Ramble on why ATS is noir

[shadowkat]

Taking a break from working on my marketing plan, which I actually started tonight, instead of waiting until the last possible minute (it's due Dec. 2), yeah me!

Saw Matrix Revolutions this weekend with cjl. Also watched Alias, The Practice, and Coupling (the episode where Steve sees Sally naked - the British version which is nothing at all like the American one.) In the midst of all this, I realized part of the problem some fans have with Angel the Series is they think they are watching a gothic romance, no...it's a noir horror tale with redemption mythology, as stated repeated by the writers of the series. (Most recently by Drew Goddard in a post to BronzeBeta and by Jeff Bell in the magazine interviews. ) Buffy was gothic with teen horror and coming of age mythos. Angel is noir with redemption mythos (which by the way is in all noir in one form or another). Big difference.


Noir is a tough genre for people to embrace and rarely succeeds on television, partly because most viewers can't deal with the concept of an anti-hero and unhappy or ambiguous ending. (They want to be comforted, dammit! Have the hero waltz off happily with the heroine in the end, happy and redeemed - which NEVER happens in noir, gothic? yes. Noir? sorry, nope.) There aren't many noir vampire movies (with possible exception of Near Dark, The Hunger and Nosfertu) and until Angel, no one has attempted vampire noir on television. As cjl pointed out to me this weekend - most if not all the novels regarding vampires are "gothic romances" in the style of ANN RICE or Laurel K. Hamilton (who does dabble in noir occassionally - Obsiddian Butterfly came pretty close). Ats is not in the style of Ann Rice. It actually has more in common with the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Philip K. Dick (the sci-fi version of noir), Mary Shelly (horror version of noir), Rod Serling (also noir), Dashielle Hammett, and Raymond Chandler. Filmmakers in this genre include Stanley Kubrick (most notably The Killing), David Lynch (Muholland Drive, Blue Velvet, Lost Highway), Serling's old Twilight Zone series and the old movies Kiss Me Deadly ( the flash in the box from Destiney, 5.8 ATS, comes from Kiss Me Deadly by the way - in which it was a briefcase, a woman opens it, there's a flash and the world breaks apart - also used in Muholland Drive - the box flashes and the world is turned inside out in the heroine's head), Double Indemity, Out of the Past, The Maltese Falcon. Noir more often than not deals with the dark psychological impulses of the protagonist. The protagonist will often have a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde personality, like Batman. In the comics genre - Batman is a noir hero, especially in Frank Miller's restyling of the comic book. (See Dark Night Returns, Batman Year One). In these books it is no longer clear who is in the right - Batman or the villains he fights. From Hell - by Alan Moore is also noir in some of it's themes. As is The Watchman. And Sin City.

What does it mean that Ats is a noir drama? In noir, the hero does not "win", he "survives" but usually after sustaining a great loss. If he does good deeds, no one recognizes them and they usally cost him or his friends or the world something major. (See the JAsmine arc for an example of this.) More often than not in noir, the hero has to solve a puzzle or mystery of some sort and is usually being manipulated by a third party while he's doing it. Lots of puppet metaphors in noir fiction. (Invasion of the Body Snatchers is another example of a noir tale.) The noir hero does not get the girl - if he does, she either dies or betrays him. He does not get the prize, if he does it blows up in his face. Or he ends up with something he didn't want. He is not redeemed, redeemption for a noir hero is a carrot that is always out of reach, he's always striving for it, always hopes for it but never really achieves it and if he does? He's not happy about it. (For instance in noir - redemption might be Cordelia's acension to heaven only to realize she's horribly bored. Or Connor have his slate wiped clean and being placed with a family. OR Doyle's sacrifice in Hero. Or Spike being brought back as a ghost after sacrificing himself to save the world - that's noir. )

Noir never ends happily, the best we can hope for is a gray ending that is neither happy nor unhappy such as Home in Season 4 or the end of the Pylea arc in Season 2. Often the ending when it comes has a twist, what happened with Connor in Home is a perfect example of the "noir" ending. Or in Pylea when they come home to Willow's news that Buffy's dead. Home was a twist on the "father kill the son prophecy" and ends with none of the characters in a great situation. They survived. The decisions they've made are morally ambiguous. The female love interest or heroine has either died or doomed herself by betraying the heros. In Home - Cordelia after betraying AI is left in a coma she may never come out of, Lilah chooses a hell that Wes can never free her from. At the end of S2 - Cordelia chooses Gunn,Darla lost her soul and Buffy is dead. Angel is completely alone in the romance department. If this had been a gothic romance - Cordy would have been in S5 ATS redeemed, Lilah would still be in the show and Wes could save her like Orpheus entering hell, and Angel would have been able to redeem Connor.
But it's not. What happened in HOME completely works within the thematic structure of noir - actually when I look at the series through this structure, Home was the only possible conclusion. Connor had to end up the way he did. Any other solution would not have worked thematically within that structure, no matter how much I may wish otherwise.

