Fragen noir an ...

... den Schriftsteller Charlie Williams

Vorab

Name?

Charlie Williams

What are you doing besides writing?

I am a glorified IT monkey in my day job

Film released in the year of your birth?

A Clockwork Orange

What was your initiation in the noir-subject (film or book)?

Wow. Who knows? I didn't really read much crime at all as a teenager. And I never really bought into the whole noir mood in movies until quite late. You know what? I think it was actually Jim Thompson who got me into this. I guess I first read him in my mid-twenties. I had read a few Chandler by then and liked it, but not really bought into any kind of "noir" thing.

Can I just say something here? Not to dismiss an entire genre, but I'm not entirely sure what noir is. I've thought about this a lot. I have debated it long and hard and made bold claims. But "noir" is just a label, no one can say it is any particular thing. You can say "banana" and point to a banana. You say "noir" and all you can point to, in a kind of French way, is the colour black. For some reason I consider THE KILLER INSIDE ME and THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE as the noirest damn books there are, but the authors were not setting out to write a noir book. They were telling the story they had, and it was labelled as noir later on. Now, I really dig that kind of story. To my own detriment, I identify with Lou Ford and Frank Chambers much more than Philip Marlowe. And if that's noir, I'm in. And God help me. But I still cannot define it.

What books can we find in your bookshelf?

The crime books are usually noir. I find it hard to get into investigation novels unless the investigator gets implicated in some way and damns his or herself. Some of my favourite authors are Thomas Hardy, Magnus Mills, Charles Willeford, Fredric Brown and Jim Thompson. Four of those are dead and the other writes with little reference to the modern world. Every now and then I like to get out of my comfort zone. A couple of weeks ago I read Simon Armitrage's interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which was just brilliant. I like to read biographies but rarely of writers. I guess musicians and film people mostly

Which noir cliché do you like the most?

Oh... I can't really give an answer here. I fucking hate clichés.

BUT I hate the deliberate avoidance of clichés even more. If an author changes a character's action to avoid a cliché, that author is LYING TO US.

Some of your favorite film noirs?

Nightmare Alley. Coup de Torchon. Fargo

And films beside noir?

The Exorcist. The Wicker Man. An American Werewolf in London. Jacob's Ladder. Pulp Fiction. Scarface. A Clockwork Orange. The Big Lebowski. Lost Highway. Seven. Eraserhead. Carnival of Souls. Borat. Dead Man's Shoes. (You could argue that some of those are noir or at least noirish)

Which fictional character (book or film) would you favor to kill face-to-face?

Harry Potter. With an axe.

Internet?

www.charliewilliams.net

Questions noir - Your life a film noir

1. Which would be your part in the movie?

The moral question mark. He's not really bad but he got his hands dirty

2. Your nickname in the movie?

Terry Fuckwit

3. Which author (living or dead) should write the script?

Jim Thompson, just to give him some work. And none of this "additional dialogue" bollocks

4. Famous quote in your movie? (Exmaple: Scarface = The World Is Yours, White Heat = Made It Ma, Top Of The World)

"Can you lend us a tenner?"

5. Shot in black and white or in color?

B&W but lengthy dream sequence in colour

6. Soundtrack by …

Robert Johnson, Muse, Buckethead, Flatt and Scruggs

7. Which femme fatale would lead you to your doom?

The Wicked Witch of the West. I really dig that green skin.

8. Your getaway car?

Come on, man... A Ford Capri! The European Mustang...

9. Your weapons?

Cricket bat. Monkey wrench. Bare hands

10. Book for your prison sentence?

The next one by Magnus Mills

11. Finally: Epigraph on your tombstone?

"He's exiting a world of pain"

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