"Space, Time, and Subjectivity in Neo-Noir Cinema" by Jerold Abrams
Based on the reading of from Abrams the detective figure in neo-noir is different from the detective in film noir in many ways. Film noir detective is defined in the article "Notes on Film Noir" as "The private detective is midway between lawful society and the underworld, walking on the brink, sometimes unscrupulous, but only putting himself at risk, fulfilling the requirements of his own code and of the genre as well." The detective is looking for the bad guy, scrapping up evidence and interviewing suspects to put he pieces of the puzzle together to find the criminal. In neo-noir Abrams identifies the detective figure as "rather than looking for a criminal in the city that surrounds him, now the detective's search is for himself, for his own identity and how he may have lost it. The detective is the criminal, and he is suffering from memory lost and is sent out on a mission to find himself. Neo-noir is broken down into three categories past, present, and future.
Abrams states that "Past neo-noir is usually low-tech, contrasting it with the very high-tech future noir, and almost always theological."Angle Heart by Alan Parker gives a good example of past noir. Its about a detective by the name of Harry Angel who is commissioned by Louis Cypher to find Johnny to find Johnny Favorite who is suffering from shell shock and amnesia, and his real name is Liebling. In reality Angel is the one with amnesia, and he is Favorite and Liebling. Cypher wants Angel to found out who he w=use to be and while doing his detective work he is killing people unknowingly. Abrams describes present noir as "present neo-noir, in my opinion, offers the best of neo-noir and particularly for its use of time. For example The Bourne Identity by Doug Liman, where character Jason Bourne has two weeks blacked out. he wakes up and all he remembers is being dragged out of the ocean by a boat. The clues he has are on his body, and he has self-consciously put them there. Bourne must find out who he is and who is the killer, all while running from people that already know that its him. Then there's future noir which Abrams says its "The opposite end of the neo-noir spectrum and to future noir, some of the old theological elements will remain, certainly-but really only germinally. Indeed, for the most part, they faded away and are replaced by science and high technology." Dark City, by Alex Proyas is a future noir, about aliens verses humans. They take humans from earth and put them on spaceships that looks just like Los Angles city.