Traditionally noir appeals to an 18-34 year old male demographic. This is the "target" demographic and the ones who usually write, read, and watch noir. Most women appear to prefer gothic romance for some reason. I'm a rarity, I'm female and I grew bored of gothic romances in my 20s. I'd read them all and there's just so many ways you can end those damn things. After you've seen one misunderstood hero that appears to be a villain but is really good, you've seen them all. Also I always knew how the gothic romance would end - the hero gets the girl. In noir - the hero is neither good nor evil - he's ambiguous and as a result unpredictable. You never know what he will do. Or how it will end. All you know is it won't be happily ever after. But there's lots of variations in between happily ever after and doomed. It can end unhappily, slightly happy, or just plain gray. Examples: the gray ending of To Shanshu in La, slightly happy ending of Pylea arc, and the unhappy ending of Tomorrow. If you look at the ratings for Ats, you'll see it appeals to a higher percentage of young men than women and WB is in effect going for the young male audience. While BTVS went for the female audience.

Another thing about noir - it seldom focuses on romance. If there is a romance? It's short-lived and doomed. The female characters in noir fit three main roles: girl-friday, mother, and femme fatale. Male characters have a larger variety of roles. Except for neo-Femme Noir, most noir stories feature lots of men and you might if you're lucky have two or three women if that. The main characters are generally male. Supporting are female. The best thing about noir is the characters are usually multi-dimensional. The arcs are filled with lots of twists and turns. The antagonist is as developed as the protagonist and you can't always tell which is which.

I hope ATS continues - since it is so rare to see noir on tv. But I fear its audience will abandon it when they catch on to the fact that it is not the gothic romance they kept hoping it will become.(Of course ME is pretty clever about dropping little gothic touches here and there to keep them hoping...)

It's late and I need to sleep. I think I'll ramble about Matrix Reloaded, Alias and Coupling in another entry. ;-)

Comments

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

I totally agree, in fact I think I did a bitsy post on Angel and noir just the other week. The thing about noir that I think we should all start preparing ourselves for (if AtS sticks to the genre and doesn't switch to something else, which it could) is that the hero of a noir doesn't get a big reward in the end. Knowledge is usually his only reward - knowledge of a crime, the way the system works, the nature of the world - and it's not a gift, it adds to his suffering. It's the willingness to be aware of the darkness in the world that makes the hero of a noir a hero, even if his actions are not always heroic.

Home was definitely a perfect noir ending because Angel is the only one who knows what has been sacrificed and compromised and he bears that burden alone.

I honestly don't think Angel's ever going to be "redeemed" and not because I think Spike or anyone deserves it more, but because it would go against Angel's status as a noir hero. Self-awareness and all the ambiguity that brings is what he will probably end up with.

Exactly

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The thing about noir that I think we should all start preparing ourselves for (if AtS sticks to the genre and doesn't switch to something else, which it could) is that the hero of a noir doesn't get a big reward in the end.

I honestly don't think Angel's ever going to be "redeemed" and not because I think Spike or anyone deserves it more, but because it would go against Angel's status as a noir hero. Self-awareness and all the ambiguity that brings is what he will probably end up with.

Exactly, it goes against the structure of the form. What's interesting about Whedon and ME is how they like to celebrate genre. Of the three ME programs on tv, Buffy was the lightest and the least noir, it actually was closer to gothic, but tended to float between genres. Drew Goddard attempts to warn viewers on Bronze Beta that Angel is "nothing" like BTVS, it's a completely different genre, they are writing noir - which means much darker storylines and results. Firefly combines the science fiction, western and noir genres - I think it would have done better if it dropped the western bit, but that's just me. Angel combines horror and noir. I think some of the confusion fans have with Angel - is they keep thinking it's structured like Buffy and Angel is the same type of hero that Buffy was. But he's not.

