Themes of Noir

Noir has a vast array of themes, but two of the most prominent ones are redemption and identity. Today we can see noir characteristics in films like Pulp Fiction (1994) and Memento (2000). In the film Pulp Fiction, Tarantino, the director, takes a look at redemption and the meaning of life. In the film, two hit men carry out their duties killing people for a man named Marcellus Wallas. Marcellus’ character is symbolic of finding one’s soul. Marcellus wears a band aid on the back of his neck, that supposedly is there because Marcellus had sold his soul to the devil. He is trying to retrieve his soul back from the devil, and so sends his two hit men. While the hit men are retrieving the soul they are fired at by a man whose presence they were unaware of. The man fires several times, but is unsuccessful at hitting either of the hit men. The hit men then kill the man. One of the hit man sees this as a miracle, while the other refuses to recognize it as such. Later in the film, the hit man that recognized their surviving as a miracle decides to abandon the life of a killer. The other hit man thinks he is insane and continues in his line of work. After making their decisions, the hit that continued to be a hit man is killed. The one that left survives. The film is incredibly violent and illustrates crime in an excruciatingly vivid way, but is successful in accentuating innocence and destiny. When watching the film, people are often repulsed, but it is this repulsion that brings to life the message of the film. “Tarantino’s films are ostensibly about redemption, so they suggest that some ways of living are objectively better in a moral sense than other ways. Indeed, in Tarantino’s postmodern world, where violence is eroticized and stylized, and where one way of life cannot be morally superior to another, if it’s a choice between being a cool gangster and being a dorky real person, who wouldn’t choose to be cool?” (Conard, Mark 113).

In this clip, we can see the theme of redemption quite clearly.




In the film, Memento (2000) by Christopher Nolan, the main character, Leonard Shelby struggles with finding his identity. He suffers from short-term memory because of a traumatic experience involving the death of his wife and cannot create new memories. Since he can no longer create memories he feels that he is stuck in the past. His entire identity is wrapped around an incident because it is the only memory he has. In order to function he has to constantly write notes for himself so that he will not forget where he is. During the entire film he is trying to find a man he suspects murdered his wife. One can see that the movie is about crime and loss, but it is more importantly about identity. “Personal identity is constituted by our having a series of conscious memories, at least usually. In most cases, this memory theory seems to be the only plausible candidate for a conception of personal identity (Conrad, Mark 44). Film noirs have several qualities other than just being about crime.