Blog #7

In this weeks blog we were asked to answer this question... How do the writers use the landscapes of Los Angeles in their stories? Do they ccreate a distinct sense of the place? Have they given a good description of what one would experience in those locations?
In Kidnappers Bell, author Jim Pascoe refers to the LA River a few times and China Town. the reference to China Town in and of itself does not scream Los Angeles. You can find that reference in New York. The LA River reference I don't believe is still convioncing enough to be a distinctive sense of location. One could even feel as if was just a comparison to the LA River. Personally, I have lived here almost my whole life and I would not have been fully convinced of this area. There definately were not enough details for me to truly believe that the writer was describing Los Angeles.
In the story City of Commerce by Neal Poolack, I got a much better sense of the location in which he was talking about. Commerce alone is not enough to place you in Los Angeles. There are many cities in the United States that have the same name. But there are several details that he refereces that could only be a direct location near Los Angeles. Here is an example of a distinct reference to Los Angeles. 'I prepared for my meeting, in my mind, as I whipped the Acura down the 110, andthen onto I-5 as I moved through Downtown, crawling past merges like sheep on wheels being herded off to slaughter".(231) This is very typical of rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. Also the reference to specific freeways is another indication as to where you are. The writer also references malibu and Santa Monica. These are iconic beach cities in the Los Angeles area.
Although Neal Pollack did a good job at desribing the setting I feel that it was still a little too generic to be a very iconic view of Los Angeles. However He did a much better job than Jim Pascoe in his story and the lack of real references to Los Angeles.

Blog Post #6

In neo-noir, although there is continuity of the genre, Hirch finds it to be a perfectly natural extention of the same classic themes. Hirch writes "noirs basic narrative molds have remained notably stable". Meaning that the crime, femme fatale,detective figure are all there from the beginning. The changes now are the social issues. Because we are a more modern and contemporary society, we are using issues and putting them in the forefront of the plot. Also, the setting is vastly different than the predictable ones we had previouslyseen in classic noir. He refers to the movie Evil Touch at the end of classic noir. It is not set in the typical Los Angeles city setting. Rather it has gone into another country, Mexico, and into the desert. He is saying that by changing the setting you can make it feel even more dangerous. As Edward Dimendly points outthat now the city skyline seems to be mass produced. We see huge chain stores everywhere. They aren't that many buildings to differentiate from each other. Campareing it to old noir as being a city that was tightly organized around the center of the city.

In classic noir the detective figure is always in a big city such as Los Angeles. He tries to search for clues to unravel the mystery and usually falls for the femme fatale. Because of the shift of noir to neo-noir, the dtective figure has definately changed. He has gone from trying to solve crimes commited by someone else to things taking place in relation to ones- self. This is because of the way we are as a society. We a re using more social issues as a fore front tha nthey did back in the classic noir era.

There are three areas of neo noir that play a large role in how we see this genre of movies. They are Past, present, and future.

Past- The past is set in a large city such as Los Angeleswith the detective walking dark and lonely streets interviewing suspects and never believing t hem. Such as Humphrey Bogart playing Phillip Marlowe in the Big Sleep ( Howard Hawks 1946 ). These films were also a bit on the low budget end.

Present- The setting is now more about "time" of the distant future and distant past. The detective figure isn't really chasing the "bad guy" as much as he is trying to figure out his own identity. For instance, in the movie the Bourne Iddentity Matt Damons characterhas amnesia and he is trying to get his identity back and doesn't knowwhere to start. Also in the movie Paycheck, Micheal Jennings ( played by Ben Affleck ) had his memory wiped out and must figure out what kind of future he has engineered. He leaves clues from the future amd must interpret the past in order to discover what he used to know.

Future- The difference of future neo-noir and classic noir is that the movies are much more high techand use futuristic characteristics to drawin the audience. Movies such as Blade Runner use a plot of the detective having to exterminate four humanoid "replecants". So we are seeing this same theme of protagonist, even in a modern science fiction movie. And then there is the android "Rachel". She fits the characteristics of the modern ( high tech version ) femme fatale.