kind of mobility. Maybe their destructive ways is a result of their confinement in society, especially in regards to men and marriage. Noirs do not show marriage as a happy, normal aspect of life, but as confining and restricting for women.

Quotes from Noir works

It seems that every time we finish up a movie or book in this class, there are always a few quotes that stick out to me and define the works as a whole. As Out of the Past comes to an end, here are the quotes that caught my attention.

" We've been wrong a lot and unlucky for awhile. We deserve a break" - Jeff

"All women are wonders because they reduce men to the obvious" - Whit

"If I have to, I'll die last" -Jeff

Any happy endings for anyone?

I would have liked to see a happy ending for Ann and Jeff, but I know that's too much to ask of a noir film. From my understanding, if I took it the right way, one thing that even further rejected the happy ending was how Ann will forever be under the impression that Jeff was going to leave with Kathie. When Ann asked the deaf/dumb boy if he was going to leave with her, he said yes; so the truth didn't even come out at the end that Jeff was setting Kathie up to get caught. I took that as Kathie living under a false impression of the truth, therefore leaving her with a somewhat bad ending.
Basically everyone else ended up dead.
But the deaf/dumb boy seems to be only one that didn't turn out to be in a worse place by the end of the movie. Does anyone else see good endings for characters?

Jeff Bailey = Most Hardboiled, Yet Most Moral of All the Noir Protagonists?

I definitely agree with Arick that Robert Mitchum's Jeff Bailey (also known as Jeff Markham) seemed like the quintessential hard boiled detective. As far as being a film noir antihero though, he seemed less tragic or tortured than Walter in Double Indemnity or Frank in the Postman Always Rings Twice; however, that made his death at the end of the film more depressing for me since he seemed a little bit more ethical than the other typical noir anitheroes. It was good to see that he wasn't a fool like the rest of the noir protagonists we read about, including Johnny Marr from Rendezvous in Black,and didn't continue to stay with his mistress (except for setting her up) after he realized she was trouble. I was also glad to see that the Deaf Kid (even though I don't think he is credited with a legitimate name) didn't conform totally to the victimized disabled person or bitter/evil/vengeful disabled person trope. One last question, what would have come of Jeff and Ann's relationship if Jeff remained alive? Although Jim (Ann's local admirer) is a law officer, he still seemed like a pretty shifty character to me and a little too possessive over Ann, so some violent confrontation might have taken place between the two.

Who is the most Hard-Boiled of em all?

Out of the Past seemed to be an exercise in masculine apathy. I absolutely loved the cool-guy indifference Mitchum's character Jeff displayed throughout the movie... It got me thinking about the concept of characters being 'hard-boiled', with the reflection that they are soft on the inside, but hard shells on the outside. While we have many more doomed Noir heroes to realize yet in the course, Mitchum seemed to be an egg boiled till oblivion- no runny yolks here. I personally enjoyed most of the movie, finding the dialogue to be only a little bit campy, (fewer 'babies' mentioned) and the ultimate fate of Jeff and Kathie was satisfying within the progression of plot.
It is interesting that the birth of the cool seems to be found in the hard-fighting-man attitude these Noir heroes possess, and I often wonder now if the character of Jeff is the most 'hard-boiled' of all the Noir men we have seen yet. Johnny Marr caved in at the sight of his beloved Dorothy, Walter Neff thought he was so damn crafty, and Frank Chambers was just a bum lookin' for a dame. But Jeff's character seemed to never turn off the joe-cool persona, couldn't get enough cigs, and also huge trench-coats are great for carrying around vast parcels of information, such as tax returns, briefcases, etc. If a trench-coat that huge isn't cool.... I really don't know what is then.

Noir Lecture and Out of the Past

Okay, so, I'm going to do two posts in one here.

