After reading the stories, “The Kidnapper Bell” and “City of Commerce” in the collection Los Angeles Noir, I came to the conclusion that the authors did a very good job at describing and using the Los Angeles landscape. Growing up in Los Angeles, I could see the L.A. River in my head, clear as day. Kidnapper Bell written by Jim Pascoe gave detailed description that made it easy to imagine being there at that moment. The “knee-high barrier of loose chain-link tops” (pg.212) and the “graffiti on the drain covers” (pg.220). However Neal Pollack’s City of Commerce does a better job in making you feel and visualize parts of Los Angeles. How easily “on an ordinary day, an overturned tractor-trailer can destroy your plans in L.A.” (pg.240). Pollack’s also describes the change in landscape as he heads South on the I-5. “The landscape grew generic, sooty, industrial…” (pg.231). Pollack also describes how the leather-bound nightclubs and fancy Valley gallerias change to the outlet malls and truck-stop Arby’s as he travels down the I-5 to the City of Commerce. Overall I get the sense that the authors know not only the brightness, shining lights of L.A. but the dark side as well, of what goes on when the lights are off.

Blog 6

            In reading Space, Time, and Subjectivity in Neo-Noir Cinema by Jerold J. Abrams I came to the realization that though film noir and neo-noir include the similarities in characters, they were completely different. Though both are told by first person perspective, the detective in film noir is always searching for a criminal. As written by Abrams, neo-noir is where the “detectives search is for himself, for his own identity and how he may have lost it.” Hence, neo-noir protagonist detectives, heroes always have some form of amnesia. They either cannot form new memories, cannot remember past events, or one particular event. However, time is very important to the structure of neo-noir, where it can be classified as past neo-noir, present, neo-noir, and future neo noir.

            When talking about past neo-noir the protagonist hero, detective seems to be vulnerable and in search for something he cannot reach. It seems that the only way to find what he is looking for is to go back in time. Once there, after facing many obstacles he realizes the truth of what he was searching for. He tends to find himself in the brink of danger.

            Future neo-noir is more about science and technology.  In this case the protagonist hero must find himself, despite technology. For example in the movie Blade Runner the main character is of course in most noir films a detective, of the name Rick Deckard, where he believes that he is looking for a villain... android. When he comes face to face with Rachel he comes to the conclusion that not everything is as it seems. He begins to search for the truth, his truth. Was it possible that he is an android too, and if so why didn’t he realize it sooner?

            As for present neo-noir it seems that the protagonist heroes always seem to be trying to remember who they were, rather than searching for who they are. They are trying to explain what their bodies know, but what their minds don’t.  The antihero tends to be deeply uncertain about his past and unsure about the meaning of the present activity he is engaged in, therefore questioning his identity.

            Hence forth, neo noir’s protagonist hero is somewhat different from that of film noir. As written by Abrams, the heroes “can never escape the illusions of his own mind.” Meaning that everything they think they did, every action they take will always be questionable because of the inability to escape oneself, for the fact that one is always ahead of the other.