Why I Watch Film Noir (Even Though I'm a Christian)

Happy Noirvember, fellow film noir enthusiasts!

I had someone ask me recently (in real life, not online) why and how I, as a Christian, can love the film noir genre.  They themselves have not watched much noir, but they did have a basic understanding of it: that it explores the dark side of society.  Noir is full of the back alleys and mean streets where bad things happen.  Why would I, as a Christian, want to watch movies that are about bad people doing bad things?

It's a valid question, and I decided to explore it.

Why do I watch film noir?  What draws me to these dense, dark, movies focused on mankind's worst side?  Is it just sort of prurient, vicarious thrill?  I can talk all day long about the inventive cinematography and the archetypical characters and the brilliant dialog, but the fact remains that noir films are not nice.  They involve bad people doing bad things.  And, yes, they also involve good people trying to bring bad people to justice -- at least, that's how it goes in the ones I love.  But noir films don't always end with the good guy winning.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, The Big Sleep (1946)

So I thought about it for a while, and I think that the reason I love noir is that no other film genre depicts so clearly that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).  Westerns hit on that second one a lot, too -- and so do action movies and mysteries.  But they tend to have a hero/heroine who is a pretty good guy/girl overall.  Not noir, not always.

In film noir, for every good cop who marries the wrong woman, ala Crime of Passion (1956), you have a "good" cop who digs himself deeper and deeper into trouble while trying to cover up a sin, ala Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950).  For every sweet wife who married the wrong guy, ala The Blue Dahlia (1946), you have the "sweet" wife who is deeply involved in a number of crimes, ala Murder, My Sweet (1944).  You quickly learn, while watching noir, that anyone is capable of anything.  We are all born sinful, and we all teeter on the edge of embracing our sinful desires, every day.

Alan Ladd, The Blue Dahlia (1946)

Film noir tends not to show any solution for this other than "trying really hard to be a good person," so they are basically all Law and no Gospel.  But I don't watch movies to learn about my Savior, I watch them to learn about my fellow humans.  Modern movies tend to be very humanistic, touting the idea that "all people are born basically good and get corrupted by what happens to them."  Which is hogwash, according to the Bible.

It's also hogwash according to film noir.  Nobody has to teach the characters in noir to be bad.  Nobody has to try hard to become bad.  All they have to do is stop fighting NOT to be bad.  Every Walter Neff (Double Indemnity, 1944) has a chance to walk away from that ankle bracelet dangled in front of them, and it's his fault and his alone if he walks toward it instead.  Every Frank Bigelow (D.O.A., 1949) has a chance to stay in his room, stay sober, stay faithful to his fiancée, and it's no one else's fault if he decides not to do any of those.

Russell Crowe, L. A. Confidential (1997)

Even much of neo-noir confirms this.  From the absolute absence of truly good and morally upright cops in L. A Confidential (1997) to the endless lies coming from every mouth in The Usual Suspects (1995), they continually showcase the Biblical truth that "I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5).

The tricky part of enjoying film noir as a Christian is figuring out how to learn the right lessons from it.  Because noir makes every brand of sin look awfully fun.  This is part of why I tend to stick to the classic noir of the 1940s and 1950s, because they will imply but not show a great deal of that, which makes it easier to avoid falling into sins like lust or condoning sinful behavior while watching them.  And that's something that is up to each individual's own conscience -- one person can watch things and be unaffected that could seriously harm another person, so you have to figure out for yourself what lines you need to draw for what you watch.  But that doesn't only apply to film noir, it's an issue for all movies, TV shows, and books.

This has been my second contribution to Back in Black: Another Film Noir Blogathon.  Be sure to check out all the great entries!