Structurally? I don't see how Angel can redeemed. It goes counter to the whole structure of the genre. While it is possible to do twists on a genre form as cjl suggests, you can't completely break the rules of the form. And redeeming Angel? Does that. The best Angel can hope for - ironically enough - is to redeem someone else - in S4 ATS that person was Faith, this season it may be Spike or Wes or no one at all. If Whedon does give Angel that squishy redemption? It'll probably be like Amends or Epiphany, a huge mislead - oops still have the curse, still don't get the girl, but hey you're a hero. Actually in order to stick within the precepts of noir and get the redemption - (ie. cake and eat it too), we may very well get Angel's redemption after the girl has become dust. Or Angel will get it and have 0 memory of her.

If it does happen? It won't happen this season, that much I do know for certain.

Angel as Noir Hero

[(Anonymous)]

Much yumminess, as usual, 'kat (you too, pg).

If there are Angel fans out there who think A:tS is gothic romance, not noir, I don't blame them for being confused. For the first two seasons of Buffy, Joss laid on the gothic romance nice 'n' thick. I know you were eventually squicked by the older man/younger woman, father/daughter-ish dynamic between Angel and Buffy, but I've always seen them as Rochester/Jane Eyre--the older, more worldly man damaged by what he's seen and done in life, and the spirited, independent heroine who sees the goodness within him (blah blah blah). The snow in Amends was probably both the apotheosis and the last of the gothic romance element in BtVS. It was the purest word-of-Joss indication that Angel will receive ultimate redemption, but the last unambiguous sign of same (at least the last one that hasn't been mangled by subsequent events).

The switch over to noir for the spinoff was so subtle in spots, that many Buffyphiles might think the inevitable Buffy/Angel happy ending is out there waiting for us in the indefinite future. It also didn't help that Joss and Marti occasionally reinforced the romance, with Angel visiting Buffy in Season 5 ("Forever") and the big, wet kiss at the start of ("Chosen").

And, if you're analyzing noir in Angel, you should also consider that Joss and Greenwalt have satirized and dissected noir as much as they've imitated it. KdS' superb essay on Angel's "beige" period in AtS Season2 ("Shanshu-ing to Kill," ATP 8/3/02) clearly demonstrates that JW & DG (and TM) were giving the moral nihilism of the Mickey Spillanes of the world a big fat raspberry. "If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do," may be an existentialist/noir hero's credo, but it's also a note of hope in a decidedly bleak genre.

Would I prefer a pure, noir finish for Angel? Sure. But we all know Joss Whedon is a great, big bundle of contradictions: he's an atheist, but his work is chockablock with religious imagery and passion. He's perfectly capable of screwing our big, broody hero eight ways to Sunday (and he'll make us love it), but Joss is also squishy enough to give him true redemption (in whatever form Joss chooses to shape it).

In other words, I have no frelling clue what Joss is eventually going to do with Broody Boy.

-- cjl

P.S. The "flash" was from Kiss Me Deadly! That's right! (Slams palm on table) Damn, you're good!

Only problem with your argument

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Is all the events you cite took place prior to ME's decision to make the show more "noir". In the beginning, the first two seasons of ATS, ME tried to design ATS in the same structure as Buffy, a true spin-off. They attempted to make it gothic/noir/ with metaphors reflecting struggles of 20 somethings. Until they realized that it didn't work, you can't do metaphors reflecting the struggles of 20 -30 somethings in the same way you can do the high school as hell.

Since it's inception, ATS has gradually over the years, become more noir and less gothic. Even Angel's appearance on BTVS was Raymond Chandlerisque - the girl remained out of reach, sleeping with someone he despised. They didn't even touch tongues. It was purely lips. And in the next scene? Buffy underplays it as nothing. (In Forever - this is handled very differently - Buffy says "oh we can't be together because of your curse, but I love you so much" and it is Angel not Buffy who pushes away, and Angel not Buffy who chooses to part. Forever is still in Wuthering Heights/Jane Eyre/Rebecca mode - but the Angel/Buffy scenes in Chosen are out of Casablanca/Maltese Falcon - these are "noir".) When Angel was on Buffy in Chosen - he was the noir hero, bringing a gimmick right out of noir films. That's not gothic, that's noir. It's why the Angel scenes in Chosen jar with the rest of the episode a bit/ because Whedon mixes styles. Chosen did not have the noir ending, but I bet you references to it in ATS this season will. (Actually I knew from the noir underpinnings of that scene, that B/A was over. The scene was far too similar to Casablance and other noir films visually to lead anywhere else.)