First, let's talk about the library lecture we attended. Overall, I'd say I really enjoyed it. I thought that the student writers were good, especially that guy at the end. I unfortunately couldn't stay until the end, but I was pretty fascinated with Robert Polito reading that excerpt from the author David Goodis. I can't remember what he was reading from (i.e. which of Goodis' work), but it was some pretty exceptional writing. Considering the fact that Goodis is noir writer, the excerpt that Polito read seemed to be incredibly cold and frank, two attributes that are particularly important in noir as we all know. I really wish I could have stayed until the end.

Secondly, I want to mention Out of the Past. I loved it. I loved the characters, the story, the actors - just about everything. There was one thing, specifically, that I enjoyed about all else: Robert Mitchum's character, Jeff Bailey/Markham. While I did have sympathy for the other characters we've dealt with - that is, Walter Neff, Frank Chambers, and Johnny Marr - when they met their demise, I felt this quite strongly for Jeff. For one thing, he didn't seem sleazy like Walter (see Walter's initial exchange with Phyllis) or Frank (I mean, in the second chapter, he's already banging another man's wife), nor was he a psychopath out for revenge like Johnny; no, Jeff didn't hit me like that. Instead, he seemed, as Kirk Douglas' character, Whit Sterling, put it, "smart and honest." Of course, I do acknowledge that Jeff does lie, but it's only to get himself away from a situation that someone else put him in, in most cases. Jeff wants to leave the past behind him and live out his days as an honest man; that is to say, unlike the other three characters, instead of looking for trouble, trouble found him (I know there can be arguments on the contrary to this, but I still feel like, most of the time, Jeff wanted to just be left alone). Additionally, Jeff also resigns himself to his own fate. Walter (in the film version of Double Indemnity, anyway) pleads with Keyes for a head start, Frank tries to have his death sentence overturned, and Johnny - well, Johnny sort of had his coming sometime after the second rendezvous. Jeff isn't like this; he doesn't want to drive off with Kathie into the sunset, and decides to call the police to take him in, even though there's virtually no way for him to beat the wrap at that point. In a number of ways, I feel like this makes Jeff at least a little more virtuous than the other characters we've discussed.

Also, I really liked the film because it had KIRK FREAKIN' DOUGLAS. I mean, seriously - enough said right there.

Noir Student Readings

I really enjoyed attending the Noir event in the library on Monday.  Polito's talk was very informative, and the students' work was impressive.  The two female students' writing stood out to me and I thought that they were of publishable quality.  However, the male student's writing seemed too unpolished, which, I understand may be his interpretation of Noir, but I felt that some of his descriptions could have been a bit more subtle and not as crude.  The male student's way of reading seemed too exaggerated and I had trouble connecting with his story or being drawn into it.  I'm not sure if it was the student's way of writing or his delivery of his story that bothered me.  It might have been both, but I'm not sure.  However, all the students should be congratulated for writing works for the Noir genre.

Library Event Discussion

A thread for questions, observations, and comments about Robert Polito's talk and, if you wish, other aspects of the 8 October noir event at the library.

"And what is love anyway but the unattainable, the reaching out toward an illusion?"

Our Friday discussion in which people asked, Is Johnny's revenge not all about him? and How serious is his love? addresses some important questions, both about the characters' psychology and about whether the novel works at face value. What is revenge about? Does the novel do enough to immerse you in its world that you can buy the existence of the Great Love described in its initial pages? Is the vague and generic description of the two lovers an asset or a detriment: would it be more persuasive if we knew what they liked to talk about or what their families had been like? Does the account of the love between Johnny and Dorothy suffer by comparison with other loves in the story?

Johnny's Mental State

In Rendezvous in Black, I really liked the progression Woolrich used in order to demonstrate Johnny’s descent into psychosis. The book is written in such a way which keeps the reader somewhat confused about Johnny’s state of mind, and there never is any deep analysis into what happened to Johnny’s mental state after Dorothy’s death. We know that he snapped, and we eventually come to realize that he murders the women, but we are not exactly sure about what happened to him. As readers, we are only left to understand Johnny’s psychosis through his actions of murdering the women.

