Arts of Darkness

In a striking interpretation of film noir, Thomas Hibbs mines the philosophy and theology of these dark films to reveal a subtle but profound Insistence on the reality of redemption. Often denounced as nihilistic and even degenerate, film noir seems an unlikely antidote to the hopelessness and banality of modern popular culture, which Hibbs analyzed in his landmark book Shows About Nothing. Yet beginning with films of the classic noir period and continuing with more recent neo-noir and beyond, Hibbs reveals a theme of hard-won, penitential redemption. Despite its roots in the heyday of Hollywood Marxism, noir even displays a deeply conservative bent. Redemption is personal not political, and the progressive promise of scientific rationalism is sharply limited. Hibbs's master stroke in Arts of Darkness is to approach noir through the thought of Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century philosopher of the hidden God whose tragic account of the human condition anticipates the alienation of contemporary culture and explains the power of noir's overlooked religious themes of quest and redemption.