Film Noir in Contemporary Poetry

THE KNOWLEDGE A Collection of Poetry and THE POEM NOIR: Film Noir in Contemporary Poetry John Challis This thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of Newcastle University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics 23rd October 2015 ii Abstract This thesis consists of a collection of poetry, The Knowledge, and the first critical investigation into the ‘poem noir’, an unidentified and unexplored mode within contemporary poetry that exhibits thematic and visual echoes from the body of films known as film noir. Taking its title from the London taxi driver’s rigorous examination, The Knowledge’s key theme is displacement: from social class, education and from a sense of home. It echoes the quest of the doomed film noir protagonist, who, in a thirst for knowledge, is drawn into a psychological descent into a metaphorical underworld. Like the poems noir analysed in the critical section, these possess an anxious, pessimistic and obsessive engagement with the world, and are set within noirish locales to excavate the autobiographical and the imaginative. Inspired by film noir’s portrayal of individuals whose identity is called into conflict, the poems take the lid off the works of memory and place, to examine a personal and public moral compass, and to dramatize the past and the present. After providing a definition of film noir, the critical section outlines a model for reading a poem noir by analysing a selection of seminal American films noir of the classic 1941 to 1958 period, along with several neo-noir films produced from the 1970s onwards. It then provides close readings of Paul Muldoon’s hard-boiled Chandleresque poem, ‘Immram’ (1980), Deryn Rees-Jones’ book-length murder-mystery poem, Quiver (2004), and David Harsent’s nightmarish labyrinthine poem, ‘Elsewhere’ (2011), and introduces them as poems noir. In conclusion I consider how writing poetry is a noirish act, sharing a similarity with Seamus Heaney’s notion that the role of writing poetry is to unearth revelations about the self, and with Henrik Gustafsson’s thesis that film noir is concerned with taking the lid off the works to expose whatever truth lies beneath. iii iv Acknowledgement I am hugely grateful to my supervisor, Professor Sean O’Brien, for his tutelage, guidance and support throughout the writing of the collection of poems, and the critical component that completes this thesis. I am also hugely grateful to my second supervisor, Dr Andrew Shail, for his expertise, feedback and support in helping me write and shape the critical component. Lastly, I would also like to thank both Deryn Rees-Jones and David Harsent for allowing me to interview them about their work, and for their comments and encouragement regarding the poem noir. v vi Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgement v List of Figures viii THE KNOWLEDGE: A Collection of Poetry 1 THE POEM NOIR: Film Noir in Contemporary Poetry 77 Introduction 78 Lost in Translation? Literature into cinema, cinema into literature 81 A Knife Fight in the Expanding Alley: Film Noir Scholarship 85 Conclusion 89 Chapter 1: Identifying the Noir Paradigm 92 Classical Hollywood Cinema and Film Noir 92 Detective Literature and Film Noir 102 Anxiety in Film Noir 106 Pessimism in Film Noir 110 Obsession in Film Noir 114 The Paradigm Shifts: Neo-Noir 118 Conclusion: What is the Poem Noir? 128 Chapter 2: Introducing the Poem Noir 130 Film Noir Anxiety in Deryn Rees-Jones’ Quiver 130 Hard-Boiled Obsession in ‘Immram’ by Paul Muldoon 141 The Existential Pessimist in David Harsent’s ‘Elsewhere’ 149 Conclusion: Other Poems Noir 161 Conclusion: A Film Noir Ars Poetica 166 Bibliography 171 Filmography 175 vii List of Figures Figure 1.1: Double Indemnity (1944) Figure 1.2: The Dark Corner (1946) Figure 1.3: The Big Combo (1955) Figure 1.4: Lady In The Lake (1947) Figure 1.5: The Maltese Falcon (1941) Figure 1.6: Murder, My Sweet (1944) Figure 1.7: The Big Combo (1955) Figures 1.8–1.10: D.O.A. (1950) Figures 1.11–1.13: Double Indemnity (1944) Figure 1.14: Laura (1944) Figure 1.15: The Killers (1946) Figures 1.16–1.19: Klute (1971) Figures 1.20–1.27: Se7en (1995) Figures 2.1–2.6: Taxi Driver (1976) viii THE KNOWLEDGE A Collection of Poetry 1 Contents I Baptism by Fire 6 Hansard 7 Returning from the North 8 Camphor 9 Blood 10 Dark Heat 11 The Fire Door 12 The Third Men 13 The Love 14 Operator 15 Discourse on Noir 16 Hallmark Hotel, Carlisle 17 Ugly-on-Sea 18 Seaside Noir 