Johnny’s first murder is passive. He inflicts harm without ever interacting with the woman, so we are unable to gather further insight about him. The next murder involves physical harm, but we are not given details about how Johnny was able to acquire access to his victim.  Finally, with Sharon, we see how he manipulates the situation and forces Sharon to leave her husband in order to kill her. This murder, along with the murder of Madeline, shows how demented Johnny is. I found it interesting that Johnny is able to slip out of his stupor of waiting for Dorothy to “return,” charm the unsuspecting women, force them to fall in love with him and murder them. His final murder truly shows how sadistic and psychotic Johnny has become since he tracks down and murders Martine, a defenseless blind woman.

Woolrich also demonstrates Johnny’s increased psychotic behavior by allowing the reader to sympathize with the murdered women. With Jeanette Garrison, I felt that I was never given a chance to sympathize with her since Woolrich establishes this narrative after her death. With Martine, I was able to sympathize with her since the narrative enabled me to follow her attempt at trying to escape her own murder even though she does not succeed. Through this technique of establishing the stories of the women, Woolrich allows the reader to infer that Johnny has become progressively psychotic. While reading, I became interested in the characters and felt increasingly disgusted with Johnny after each murder. The increased emotional impact in each of Johnny’s crimes allowed me to see how psychotic Johnny had become.

What does everyone else think? Did Johnny descend further into psychosis as the book continued or did his mental state remain consistent throughout the book?

The Smiths? Rendezvous in Black?

Woolrich's book continually makes me listen to The Smiths. I couldn't help but notice weird details relating the band to Rendezvous in Black.

The first being the main character is named Johnny Marr, as is the famous guitarist from the band.. besides that there is the character of Bill Morrissey, and the lead singer of the band is named Morrissey.. I found that to be a huge coincidence and wondered if a band such as The Smiths would have read the book and been influenced by its dark atmosphere. After all, most Smiths songs are dark, depressing, and concern the loss of love in brutal or morose ways. I'm pretty sure Morrissey was a failed writer before hooking up with Marr and forming the band, so it would be conceivable that he would read such a novel, however I have found no proof that the band read or was influenced by the novel at all. If that supposition is true, its hilarious to me that this coincidence exists, as the atmosphere emitted by both the band and the book are certainly kindred spirits. And now, music.

Ending in Rendezvous in Black / Martine's Character

I found the ending of Rendezvous in Black to be extremely dark and noir-ish. The author put so much time into talking about Martine and Allen that I really thought there would be a somewhat happy ending with Martine escaping death. I forgot for a little bit that it was a noir novel- so an unhappy ending should have been expected. I loved Martine's character, and found her to be the complete opposite of Johnny Marr. Johnny was revengeful, whereas Martine had "never been inclined to feel sorry for herself. No matter what they took away, you still had so much left" (174). This was a deep contrast with his character who couldn't face reality and recognize that there was more to life. (I have a different book so the page number might be a little off). I found it hard to finish the book because it was just so suspenseful that I didn't think I could handle reading any more! What did everyone else think of the ending/ the character of Martine?

Freud and Psychoanalytic Things

A bunch of you indicated in the first meeting of the class that you'd read some Freud before. What have you read? And is there anything that you found interesting or useful in psychoanalytic thought? Here's an idea of mine: that scene where I thought, "Hey, Fred MacMurray can act" — where Walter's expression goes through contortions as he listens to Keyes's recorded memo expressing faith in him — could, perhaps benefit from psychoanalytic vocabulary. It would say something about how Walter must have viewed Keyes in order to experience him as a powerful thing to "get over," to rebel against, or what-have-you, using terms like "phantasm" or "imago" to refer to the Keyes in Walter's head. And that moment when he learns that Keyes has warm feelings toward him and is something other than an obstacle would be, like, one of those moments of phantasmatic working-through, when you see your parent not as the super-egoic fantasy figure, but as another frail, fallible human being.

I'm not asking you here to apply psychoanalytic thought to course material, necessarily, though: just to say something about your experience with and interest in it, if any.

