Seeking with Groans

In his article “Seeking with Groans: The moral universe of film noir” Thomas Hibbs explores the cultural and moral implications of the detective movie genre in Books & Culture, March/April 2007, pages 41-43. If you are interested in movies or crime dramas, this is an excellent article to give you a fresh perspective. There is no consensus on a unifying definition of film noir. One of the main features of film noir is its pessimism that is a counter to the optimistic, progressive vision of postwar America that turns the American dream into a nightmare. It also counters the Enlightenment vision of the city as the locus of human bliss, where human autonomy and rational economics combine to satisfy human desire. In film noir, however, the city is dark and foreboding that frustrates the fulfillment of human desire.

Noir films focus on characters who try to live decent, peaceful, domestic lives until some chance event pulls them back into their dark past and the history of violence repeats itself, engulfing the protagonist. Traditional detective fiction provides a clear sense of public justice and offers a clear solution to the struggle between the detective and the criminal. In film noir, however, there is no clear sense of justice and presents a “puzzle of character” and the struggle is between the detective and himself. The city becomes not a place of light and pleasure but the tall buildings block out the light and trap the characters in a labyrinth that frustrates their desires. Film noir offers no clear way out of the trap.

Hibbs sees film noir offering the main character a type of redemption, not in the sense of cheap grace, but offers an “authentically penitential” path of “difficult spiritual growth.” The end of the film tends to combine physical brutality with the lingering possibility of love and fidelity, suggesting that even in a corrupt world, a certain kind of integrity is still possible and that in certain circumstances, defeat can be victory. The protagonist discovers that he must live by some other code than brute force in a world with a loss of clear moral codes. When a character tries to violate the limits of the human condition, it is rarely successful. And redemption, while present, is usually partial, yet personal. Film noir, then, seems to be an attempt to discover the lost moral code while truthfully speaking about eh human condition. While it repudiates old-fashioned American optimism, it doesn’t succumb to nihilism, but, in Pascal’s words, “seeks with groans” looking for redemption.



You can read this article at: http://www.ctlibrary.com/43011