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

In The Maltese Falcon the object of the quest, “the stuff dreams are made of,” turns out to be a fake. In The Big Sleep, the catalyst for much of the chaos is a murder that finally no one cares about. The Asphalt Jungle began a subcategory of heist-noir, in which a team of working-class professionals is carefully assembled to commit an intricately planned robbery. Though in heist-noir the theft itself is usually accomplished, unforeseen and incalculable consequences unravel its aftermath. The failure of these activities demonstrates that human beings cannot control their world, and their endeavors are ultimately futile.

The existential mood of noir is depicted by the bleak imagery of a physical world filled with stark, barely lit interiors, shadowy corridors and alleys, and rain-soaked streets that Chandler described as “dark with something more than night” (Introduction to “Art of Murder” 1016). The isolation of the individual and the lack of transcendent values are personified by the noir protagonist, who is typically a cynical, morally ambiguous loner without conventional standards of ethics. Thrown into incredibly dangerous situations by the randomness of existence, miscalculated actions, or the requirements of his profession, the protagonist is forced to play a high-stakes game to its bitter conclusion. In D.O.A., a vacationing accountant learns that he has been fatally poisoned for notarizing an incriminating bill of sale several months ago. In Detour, a piano player hitchhiking to Los Angeles is involved in two accidental deaths, and though he is not guilty of murder in either case, at the end of the story, he wanders the highways grimly anticipating his inevitable capture by the authorities. In Double Indemnity, a critically wounded insurance salesman staggers to the office during the wee hours to dictate the fatal consequences of his willing participation in a murder. As these narratives unfold, the characters are left to ponder and explain to what extent they are responsible for their conditions. In American noir, the existential attitude is not so much chosen as realized, as circumstances force protagonists to examine their lives.

Attention must be given to the fact that American existentialism was not produced in the ivory towers of academia but instead emerged in genre fiction and Hollywood films. American philosophers not only failed to produce a version of existentialism but failed to notice its presence in the form of noir.