Rendezvous in Black-Sympathizing with Johnny

I must say that Woolrich's Rendezvous in Black has been my favorite novel so far.  I really felt for Johnny Marr and I must say, he had a right to want  revenge.  If I had been in his place, I would have wanted to avenge the love of my life's death as well.  However, his actions had a sadistic edge to them, since for his later kills, Sharon Paige and Madeline Drew, he gets close to them and makes them fall in love with him, before he goes on to kill them.  Woolrich did a great job getting the reader to sympathize with all of his characters, I felt bad for the women getting killed and I felt bad for Johnny.  I liked the fact that whatever alias Johnny assumed, he always used his same initials 'JM'.  The ending was heartbreaking for me to read, it showed just how deep Johnny's devotion to Dorothy ran, since he died calling out her name.  It was also a pretty brutal way for Cameron to catch Johnny, by having a police woman dress up as an identical replica to Dorothy.  It was harsh since it hurt Johnny both emotionally as well as psychologically in addition to his demise.  I understand that Johnny did some horrible things, but he was so scarred by Dorothy's death and his loss of love.  People do crazy things for love.  Should the guy really blamed for all his actions?

Other Thoughts on "Postman"

I just had a few more thoughts on The Postman Always Rings Twice that I wanted to touch upon.

First off, what struck me as interesting is how the Postman rather denies the popular structure of novels. More specifically, I'm talking the common story-telling rule of three. Goldilocks had her three bears. The wolf chased after the three pigs. The three blind mice, and so on. This is a common narrative technique that could be found all over the place in creative writing. Cain, on the other hand, stuck with two; two attempts to murder the Greek, two trials, two car accidents, etc. Whether or not Cain had the intention of breaking that rule of three and shifting things to two is unclear, however he did it. Also, this rule breaking could contribute to the theory behind the title of the novel. The Postman doesn't ring three times, he rings twice. Granted, this is a stretch, but it was just another thought that I had while discussing this novel.

Another point I wanted to bring up is the subtle religious aspect to The Postman Always Rings Twice. The story has small religious instances all throughout it.  For example, at certain points in the novel, the characters state that they had the Devil in them. When Cora and Frank are making amends, Cora says, "Well, I'm rid of the devil Frank. I know I'll never call up Sackett, because I had my chance, and I had my reason, and I didn't do it. So the devil has left me. But has he left you?" In addition, there is a scene in the ocean, which I wrote about on another comment, in which Frank sort of goes through at baptism. He dives down into the water and comes up a new man, purged of all his sins. Now, again, whether or not these religious segments are intentional is unknown, but they are still interesting. Part of me believes Cain is using these religious comparisons and metaphors strictly for aesthetics. Meaning, the fact that the cat was "deader than hell" was most likely used because it sounded cool, not because Cain wanted a religious theme.

Language in James M. Cain

I mentioned in a facebook status that I'd been teaching The Postman Always Rings Twice, and a scholar in Taiwan surprised me by saying, "There are some extraordinary sentences in that novel." 'Cause the style doesn't call attention to itself like Woolrich or even like earlier tough-guy writers such as Hammett and Hemingway. And what had made the biggest impression on me in the novel was not Frank's narrative voice but the characterization through dialogue. "Killed it deader'n hell." "He suspicions me, Frank." "Was a all go dark." Even "She picked it up and tucked it around me, then turned away quick" is more notable for what it describes than how it's written, I thought.

So what do you think? Any "extraordinary sentences," either for the imagery or for the punch they pack or for the dialogue they convey? This could be useful to think about for the paper-in-progress.

Open Open Thread

This thread is primarily for those students who have tried unsuccessfully to put up blog posts: if the blog is not allowing you to post a thing, try writing it as, or linking it in, a comment below.

