Епистемологија изгубљености: одређене духовне вертикале у америчким noir филмовима
Epistemology of the Loss: On Some Spiritual Verticals in American Film Noir

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, the author analyzes certain specifics of spiritual atmosphere in American films noir during 1940s and 1950s. There were certain existential strivings and contextual factors that generated the atmosphere of decadence and claustrophobia in this genre’s worldview. Noir philosophy thus follows European existentialist thought. In order to demonstrate this fact, the author analyzed several distinguished noir films, such as Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and Sunset Boulevard (1950), Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958), Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950), Jacques Toruneur’s Out of the Past (1947), Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter (1955), etc. In these movies, the dehumanizing alienation, the downfall of spirit and a very small possibility of happy ending are a dominant reality. Noir world does not recognize any other reality, which leads to its main spiritual question: is this the world that is worth living in? There dominates the philosophy of absurd: protagonists, whose faith is either shaken or even nonexistent, accept absurdity as the only way of life. Of course, there is no answer in such choice, but it is nevertheless better than emptiness. The passion of absurdity, i.e. some kind of life automatism or inertia, is a reason why protagonists act in the first place: nihilism does not necessarily lead to passivism. This noir philosophy is akin to that of Camus, which is also colored by alienation and disorientation. The positions of good and evil, or love and hatred, are very much obscured. Therefore, the noir genre depicts a specific psycho-physical state of an entire epoch, captured and lost in the darkness of existence.

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