Existentialism, Film Noir, and Hard-Boiled Fiction By Stephen Fa ...

The melodrama is defined as a story that features a romance in the midst of other happenings and a relative happy ending concerning the couple. The difference between the film gris and the melodrama is that the romance in the melodrama leads to marriage or the suggestion of marriage, while the outcome of the romance is less certain in film gris. In film noir, the affair can hardly be called a romance, and the resolution is at least unclear, and often hostile and deadly.

Tuska argues that a film featuring a conventional romance and a happy ending undermines the bleak, pessimistic outlook associated with noir, so further designations are required. Tuska illustrates his point using three films made in 1944: Laura, The Big Sleep,⁷ and Double Indemnity. In Laura, it is clear at the end that Laura Hunt and detective Mark McPherson will marry, it is uncertain how long the romance will last between Vivian Rutledge and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, and the affair between Phyllis Dietrichson and Walter Neff leads to betrayal and death in Double Indemnity. Tuska classifies Laura as melodrama, The Big Sleep as film gris and Double Indemnity as film noir. Tuska provides a filmography that labels each movie, and while I disagree with him about certain films,⁸ I wholeheartedly support his effort to provide much-needed restraint.

I intend to be faithful to the original impulses of Borde and Chaumeton that described film noir as a special category distinct from other melodramas and thrillers of the 1940s and 1950s.⁹ Because I contend that American noir precedes the alleged introduction of existentialism from France, except for a few references to later movies, I will restrict myself to the original film noir period with one exception. Though Chinatown was released in 1974, the film can be seen as a commentary on films from the original period and brilliantly summarizes several important noir elements. I will follow Tuska’s lead by examining the movies within the period that are most effectively noir. It is not my position that any and every movie every described as film noir qualifies as existentialist, but I submit that films most deserving of the name represent a poor man’s existentialism.