April 2012
22 posts
“Is every goddamn woman in this goddamn hellhole out of her goddamn mind?”
—Commissioner Dolan in The Spirit
What is your opinion of the Bernie Gunther novels by Philip Kerr?
First of all, I love the icon/avatar. The Question is a rather underappreciated superhero, IMHO.
That said, I am familiar with Bernie Gunther by reputation, but I have yet to meet him. I’ve seen the books in bookstores, but haven’t yet read one. They look very good, and they come recommended highly. I certainly want to read them, but there is rather a large backlog, so I don’t know how soon that is likely to happen.
Hey there, could you perhaps give me some good examples of the classic noir femme fatale? Film ones would be best, as I'm thinking about costumes for a heroes vs. villains party.
I am putting this out there as others may have ideas for you. I think James M. Cain furnishes a couple of the most recognizable femmes fatale: Barbara Stanwyck’ character in Double Indemnity and Lana Turner’s in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Mary Astor was perhaps the original femme fatale in The Maltese Falcon. And of course, we can’t leave Lauren Bacall or The Big Sleep off the list. There’s Rita Hayworth (though not a blonde) in Gilda. Gloria Grahame is great as femme fatale in either The Big Heat or In a Lonely Place.
If you’re amenable to neo-noir, that opens up a whole host of other possibilities. I also invite other readers to share recommendations (note that the poster prefers blonde characters).
Not sure if it's been brought to your attention already, but you might like "Fatale" from Image Comics. It's not exactly hard-boiled detective style, but they've got the atmosphere down pat!
I have heard of this, and it looks quite interesting. I highly recommend Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ previous efforts: Sleeper, Criminal and Incognito. Brubaker was also very good with Darwyn Cooke in Catwoman: The Dark End of the Street. I will certainly track Fatale down once it’s published in a collected edition.
The Moment
Sam was uneasy. He was distracted. What’s more, he wasn’t sure why. This was common enough at one point. It had been a while, though. Sam could name a couple reasons why he might be unsettled. But he wasn’t sure which was the cause. His lawyer friends talked about proximate cause. He needed one of them to tell him the proximate cause of his funk.
So Sam did what he always did when he was uneasy. When he was so distracted he couldn’t read, watch television or even sit still. He walked. He had errands to run. He could do those. But it didn’t matter how much time it took to run the errands. That wasn’t the point. Sam walked, and he pondered. Even brooded a little bit.
Sam needed office supplies, so to the office supply store he went. The store always struck him as odd. Maybe he didn’t have the luxury of a large office. Still, his office was an intimate place. It was his home, for all practical purposes. He had an apartment. But he ate at the office, slept there most nights, did most of his drinking there. Occasionally other intimacies occurred. They were usually conducted in his office, too.
Sam was happy with his small office. But the office supply store didn’t remind him of his office. It was a big fucking warehouse. Sam thought of it as a “make your own office” kit. Maybe it was like aquarium supply stores. Sam figured they didn’t really resemble aquariums, either.
Sam scrutinized a great many things when he was in a foul mood. He absent-mindedly walked around the store. These people looked like they belonged anywhere but an office. There was the guy with nylon running shorts. Shorts are one thing. This dope’s were shorter than any self-respecting man would dare to wear.
Then there was the very pregnant store employee. She cheerfully asked Sam if he needed help finding anything. He wasn’t looking for anything, and he wasn’t in the mood for cheer. Her wide mouth and wider smile revealed a tongue piercing. Sam didn’t know any other reason for getting a tongue ring. He doubted there was one. Her pregnant belly suggested the piercing hadn’t done much good. Or the guy was just insatiable. Either way, it wasn’t Sam’s problem.
On it went. Everyone in the store was going to hell in handbasket. Sam was a detective. He was just filling out the indictments. This one pushed the cart too slow. That one talked too loudly. Warm weather seemed to bring out horrible mothers. They were screaming blue murder at their kids, they were overly permissive. They were all doing it profoundly wrong.
