The Long Goodbye (1973)
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DZ-123: Flawed Characters in Noir
What can Film Noir teach us about character arcs and audience engagement?
AI✦Examines how The Long Goodbye sustains audience investment in an unlikeable protagonist through sheer narrative persistence, positioning moral compromise as the price of survival in a 1970s power structure where money and intellect—not law enforcement—hold true authority.✦
Listen if you want to write morally compromised characters without endorsing their choices.
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In this two part series, Mel and Chas use Noir (the genre) as a lens to interrogate flawed characters. How can characters doing reprehensible things still engage audiences? How can you ensure representation isn’t endorsement? And whether these characters undergo transformative arcs, or simply reveal their true natures… →
"Everything is still fucked and you just have to go on and it's all still fucked."
DZ-124: Making the Despicable Compelling
How does Film Noir show us terrible people doing terrible things without endorsing it?
AI✦Examines how**The Long Goodbye* *uses moral ambiguity and the unreliable narrator to keep audiences invested in a protagonist engaged in morally questionable behaviour, drawing out the craft mechanics that sustain sympathy for antiheroes.✦
Listen if you need audiences to root for characters who do terrible things
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Mel and Chas continue to explore what Noir (the genre) can teach writers of all other genres. In particular:… →
Films:
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
, Woman of the Hour (2024)
, Double Indemnity (1944)
, The Long Goodbye (1973)
"What can we learn from noir?. In particular: *How can we make characters doing despicable things... compelling?*"