Zizek and Noir

Even Slavoj Zizek gets off on Noir.  Like many of us he seems to have a very broad and vague definition, including Arsenic and Lace, Casablanca, and even It's a Wonderful Life.  I was intrigued by his understanding of a new age of noir in America in the 70s and 80s..  He explores this neo-noir through two films Blade Runner and Angel Heart, and in the process articulates his own-post-ideology perspective with some interesting wrinkles along the way.  As he reads these films, they utilize a similar story arc in that a character investigating a particular crime  in a matter of speaking  ends up exploring new dimensions about his very identity.. Mickey Rourke's character, through the benefit of black magic, is quite literally searching for himself, and assuming, Decker to be an android/replicant (as Zizek does), he is an android-killer eliminating his own kind, administering a test, which he himself never submits to, and which he can never pass. Zizek focuses, with tremendous effect, on the moment in the film when Decker, reflecting on Rachael, wonders how anyone, including replicants, could not know who they are. The sort of riddle that Philip K. Dick, a self-defined philosopher using the tools of science fiction to pursue his thoughts, loved to embed in his writings, though in far more ambiguous terms than Zizek allows, but more of that later. Zizek's interest in this neo-noir identity is directly related to the following philosophical query: when "I think," who exactly is thinking me? This is why Dr. Tyrell is so important in this interpretation, as a Frankenstein-like figure controlling the army of replicants he creates, few whom have any idea of the true nature of their creation, embedded with and manipulated by programmed memories. Not insignificantly, Zizek's noir meditation is from a book entitled Tarrying with the Negative, where he argues that we must face the hollowness at the center of our identity (taking the concept from Lacan, who he considers the greatest philosopher of the 20th century)before we can achieve any semblance of authentic individuality vibrancy and connection to others .But I can't help but wonder whether this theory changes at all in terms of Blade Runner if we assert that Decker never resolves the issue of his identity, as is the case in the novel.  Interestly whatever side of this question you come down on (one that has engaged critics and fans for decades), it is undeniable that cyber punk dystopian views, engendered by a technology non-existent during classic noir, are totally consistent  with the  imagistic and thematic patterns identified with it.

Interestingly, Zizek theorizes that in order for noir to "reboot" after the classic era, it needs to combine itself with other forms such as sci-fi,fantasy, cyberpunk (and we easily add police procedurals and a number of others).At one point he images noir as similar to a biological parasite, feeding off these genres for a period before fading away to reemerge at a later period.  Not a genre in itself, more a sensibility, a way of seeing and acting, that helps engender hybrid forms.  And in the 21st century, hybrids of noir are dramatically evident wherever we turn, particularly under the marketting rubric of "nordic noir."