Rendezvous in Black prose and language

Within pages of reading Rendezvous in Black, I was hooked by the prose and metaphors. It is so detailed and descriptive, and I can picture everything so perfectly. The book is suspenseful and definitely keeps me on my feet, so I'm interesting in seeing how it ends. A few of my favorite passages:

"The blinds were down over all the windows. There was a wreath on the door. It was raining softly, and the red-black, white-trimmed Georgian house looked cold and lonely. The drops falling from the trees that stood around it, more clearly and visible than in the open for they were held back and thickened by the screen of leaves that had no filter through, made the trees all seem to be weeping in unison."

"Several times he was on the point of succumbing, and his hypertensile nerves, like springs, would ricochet him back again through the surface of consciousness. Then at last he sank down into the murky waters of oblivion and didn't come up any more."

These passages contain very many noir images: rain, closed blinds, along with a lonely and alienated protagonist. This book seems a little off of the noir. The narrative is very surreal, and this book seems a little different than stereotypical noirs.

As for the plot of Rendezvous in Black, the protagonist is seeking revenge on the murderer of his fiance, which is a different concept than what we read/saw in Postman and Double Indemnity. This doesn't seem like the stereotypical noir, but more of a crime, revenge and suspense story.

If this is not yet a movie, it definitely should be!

Listen Baby, Let's Talk About The Dialogue, Baby

In class we discussed how the dialogue employed in Double Indemnity might be viewed as “over the top.” I think the reason for this is, aside from the fact that the movie is very much dated, is that in recent years we have seen many movies who try to mock imitate this style of dialogue. Fred MacMurry’s character in Double Indemnity had a very idenfiable swagger, even in his dying breaths, and this kind of attitude has been a model for directors like Frank Miller (Sin City) and Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill, Grindhouse). Both directors are apt to use this kind of iconic and sometimes misogynistic language, and are likely to do so in an omniscient voice over; the point is that it is always purposefully over the top. Most kids our age haven't seen many movies from this era, but they have seen the imitation of this era, and its always presented semi-comedic manner. From there we now have countless student films that now try to mirror this kind of throw-back style of speaking (as seen in newer movies), and many times it comes across as forced. I think all of this explains why the dialogue in Double Indemnity may come across as artificial to a 20-something liberal arts student. 

The Postman Always Rings Twice ending

Hello, everyone!

So, I know The Postman Always Rings Twice has is its own thread, but I'll be honest - I still need to take a peak at all the other posts that have been made. I did, however, wanted to share my thoughts on the ending of the story.

First and foremost: did anyone else feel like the narrative wrapped up incredibly quickly? I mean, I felt like there was a great deal of time spent on how Frank and Cora felt toward the murder and one another after the crime, but everything after Kennedy comes to the restaurant seemed very rushed, like Cain was trying to just get to the ending. I mean, Frank's reformation, in my opinion, did not see much in the way of detail (at least not until the very end), nor did his subsequent trial after Cora's death. I supposed that, in terms of what is essential to the plot, these things aren't that substantial, but I finished the book wanting to know more about Frank's change. Don't get me wrong - I feel like there was enough to make me upset over Frank's death, I didn't really feel anything for him until those last few paragraphs. Perhaps it was the way the dialogue was written in the book, but when Frank and Cora are discussing "the devil leaving" Frank, I wasn't really sure if he was actually telling the truth or not. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Wilder on "Double Indemnity"

Thumbing through Cameron Crowe's book length interview with Billy Wilder, and I thought I'd share some choice cuts:

BW: Double Indemnity was so grim, by the way, that Brackett [Wilder's writing partner] kind of ducked out. He says, "No, it's too grim for me." So that's how I got Chandler. Mr. Raymond Chandler, from whom I learned in the very beginning, you know, what real dialogue is. Because that's all he could write. That, and descriptions. "Out of his ears grew hair long enough to catch a moth" ... or the other one I loved: "Nothing is as empty as an empty swimming pool. But he could not construct.