19 II The Storm Door 21 Pond Life 22 Hail 23 Hand Composition 24 Terminus 25 The Race 26 Rec. 27 Clockmaking 28 A Lock of Larkin’s Hair 29 Focus 30 III In medias res 32 The Edge of Campus 33 Into the Maze 34 Blackbird in a Rowan Tree 35 Naming the Light 36 IV Arcade Britannia 38 The Underpass 39 2 The Lavender Line 40 Plague Ground 41 Old Spitalfields Market 42 Uses for an Archive 43 The Drunks 44 The Drink 45 To a B Road Lay-By 46 The Driving Range 47 The Cabin 48 The Listeners 49 Blackspot 50 The Speed of Sound 51 V Flashback 53 The Corbets Tey Road Phone Box 54 Dead Fox Blues 55 The Knowledge 57 The Cellar of Central Bar 58 The Closed Road 59 The Decline of the Market Town Hotel 60 A Wake 61 Murphy 62 Prayer 63 Pillbox 64 Advertising 65 Arson 66 The War Book 67 Pension 68 Gasholder, West Ham 69 Charon, Re-Employed 70 The Eleven Percent 71 A Withdrawal 72 Addendum 74 Night Safe 75 Notes and Acknowledgements 76 3 “The Knowledge is the in-depth study of a number of pre-set London street routes and places of interest that taxicab drivers in that city must complete to obtain a license to operate a black cab. It was initiated in 1865, and has changed little since. It is claimed that the training involved ensures that London taxi drivers are experts on London, and have an intimate knowledge of the city.” Taxicabs of the United Kingdom, Wikipedia.1 “I have been brought here by imagination, and now I am stuck with the memories.” Charles Fernyhough, from Pieces of Light.2 1 Wikipedia contributors, 'Taxicabs of the United Kingdom', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 July 2004, 10:55 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom> [accessed 15 February 2015] 2 Charles Fernyhough, Pieces of Light: The New Science of Memory (London: Profile Books, 2013), p. 45. 4 I 5 Baptism by Fire Tonight the soot-faced men have taken picks below to mine what’s left of money from the money mine to fuel the furnace of the air. They will not stop until there’s nothing, nothing to burn, nothing to heat, but the air’s own silent machine, that has you sweating your confession. Tell your loved ones that you love them. Tonight, you are the flame. 6 Hansard I’ve been writing elegies for the undead. Imagining the hovels where their souls will be led, and making sense of their still-in-use possessions. I’m pressing ears to walls and doors, and taking the minutes of the air, my pen on paper a cardiograph. I’m planning funerals ahead. But nightly, ghosts arrive with tickets to the picture house to see a film from their time, shot in black and white, with the pale leads dressed in ‘old-style hats and coats.’ And even though we spoke this morning, I see my teenage father help the Rt. Hon. George Brown rise out of the gutter, with Dave Darkins and a copper, as I walk past Downing Street, no armed guards or cameras, to a black cab on Whitehall. No waiting paparazzi. My father’s on a year of half-nights, printing Hansard from the Commons. I hear him whisper as I stroll: ‘I signed the Official Secrets Act.’ Smug to know the price hike before the printers’ local. And as I write some copy on a client’s APR rates, I hear myself say to him: ‘Dad, you ever get creative? Change the words? Revise the budget?’ ‘No, never, not our place. We left the lies to higher men.’ And as I get this down on paper, I watch him prime the typeset, see him hold his inky hand, much younger than I am now, to pass the baton, no, the torch, no, a cloudy pint. Now here’s my mother’s father who never touched a drop, lighting up to watch the TV. I ask him what he’s viewing but his eyes and mouth are stitched up and I do not have the heart. 7 Returning from the North One night the family men returned across the brook and through the corn, from work abroad on oil rigs, to find their wives moved on with newly fathered children, the locks changed, the pub knocked down, the market bare of fish and scales, no means to weigh their sighs. Like them, I came home by that chance, across the field to vault the fence, to slot my rusted key and breathe a home-cooked scent. But I turned to find the plants removed. The garden scooped of stem and root. No rowan tree, no oak, no green. And in pallid light, I unlocked the door and breathed the cocktail of exhaust that slurred my sight and unbalanced me. The house I thought I knew appeared to glow and rise, then split and drift as though I’d lit the gas that had been leaking since I took my leave.

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