A Walk Among the Tombstones

is a bit of a throwback, the sort of noir film we don't get much these days.  Based on the Lawrence Block novel of the same name and featuring Liam Neeson as Block's ex-cop, Matt Scudder, the movie captures a great deal of the feel of the Scudder novels.  That fact was one of the reasons I quite enjoyed the movie, but it also means this is a dark movie with moments of graphic violence, even brutality. 

Neeson is a noir-film protagonist in the classic mold, a man who has done bad things and who knows he will do them again, but one who tries to play by his rules in a world that often appears to have no rules. Some critics have faulted the movie for staying within its genre and for having some of the faults of that genre, but I disagree that this is a problem.  The film is a noir detective story, and if you like those, as I do, that's a fine thing indeed. 

The world's lack of rules is most present in the bad guys, who are very, very bad indeed.  I warned that the movie contains brutal moments, and the bad guys deliver them in moments that are upsetting indeed.

Some critics, such as Allison Willmore, have criticized the film for using women only as meat.  They're right.  The movie's greatest weakness lies in its depiction of women as either objects of perfection glimpsed in beautiful moments or, more commonly, as victims, meat for the villain butchers.  The opening sequence is the most disturbing instance of this behavior, but it's not the only one.  It feels as if the filmmakers were trying to set the 1999-based movie in an even earlier time and striving for a retro feel, a time when many, many movies treated women that way (well, many still do, but that's another essay), but the result is uncomfortable by today's standards. I wish the filmmakers had dealt with women rather differently, something I believe would be possible without altering the movie in any fundamental way.

In the end, as is my wont, I enjoyed A Walk Among the Tombstones despite this flaw and the film's other weaknesses, but I remain a bit uncomfortable with that enjoyment.  I recommend it only with this reservation and the warnings above.

Writer line of the day

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of the fine books from Subterranean Press. If you're not already buying books from them, I strongly encourage you to check them out. Bill Schafer, who runs the show there, is also a swell guy, another reason to buy from them.

Yesterday, I received from them a copy of Hellcats and Honeygirls, a book I ordered the moment I heard about it. This lovely hardback collects all three of the short mystery novels that Lawrence Block and Donald Westlake published under pseudonyms. I greatly admire the work of both of these writers, so I can't wait to read their collaborations.

Block provided an introduction to the collection, and in it I found a line, from Westlake, that hit home with me. I suspect it will with many, if not all, writers. Here's the excerpt that contains the line, with it in bold.

When Don agreed to have Hard Case Crime reissue some of his early books--crime novels, I should point out, which had nothing to apologize for--a mutual friend asked him why he thought this was a good idea. The money didn't amount to much, after all, and the work was not as good as what he'd produced since then, and--

"The difference between being in print and out of print," Don told him, "is the same as the difference between being alive and being dead."

I'm sure some writers would disagree and claim not to feel that way.

I suspect they'd be lying.

On the road again: Bouchercon, day 4

I actually got a bit of sleep last night, having abandoned some interesting panels in the name of health. I awoke tired, as I always do these past many days, but at least it was only tired, not exhausted.

That said, I've reached the point of being disgusted with my own whining about sleep, so I'm going to stop writing about it here.

I was lucky enough today to get to see the interview of Lawrence Block, a huge presence on the mystery scene and a working writer for decades, by Charles Ardai, the publisher of the fine Hard Case Crime line and a fine writer in his own right. Ardai has reprinted some of Block's earlier works, and I've quite enjoyed them all. Listening to Block talk, I was struck by exactly the traits that come through in his work: intelligence, passion, creativity, crankiness, and a certain contrarian nature.

What has impressed me repeatedly about this convention is how much more the fans and the writers seem to care about their genre of literature than the SF fans. SF fans are equally passionate, but the passion is diffuse, with movies, TV, gaming, and books sharing their attention. At a typical SF con, the dealers' room is maybe 20% books; here, it's more like 95%. At a typical SF con panel, the writers seem to jockey for position; here, they are gracious and incredibly mutual supportive, even when they're meeting for the first time. In another panel today, John Connolly was interviewing the toastmaster, Mark Billingham. Scattered all through the audience were other writers, many of them more famous, all just enjoying the interview; the guest of honor of the convention, Laura Lippman, was one of them. I can't recall ever seeing anything like that at an SF convention.

As a writer of mystery-shaped SF novels, I feel often that I don't belong in either world. I'd certainly like to belong here. Maybe one day, perhaps with the thriller, I will. Time will tell.