He was about sixty when we worked together. He was a dilettante. He did not like the structure of a screenplay, wasn't used to it. He was a mess, but he could write a beautiful sentence. "There is nothing as empty as an empty swimming pool." That is a great line, a great one. After a while I was able to write like Chandler... I would take down what he wrote, and structure it, and we would work on it. He hated James Cain. I loved the story, but he did not care for Cain. I tried to get Cain, but he was busy making a movie. Chandler also did not care for Agatha Christie. But each had what the other lacked. Christie, she knew structure. Sometimes the plot was very high-schoolish. She had structure, but she lacked poetry....

CC: Over the years, it appears you've upgraded your estimations of Leisen and Chandler.

BW: Sure, the anger gets washed, gets watery. You know, you forget about it. That's a very good thing. That's the only thing. Sure. I cannot forgive Mr. Hitler, but I certainly can forgive Mr. Leisen or Mr. Chandler. That's a different story. [Pause.] But then... there was a lot of Hitler in Chandler.

CC: [laughs] In what way?

BW: In the way he talked behind my back. And the way he quit writing with me and then came back the same day. Because I had told him to close that window, a Venetian blind in the office, and I didn't say, "please."

CC: You had the stick too, right? The riding crop. And you said, "Shut the window."

BW: Yeah, I had the stick. I had the stick, and I had three martinis before lunch, and I called girls -- six girls. One of them took fifteen minutes for me to get off the phone... and he was just outraged. He just could not take it, because he was impotent, I guess. And he had a wife who was much older than he was, and he was in AA, Alcoholics Anonymous -- an unnecessary thing, because he got to be a drunkard again when we finished.

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CC: Let's talk about a couple of your famous "lost sequences." In Double Indemnity, why didn't you use the gas-chamber ending you'd scripted and shot with Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson?

BW: I did not need it. I knew it as I was filming the next-to-the-last scene. The story was between the two guys. I knew it, even though I had already filmed the gas-chamber scene. Here was the scene I didn't use. It was a close-up of Robinson and a close-up of MacMurray. The looks. There was a connection with his heart. The doctor was standing there listening to the heartbeat when the heartbeat stopped. I had it all, a wonderful look between the two, and then MacMurray was filled with gas. Robinson comes out, and the other witnesses are there. And he took a cigar, opened the cigar case, and struck the match. It was moving -- but the other scene, the previous scene, was moving in itself. You didn't know if it was the police siren in the background or the hospital sending the doctor. What the hell do we need to see him die for? Right? So we took out that scene in the gas chamber -- cost us about five thousand dollars, because we had to build that thing. It was an exact duplicate, and there are always two chairs there -- two chairs, in case of a double murder and they executed them together. So one chair was empty. It was a very good scene...

******
CC: How did you arrive at the visual style of the movie?

BW: We had to be realistic. You had to believe the situation and the characters, or all was lost. I insisted on black-and-white, of course, and in making operettas I'd learned that sometimes one technical shot destroyed a picture. You could say that Double Indemnity was based on the principal of M, the very good picture starring Peter Lorre. I had a feeling, something in my head, M was on my mind. I tried for a very realistic picture -- a few little tricks, but not very tricky. M  was the look of the picture. It was a picture that looked like a newsreel. You never realized it was staged. But like a newsreel, you look to grab a moment of truth, and exploit it.

CC: But the lighting was sometimes very dramatic. Were you influenced by the German expressionist films?

BW: No. There was some dramatic lighting, yes, but it was newsreel lighting. That was the ideal. I'm not saying that every shot was a masterpiece, but sometimes even in a newsreel you get a masterpiece shot. That was the approach. No phony setups. I had a few shots in mind between MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson, and they happened at the beginning and the end, when the two were together in that room. That was it. Everything was meant to support the realism of the story. I had worked with cameraman before and I trusted him. We used a little mezzo light in the apartment when Stanwyck comes to see MacMurray in the apartment -- this is when he makes up his mind to commit murder. That's it. ...

*******

The book is called "Conversations with Wilder." I would imagine it's available at the library, but if it's not and you'd like a closer look, just let me know.