Amends was Joss/Greenwalt's pilot for ATS. They changed their mind. Actually ATS has made fun of the events in Amends a few times already in it's progression. In Hellbound - Angel briefly refers to it as a fluke. And of course we have the whole Cordelia/Jasmine deal and Skip's suggestion in Inside/Out that Angel was saved by Jasmine so she could be born. (Compare what happens in Amends to what Cordelia does in THAW - which in a way is a comment on Amends - the noir view in contrast to the gothic.)

EPIPHANY was mid-S2 when they were still trying to figure out what the series could be. They experimented with numerous styles in S1-S2 Ats, before settling on a more noirish tone in S3. Epiphany was not the end of that season - right after it we get episodes such as Disharmony, Dead End, and the Pylea arc (Angel is not the hero in the Pylea arc - that's Groo/Cordy/Wes actually. And when he returns to LA, he's hit with the fact that Buffy is gone. Then the story slowly dips into very dark noir with the Darla/Connor arc.) Angel has his epiphany and no one cares. His friends grudgingly take him back as an associate not the boss. Cordy doesn't talk to him until he returns her clothes in Disharmony (which is also keeping with noir)
and Kate, he saves from suicide yet does not win her nor does he see her again. There's no reward. All Angel gets is understanding that if I do good, that's enough - yet that understanding is torn apart and undermined in future episodes. IF this were a pfft! on noir it would be the opposite. Especially when you consider that we have Lindsey back, with possibly evil intentions, after Angel reluctantly helped him with the evil hand in Dead End. Or note that Angel's team helps others for cash - they want to be payed, even though they never get paid, noir heros usually get scammed by their clients or their clients are poor, but they still want the money. While for Buffy - getting paid for what she does is anathema. She'd never ask.

I suspect Whedon may go for the Casablanca style ending in ATS. Since ATS has structurally become more and more noir since it began, I find it hard to see them flip the other way - it would be too jarring. Another thing to keep in mind, "Home" was both the ending of last season and the pilot for this one. If the ending of S4 had been more like the Pylea arc or even Chosen, I'd have agreed with you - but it wasn't. The writers, producers and show-runners are going in the opposite direction. Whedon's focus on the noirish Firefly and lack of interest in BTVS S7 is evidence of that.

Re: Only problem with your argument

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you bring up Casablanca since I was thinking about it too. I see it as a melding of two genres, and something that might work for AtS. Casablanca is noir characters inside a romance. If it had been a true film noir Rick would have found out in the end that Ilsa never really loved him and had been manipulating him all along. He probably still would have let her go but without regaining his morality, and either let himself be captured or gone back to the bar to continue his empty flirtation with Louis. Of course the tension of Casablanca is that up until the end we don't know (and apparently the writers themselves weren't that sure) what kind of movie it is. It's the same with AtS, they could do a switchover to a stronger quest motif or a hero's journey if they really wanted to. I personally think they're going to stick with noir but I can't say for sure, so my interest is always going to be engaged.

In any case, I do feel that redemption for Angel would not only mark the end of AtS but also the end of Angel as a character. The idea of redemption has been Angel's defining characteristic from the start, getting absolution would also be his resolution. Angel may get his Casablanca moment but like the movie it's one of those moments that needs to be followed by "The End."

Re: Only problem with your argument

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

As I state to cjl below, Casablanca fits a film motif that some critics have termed Neo-Noir - Dark City, the 1990s sci-fi film also fits in this sub-genre. It's neither romance nor complete noir, since the hero isn't quite unredeemable and the ending isn't quite so bleak. There's a whole slew of films in the 1980s-1990s that fit this sub-genre, as there were also a group far earlier in the 1930s.
Metropolis sort of fits within this, although it's far lighter than most of them.

Casablanca interestingly enough had at least five endings (maybe three) filmed. The one they choose was the least definitive of the group. It was an odd movie to film - since the script was being written while it was being filmed. Very hectic shoot.

My sense in watching ATS is that they are focusing on the neo-noir genre more than the strict noir format. Neo-noir is the genre most modern filmmakers tend to use when doing a noir type film. Partly because the lead is more sympathetic and the ending not quite as nihilistic as noir.
It's that happy medium. Or not-quite-so happy as the case may be.

