DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir

Transcript

Read the transcript for this episode.

Chapters

• 00:00:00 – Cold Open
• 00:00:17 – Flawed Characters and Noir
• 00:03:06 – › Writing morally compromised characters without endorsing their worldview
• 00:08:41 – › Defining film noir as genre, style, and worldview
• 00:14:27 – › Noir's reach across decades of screenwriting
• 00:16:40 – DOUBLE INDEMNITY
• 00:21:41 – › Diegetic confession and its structural function
• 00:27:17 – › Telling the audience the crime upfront removes justification burden
• 00:32:24 – › How everyman framing sustains complicity in a morally bankrupt protagonist
• 00:41:43 – › Whether morally compromised characters genuinely change or self-reveal
• 00:49:17 – › Film worldview versus character desire: crime without endorsement
• 00:53:38 – THE LONG GOODBYE
• 01:00:17 – › Save the cat: establishing a morally complex protagonist
• 01:06:26 – › Transgression, personal code, and the inevitability of noir failure
• 01:14:13 – › Character change versus worldview shift at the ending
• 01:21:15 – Wrap Up and Key Learnings

Films

• DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) — (w) Raymond Chandler, James M Cain, Billy Wilder (d) Billy Wilder
• THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) — (w) Leigh Brackett, Raymond Chandler (d) Robert Altman

Scripts

• Study the script: THE LONG GOODBYE (1973) — Leigh Brackett, Raymond Chandler

Shot Zero Deep Dives

• ↗Blocking a Sneak: DOUBLE INDEMNITY

Links

• Read: Mel’s A Brief History of Queer Coding in Film Part 1

Episodes in the Noir series

• DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir
• DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling

Declaring Wrongdoing Without Endorsing It

"This film somewhat amazingly tells you coming in that they're murderers and then you're sitting around watching how they commit murder and then you're stressed wanting them to get away with murder and ultimately you're like oh kill again because that's the only way you're going to keep getting away with murder this film yeah makes you feel that way as an audience member absolutely without ever endorsing this is good this is right."

— Chas Fisher (00:52:27) · Audience Complicity · Representation and Endorsement

The Work You Skip With Known Transgressions

"Because they've told you that the transgression already happened, You don't need to carry the audience along with a pure introduction into this character. That first decision to do wrong, you don't have to put the work in, in terms of backstory or given circumstances."

— Chas Fisher (00:31:28) · Given Circumstances · Character Motivation

How Done It Over Who Done It

"Tell the audience up front that the crime has happened, that the transgression or the sin or whatever you want to call it has happened. Because then it becomes a how done it and a why done it, not a who done it."

— Chas Fisher (00:26:57) · Genre Conventions · Dramatic Irony

Gangster Stories vs. Noir Worldviews

"Often, gangsters are about the gang and the mob or the people within that. And noir is more interested, very broadly speaking, in... the system and the system being broader society, being the police, being, you know, culture at large and how you can or cannot necessarily win with it."

— Mel Killingsworth (00:12:21) · Genre Conventions · Worldview