According
to Otto Penzler, noir stories focus on losers, on the people that will
ultimately doom themselves by their own immoral choices. He cites Nef as a
perfect example from Double Indemnity.
I’m on board with Nef’s story as one of noir, but, conversely, Otto declares
the PI story is not noir as it is one filled with hope, focused on a moral
character standing up and doing what is right in an immoral world. Even the
premise itself is hopeful as other characters seek out the PI to solve their
problems.
Otto
suggests that the protagonist character is of primary importance, so that if
the story is told from the perspective of someone other than the PI, it could
be a noir story. This is the point where I’m not sure I agree with Otto.
To my mind,
the world, the society, is what is noir. I see Nef’s world as the same as
Spade’s world as the same as Marlowe’s world. The moral and immoral choices of
characters are what are important. For that matter, those moral choices are
never between right and wrong, but wrong and less wrong. Or perhaps those
choices are made for the wrong reasons.
I need to
deal with this in a little more detail, I think. I’m probably going to look at
Spade and Marlowe along with Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder” to
continue to make sense of this.