So, I think what we'll probably have is the noir, but the lighter noir of recent years - where the hero is never quite redeemed but he's never doomed either. Cordelia in true noir - would probably die or stay in the coma. I don't believe she will - she'll probably go off with the SG.

"Round up the usual suspects!" (What is a "proper" ending for Angel?)

[(Anonymous)]

ANGEL: Spike, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I've never considered "Casablanca" a noir movie. Yes, Rick loses the girl, but he finds a higher purpose. (No doubt, he and Louie are going to fight for/contribute to the Resistance.) In noir, the "higher purpose" is always exposed as a sham or so beyond the hero's grasp that it's almost an abstaction.

You're right about the difference between Angel in "Forever" and Angel in "Chosen." In "Chosen," Angel was very much the Chandler-esque (Raymond not Bing) presence he was back in the very beginning of Season 1, before the romance kicked into high gear. But other than that, I don't think we're disagreeing too much. Joss dumped the gothic romance aspect of Angel (and Angel/Buffy) after Amends, and with rare exceptions, he's never gone back. (It's those rare exceptions, though, that keeps the gothic romance junkies hooked! And Joss definitely wants to keep them hooked. Cynical devil...)

My reference to KdS' essay isn't to contend that Joss and Co. are satirizing noir as a general rule, but that they're not comfortable with some of the macho cliches and easy moral nihilism of noir heroes like Mike Hammer. As you said, Angel is noir WITH redemptionist aspects. This is a tricky balance to maintain. The Mike Hammers of the world never question their sometimes dubious actions, because they know the world is a snake pit (with everybody trapped in the hole), and they can't even conceive of "redemption." We've seen Angel in Hammer mode in S2 and to some extent in this season as well, with his peremptory killing of Hauser. Angel is capable of killing with ease in "Conviction" because he's lost all hope. But this is NOT Joss Whedon's point of view. Joss does have hope, hope in community and giving to others, as shown at the end of Buffy season 7, and the family atmosphere of Firefly.

So with that in mind, what is the "proper" ending for Angel?

The romantic ending with Buffy? Nooooooooo.

Angel sacrificing himself for Buffy and/or his friends? Noooooooo.

As I've said somewhere before, my favorite aphorism from Kafka is that "the messiah will come when he's no longer needed." I've always taken this to mean that salvation and damnation has always been up to us. I'm hoping that Angel's last mission will be to destroy the Powers that Be, and achieve the satisfaction of Camus' version of Sisyphus, content pushing his boulder up the hill for the rest of eternity....

Re: "Round up the usual suspects!" (What is a "proper" ending for Angel?)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Both you and ponygirl mention how Casablanca isn't true noir so much as a melding of the two forms - romance/noir.
The interesting thing is this category is actually given a name in Film Noir Reader 2 - it's called Neo-Noir. In the new form - which isn't that new, since we also see it somewhat in Metropolis and the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr Hyde, is where the hero does have hope at the end, but the hope is muted somewhat. This is what I call the "slightly happy ending" - such as what we saw at the end of S2 Pylea or on Firefly.

Neo-Noir allows for stronger female characters - and a lot of femme noir films have fallen into this category, such as VI Warshowski, Blue Steel, Love Crimes, and Black Widow.
In Neo-Noir - the protagonist is not doomed, she/he does do good things but they aren't rewarded. The ending of this group of films is usually similar to the Casablanca ending. (They reportedly filmed five different endings to that movie, one pure noir, one pure romance, before settling on one in between.)

I suspect Whedon is going for the same middle ground with the character of Angel. To give Angel his redemption effectively ends his story. (While giving redemption to Spike or Cordelia or anyone else, such as Faith, only ends those characters stories). In Casablanca, Rick's story doesn't necessarily end...it goes on as he walks off-screen. He's redeemed but not completely. Because the redemption is sort of murky. In some ways...it's similar to Angel's leave-taking in Graduation Day and Chosen.
Sending Rick off with Esla would have ended it. Or killing him. In some ways the Rick/Elsa ending in Casablanca reminds me a little of the Spike/Buffy parting in Chosen.
(A little not a lot.)

In ATS, I tend to agree with you - we'll probably go with the ending in which Angel is neither redeemed nor unredeemed, instead he goes off like Rick does in Casablanca or the Firefly crew, content to continue the struggle of pushing that rock up that damn hill.