blog 7

In the story The Kidnapper Bell written by Jim Pascoe, he makes many remarks stating that the story is taking place in Los Angeles. Even within the first line he says "Change flows swiftly through L.A."(209). So its pretty obvious where the story is taking place but lets look deeper into the story and relate it to the L.A. scene. First the main character is at a bar in L.A. waiting on his date to show up, while there he starts classifying everyone that is in the bar. This is something typical for residents of L.A. to do, that why so to speck everyone that lives there has fake boobs, fake hair, or just a fake body. So him doing this is analyzing each person and putting them into groups. The next scene he has drugs in his pocket and slipped a date rape drug in her drink. Drugs is something big in the city of Los Angeles, its all about who has the better stuff at a cheaper price. Maybe this point isn't't valid due to the fact there are drugs everywhere so lets move on. When the female character leads him to the dead body, on page 211 he mentions how she drives past Chinatown, Chinatown is a famous site to see when in L.A so there is another land mark. Also in that scene it mentions how dark the streets are and this will lead to the suspense later to happen. Another huge popular old L.A scene is the Los Angeles river, most of this story takes place here and this is also where to two body lay. After the situation at the L.A river, he is sent on a quest to to try and find the dead girls sister. In terms he was led back to the river and while there he mentions all the Graffiti art that's drawn all over the cement walls. This is a big shout out to L.A, Graffiti is art and art is considered an act of expression, and people in L.A are very expressive and different in their own ways. So overall i think Jim Pascoe did a good job describing settle details of Los Angeles and letting the readers mind work harder to relate the story.

Furthermore, in the story City of Commerce written by Neal Pollack, it was harder for me to relate to L.A besides the obvious statement the main male character makes about L.A. For me i see this story taking place more in Las Vegas due the all the gambling going on. But that is also from a younger generations point of view. Ive seen a lot of old films like "Gangster squad" that there was a lot of gambling going on in the olden days. But back to the story, he mentions details about the freeways he takes while getting to the casino and when he pulls up to the casino he says what cars are there which is a status thing yet again. " i pulled the car into a spot in the back row, between a gleaming Cadillac SUV and an Oldsmobile that looked like it hadn't been washed since 1973" (232). Once again showing the judgement of Los Angeles. Another thing that stood out to me was the fact that the Russian man called him Dodger, because he was wearing a Dodger hat. This is relating that hes from L.A. because he's wearing the hat and the Dodgers are from L.A. as well.

Blog 6

Through reading this article “Space, time, and Subjectivity in Neo-Noir Cinema” by Jerold J. Abrams, it was nice to see how Noir was, is, and what it will be. Even though I have not seen any of the films mentioned in the article, it was enlightening to see the different forms of a protagonist or the detective, and different ways they are molded into their characters. In the article it says, “Neo-Noir, is likely to take place in vast open spaces as in the pestilential city of tradition” (8). It also says that at the end of the neo noir period, the scene started to move out from the big city like Los Angeles and into Mexico or open spaces to make the scene more dark and mysterious. Also in the old Noir time period the cityscape were very tightly fit and well organized, but as the new noir started to move in the surrounding city started to become more separated.  The description of the neo noir detective as it states in the article, “The self is the detective, the self is the villain, and all clues exist solely within his own mind”(9). This is stating that the detective figure is both the protagonist and antagonist, also throughout the whole film or novel he is fighting himself between the good and bad.

For neo noir time the detective almost always suffered from some case of amnesia, hallucinations, multiple personality, high-tech revealing of the future, or other alterations.  This is a defining characteristic of the detective figure and what they may go though in the film or novel. In the article, “Past neo noir is usually low-tech, contrasting it with a very high-tech future noir, and almost always theological” (10). An example of a film that amplifies this is Raiders of the lost ark. Some comparisons of this film that relates back to the old era of noir is the fact that Indiana Jones has a gun and wears a noir fedora, he also uses snappy language and has quick comebacks. Indiana is also on a quest looking for something in order to determine his faith. At the end of this film the scene of turning science into religion is apparent, “No longer is the dangerous box of light nuclear; now it’s an even more dangerous box of spiritual light, “’fire of god’” as Indiana puts it” (12). This concept goes for the same film Pulp Fiction directed by Quentin Tarantino, two men are sent to recover a briefcase that when opened gleams a golden light. Abrams believes that the figure of neo noir will be “Replaced by science and high technology” (13).  Like in the film blade running they use a certain testing on robots that consist of asking them questions which related back to the interviews that were used in classic noir. “so you get the basic idea: past noir is theological, and future noir is sci-fi”. He also says, “God and the devil are replaced by science and technology” (14).  Also mentioned in the article is the Tv series called the X-files, where aliens walk around like regular people wearing trench coats and fedoras. The aliens would also put humans on a space ship that looked like Los Angeles cityscape, which relates back to the old noir. In the present neo noir scene, the article says, “These films take place neither in the distant past nor the distant future” (16).  Films that resemble this type noir includes memento, the Bourne Identity, and Fightclub, and Faith on chaos. In both memento and Fightclub, “the detective must rely on clues from his own body to reveal truths about his mind” (17). Which means that the protagonist is being controlled by the inside of himself and mind is being guided by the mind. Also in fight club, the main character kills his alter ego in order to get the bad out of him as well as max in pie: Faith in Chaos. Overall Noir hasn’t changed much they are just using different objects to bring out the original traits of classic noir.