THE WRITER by Paul Jensen
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FILTHM NOIR: THEE WRITE RWORL D by Paul Jensen Hollywood, always ten or fifteen years of the few allowing an honest evocation of late in reflecting trends in fiction or the contemporary life, and because he would theatre, didn't catch up with the hard- rather communicate with a large audience boiled school of detective fiction until the than a limited coterie, he voluntarily middle Forties. At that time, Raymond worked within the restrictions of a for- Chandler was its foremost practitioner. mula. Writers, he reasoned, had always His four novels—The Big Sleep (1939), had conditions imposed upon them from Fareivell My Lovely (1940), The High Windou' without; he concluded that Shakespeare, if (1942), and The Lady in the Lake (1943)—had alive, "would have taken the current for- made him a best-selling author, and liter- mulae and forced them into something ary critics lavished praise on his prose lesser men thought them incapable style, at once muscular and baroque, and of... .Instead of saying 'this medium is on his vigorous depiction of urban not good,' he would have used it and societv's corruption. made it good." Chandler's movie career was limited, So Raymond Chandler challenged him- but his influence as screenwriter (espe- self to write for "the semi-literate public cially on DOUBLE INDEMNITY, 1944) and as and at the same time give them some intel- adapted novelist figured prominently in lectual and artistic overtones which that establishing the tone of the period: the public does not seek or demand or, in ef- post-war mood of bitterness and black fect, recognize, but which somehow sub- futility, the hero who has lost psychologi- consciously it accepts and likes." He be- cal stability, the stretching against the lieved that readers would accept style, boundaries of the Production Code. Al- "providing you do not call it style either in though Chandler did not actually cause words or by, as it were, standing off and this trend, he became associated with its admiring it." It is style, he felt, that puts a formation because the time was right for writer's personal stamp on familiar mater- what he had to offer. ial, and thus elevates it—a belief that ap- Born in Chicago, Chandler had been plies equally well to someone working raised and educated in England. Soon within the Hollywood system. after World War I, he moved to California, It was Chandler's opinion that readers where he became a successful executive for only thought they wanted nothing but ac- several small oil companies. When the De- tion; "that really, although they didn't pression forced him out of that job, he know it, the thing they cared about, and turned to writing, and published his first that I cared about, was the creation of emo- story in 1933, at the age of forty-four. The tion through dialogue and description." Los Angeles-Hollywood environment be- What they remembered was not the actual came the setting for his fiction, and even in death of a man, but, for example, that "in his first story, a movie star was one of the the moment of his death he was trying to main characters. Later, after Chandler's pick a paper clip up off the polished surface personal involvement with the industry, of a desk and it kept slipping away from that world of glittery illusions became even him, so that there was a look of strain on more prominent in his novels, and turned his face and his mouth was half open in a up regularly in his essays and letters. kind of tormented grin, and the last thing Although Chandler preferred the inde- in the world he thought about was death." pendence of writing novels to the team- This concern for the expressiveness of con- work of screenwriting, his outlook was crete detail should clarify why filmmakers otherwise ideal for a Hollywood film- found Chandler and his writings attrac- maker. In the Forties, mystery novels bore tive. much the same relation to Literature as In one 1948 essay, Chandler described movies did to the Theatre: that of a conde- murder tales as "almost the only kind of scendingly tolerated appendage. As a writing we do better than it was ever done genre author working in a despised mass before," and in another, published the medium, he criticized Serious Writing same year, he stated that the motion pic- with a vigor that combined defensiveness ture is "the only art at which we of this with a faith in the possibilities of a popular generation have any possible chance to art. His comments on novels can apply greatly excel." Obviously, he thought of equally well to films. the two in essentially the same terms. Chandler viewed his chosen form as one One very basic link between movies and 18 NOVEMBER 1974 Fred MacMurray in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. RAYMOND CHANDLER: LIVE IN Chandler's fiction is the balance main- Chandler conceived of his hero, Philip tained between a relatively realistic setting Marlowe, as a solitary, determined indi- and a main character who is a fantasy ex- vidual aiding whatever other individuals tension of the viewer/reader/author. he can, offering at least partial respite from Chandler, like his predecessor Dashiell the darkness of existence. In Chandler's Hammett, reacted against the older, best-known essay, "The Simple Art of gentleman-detective type of mystery. He Murder," he describes Marlowe as a kind refused to create an intellectual puzzle that of knight: "Down these mean streets a built purposefully to the final revelation of man must go who is not himself mean, whodunit and howdedooit. He rejected who is neither tarnished nor afraid ... .He the detective who scientifically accumu- must be the best man in his world and a lates minute facts until the last bit of infor- good enough man for any world... .If mation; is found and fitted into the overall there were enough like him, the world picture; and he sidestepped the suspects would be a safe place to live in, without who exist only as pawns to be moved becoming too dull to be worth living in." about in a controlled game and whose ac- In execution, however, Marlowe is not tions and motives can be deduced by ra- quite so pure or powerful or confident. A tional means. disillusioned idealist, he knows that so- Instead, he aimed for an accurate evoca- ciety in general cannot be changed, al- tion of places and atmosphere, of indi- though a few people might be helped, and viduals who are normally illogical and un- that his "quest for hidden truth" very predictable, and of their ambiguous mo- likely will expose more than anyone de- tives, emotions, and interactions. The sires, including his client. Marlowe is form is justified not by the mental satisfac- somewhat tarnished, because he must tion of solving a riddle, but by the tensions deal with corruption on its own terms or be and insights encountered in the process. In destroyed. Believably vulnerable, he can Chandler's words, "The best mystery be fooled and injured, but retains the small story is one you would read even if the last virtue of stubbornness. He is a loner and a chapter were torn out." loser; he has little money, few friends, and Chandler's characters move through a less satisfaction. He can trust no one, be- world of pervasive corruption and cause only poses are presented to him, duplicity—sometimes blatantly brutal, even by those innocent of specific crimes. sometimes coated with a slickness of re- His investigation involves peeling off the finement, sometimes lurking unobserved layers of artifice by using himself as a in shadowy nooks and crannies. "A world catalyst: he intrudes into a precarious situ- gone wrong, [in which] civilization had ation, the dynamics of which are unknown created the machinery for its own destruc- to him, and stirs it up with insinuations tion and was learning to use it with all the and accusations, pinching a nerve here, moronic delight of a gangster trying out his slicing with an offensive wisecrack there, first machine gun," wrote Chandler. "The hoping that a reaction will occur but that law was something to be manipulated for the mixture won't explode in his face. profit and power. The streets were dark Eventually, the crime is solved and its with something more than night." It was a perpetrator exposed. All mysteries, it world that reflected the tension and cyni- seems, must reach this simple but satisfy- cism of the modern age. ing point. But here, the final emphasis is Yet, "although such things happen, not on the identity of the killer or on his they do not happen so fast and in such a method, but on what is revealed about tight frame of logic to so closely knit a human nature, about the things people group of people." The detective provides choose to do, are driven to, or tolerate. an artificial framework, with his job allow- Often Chandler leaves an impression of ing the viewer/reader to enter into the wide-ranging guilt, tangled responsibility, characters' lives. An outsider, he meddles and the inexplicable potential of humanity. in the existences of others, trying to control What Marlowe uncovers is never all and his urge toward involvement and remain rarely quite enough; it remains a small re- an objective observer. His function defines solution, a tentative revelation, an incom- his existence; to be active and to care is to plete insight. live, but to lose detachment is to court So, the fantasy exists: in the overem- disaster.