The title looks only at film but of course, the concept could extend to any form of presentation. There were criticisms of this man's take on noir below, he seeing it mainly in terms of plot:
Compare that to this, which saw it in more technical terms:
Do you recall me opining that often there's no zero sum involved at all - both or all have degrees of rightness. Thus, someone bowling in and saying nope, it's not A in the least, it's B I tell ye ... well that is a very silly position on most things, IMHO.
In a similar way, the jab does, in the initial stages, have some effect for specific demographics ... for awhile. There is a degree of truth in there. But there is also a high degree of truth in the opposite evidence.
And this is different to Woke leftist relativism in that I am not trying to say that all 'truths' are equal and/or interchangeable, far from it.
For example, the Ten Commandments stricture about killing is pretty much understood for what it was intended to be and thus is 100% one way, 0% the other way. Relativism, on the other hand, is a ploy intended to undermine a universal truth and thus render it discardable. It is a political ploy, whereas saying there's usually not a zero sum game is an observation of life.
It's not unlike any domestic argument - often there are two sides ... but not always. Occasionally, it's all one way.
In that context then, I'd lean more towards the second YT above, whilst not discounting the first. To me, FN is certainly about dark themes and technical devices to match them, e.g. chiaroscuro, Dutch angle etc., panning and highlights but it's also about the slow degradation of the main protagonist's character, his/her soul, plus the femme fatale is always a rotter at some stage.
I'd say FN is closer to life's reality, rather than fiction in film. Sadly, due to upbringing, society's structure and natural female proclivity, the females who use their charms to take men to the cleaners proliferate, they're everywhere. Jane Greer had more than a little Kathy Moffatt within herself in real life, I've looked at her life and she was a right malcontent. [Out of the Past, one of the greatest noirs with Robert Mitchum and her.]
I do know some females who are fairly selfless, are more for their hubby and family than for themselves and such ladies are like hen's teeth or rubies today ... difficult to find but they do exist, provided the man treats her right:
The man ... well, emotionally unthinking, uncaring ... that does proliferate, yep. Violent men are everywhere too, to the extent of solving problems physically. But not all are like that and the urbane man tries to avoid that. Even I, hardly urbane, yet not given to violence as a rule, quite the opposite, but if pushed too far ... well you know. Sadly, certain females tried to test it out. One I once picked up and threw on the bed, then stormed out, the other, years later, I pushed over in the snow and stormed off. I used to do a lot of storming off [don't sleep in the subway, darling].
What I'm getting to by degrees here is the assumption in film noir that the femme-fatale is an utter rotter and all women are [just ask a MGTOW]. Hence the very laboured explanation earlier about no zero sum. Were you to see the femme-fatale as the root cause of all trouble and misery, I'd say you're partly right, but there are also all those male proclivities which don't mix well with the femme-fatale antics.
And leaving all of that aside, what film noir most certainly has is style ... panache. It's a quite different way of going about things. It's no accident that noir is one of the faves of the gay scene, highly stylised, highly silhouetted. As for me, that high contrast chiaroscuro is a nice thing, colours can be so bland.
Of course, the genuine Christian has the solution for the progressively degrading film noir protagonist right there, it can be found in the words of Amazing Grace, the words the vast majority shun. The greatest elixir ever, beats Jeeves's pick-me-up every time.
Meanwhile film noir continues with its empty souls on the big screen ... and yet, there's something attractive in it all the same. A part of us maybe? Stockholm Syndrome?
I get the feeling lately that we've entered a new Jacobean age, Breaking Bad, Killing Eve etc - glorying in murder.
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