Abstract
The values espoused in neo-noir are the focus of the last chapter, locating an illicit appeal in characters who take control of their existence, defying ostensible rules and laws. Epitomising Nietzsche’s ‘Overman’ (although equally likely to be played by women), the pleasure of transgression acquires its darkest hue via a cynical endorsement of self-advancement, jettisoning any sense of compassion or conscience. However, a contrasting tendency is also evident in narratives that replace nihilism with a belief in our capacity to challenge injustice and secure change. Characters who wed a ‘will to power’ with a social conscience are thus deemed to be a genuinely transgressive development, promoting qualities of defiance and self-possession that does not hinge on ruthless avarice and self-interest, affirming a light amid the darkness.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Borde, Raymonde and Etienne Chaumeton, ‘Towards a Definition of Film Noir’, first published 1955 reprinted by Silver and Ursini in The Film Noir Reader (1997), pp. 17–25.
Brooks, Xan, interview with Martin McDonagh in The Guardian (2018), available at https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/11/three-billboards-director-martin-mcdonagh-little-girls-dont-have-a-marlon-brando-or-james-dean-to-emulate.
Camus, Albert, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt (originally published 1951, reprinted New York: Vintage, 1956).
Durgnat, Raymond, ‘Paint It Black: The Family Tree of Film Noir’, originally published in Cinema (1970), republished in The Film Noir Reader (1997), pp. 37–51.
Gates, Phillipa, Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006).
Grossman, Julie, Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for Her Close-Up (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Hibbs, Thomas S., ‘The Human Comedy Perpetuates Itself: Nihilism and Comedy in Coen Neo-Noir’, The Philosophy of Neo-Noir (ed.), T. Conard (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009), pp. 137–150.
Higham, Charles and Joel Greenberg, ‘Noir Cinema’, originally published in their Book Hollywood in the Forties (1968), reprinted in The Film Noir Reader (1997), pp. 27–35.
Hirsch, Foster, Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir (New York: Limelight, 1999).
Naremore, James, More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts (London: University of California Press, 1998, revised 2008).
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil (1886).
Porfirio, Robert, ‘No Way Out: Existential Motifs in Film Noir’, originally published in Sight and Sound (Autumn 1976), reprinted in The Film Noir Reader (1997), pp. 77–93.
———, ‘Problems of Memory and Identity in Neo-Noir’s Existentialist Antihero’ (Conard, 2009), pp. 47–66.
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Being and Nothingness (1943).
Spicer, Andrew, Film Noir (Pearson, 2002).
———, ‘Problems of Memory and Identity in Neo-Noir’s Existentialist Antihero’ (Conard, 2009), pp. 47–66.
Ursini, Robert, ‘Angst at Sixty Fields Per Second’, in Film Noir Reader (1997), pp. 275–287.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Short, S. (2019). Fatalism vs Free Will: Nihilism and Noir. In: Darkness Calls. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13807-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13807-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-13806-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-13807-3
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)