He found it hard to be too critical of the braless co-ed. Her paisley blouse was probably garish. But Sam wasn’t too critical when he was watching jiggling tits. Hers were small, but they were big enough. They were just fine as far as Sam was concerned—and so was she. Still, he would have been damn critical if she actually stepped into an office in that get-up. Well, any office but his.
Voyeurism was small comfort, though. Sam paid for his purchases and left the store. He browsed thrift shops for neckties. He bought spaghetti for dinner. A succession of distractions—and minor irritations. But finally he headed back to his office.
Sam was just walking up to the his door when he paused. It was a very distinctive noise. He looked around. It was a plumber’s van stopped at the red light. He was listening to the baseball game. Sam listened, too. He couldn’t hear what the announcer was saying. But he could hear the deep steady voice. Then he heard it pause. He could still hear the crowd noise in the background. Sam smiled. The announcer was probably waiting for the pitch. That was good. A play-by-play man shouldn’t step all over the game. The announcer resumed talking as the light changed. The van rolled away.
Sam didn’t know if the pitch was a grounder to first or a home run. He didn’t really need to know. It was afternoon baseball on the radio. It was rare these days. It was still beautiful.
Sam would go back to fretting. He’d pace and mutter. He’d wonder. But he had a moment. A moment where all was right with the world. He shrugged. It was more than most people got.
Sam Spade at Starbucks →
nytimes.com
I generally don’t talk about politics on this blog, as that’s my day job. But rules are made to be broken. Whatever your politics, I think you should read David Brooks. You may agree with him, or you may not. But I think he is one of the most thoughtful social or political commentators writing today. Even when I disagree with his conclusions, I think my own position is better for having to wrestle with his.
In today’s column, Brooks dings social entrepreneurs for lacking “moral realism” à la Hammett and Chandler. Brooks is often criticized for making broad generalizations—and in some instances, they are simply incorrect. Still, I would be interested to know if there many examples (or any examples) of social entrepreneurs with such moral realism.
Regardless of his point vis-à-vis social entrepreneurs, I think Brooks is brilliant in his analysis of the hardboiled hero.
In short, there’s only so much good you can do unless you are willing to confront corruption, venality and disorder head-on. So if I could, presumptuously, recommend a reading list to help these activists fill in the gaps in the prevailing service ethos, I’d start with the novels of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, or at least the movies based on them.
The noir heroes like Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon” served as models for a generation of Americans, and they put the focus squarely on venality, corruption and disorder and how you should behave in the face of it.
A noir hero is a moral realist. He assumes that everybody is dappled with virtue and vice, especially himself. He makes no social-class distinction and only provisional moral distinctions between the private eyes like himself and the criminals he pursues. The assumption in a Hammett book is that the good guy has a spotty past, does spotty things and that the private eye and the criminal are two sides to the same personality.
He (or she — the women in these stories follow the same code) adopts a layered personality. He hardens himself on the outside in order to protect whatever is left of the finer self within.
He is reticent, allergic to self-righteousness and appears unfeeling, but he is motivated by a disillusioned sense of honor. The world often rewards the wrong things, but each job comes with obligations and even if everything is decaying you should still take pride in your work. Under the cynical mask, there is still a basic sense of good order, that crime should be punished and bad behavior shouldn’t go uncorrected. He knows he’s not going to be uplifted by his work; that to tackle the hard jobs he’ll have to risk coarsening himself, but he doggedly plows ahead.
This worldview had a huge influence as a generation confronted crime, corruption, fascism and communism. I’m not sure I can see today’s social entrepreneurs wearing fedoras and trench coats. But noir’s moral realism would be a nice supplement to today’s prevailing ethos. It would fold some hardheadedness in with today’s service mentality. It would focus attention on the core issues: order and rule of law. And it would be necessary. Contemporary Washington, not to mention parts of the developing world, may be less seedy than the cities in the noir stories, but they are equally laced with self-deception and self-dealing.
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