The sinister city

[Ladies Mile]

How much of a city’s mystique is based on the perception of danger? To what extent is the modern city the modern city because it is Gotham City?

Obviously it seems lunacy to romanticize street crime (and worse) yet it appears that a large part of urban glamor is predicated on the notion of the city as being a kind of mad carnival—particularly in North America, but I would argue it as true for the post-industrial European city and the new Asian megalopolis as well.

The only time that New York comes alive for me visually is at night. It is paradoxically at its grandest when it is at its most threatening.

What is Toronto’s Noir value? If it lacks one, is that a loss?

 

[OttoSchloss]

I've always thought Toronto has immense noir value. On the surface it's rather bourgeois but 'neath that it's dark, tough and very kinky. I remember a short story by Atwood where some girl is found dead in a ravine. And that for me is the dark side of Toronto -dead kids in a ravine. Or it's Black Christmas -a nice holiday spoiled by a psychopathic obscene phone caller. Or just about any movie by Cronenberg.

And frankly if there's one area where this city excels above all others it's in the lunatic category.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Noir, I'm not so sure, as I just don't think we prompt something like this.

What was it Northorp Frye (or was it Hemingway) said about Toronto? A great city in which to mind your own business.

 

[Red October]

Noir, I'm not so sure, as I just don't think we prompt something like this.

What was it Northorp Frye (or was it Hemingway) said about Toronto? A great city in which to mind your own business.

It was Frye.

I would consider the story of H.H. Holmes and what he did in Toronto to be a mysterious dark side of the city, even though it happened long ago.

 

[whatever]

The most visceral literary description of Toronto I've ever encountered was Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion, but I don't know if that counts as noir.

I thought the city did a fine job of standing in for Boston in Boondock Saints. It seemed like the sort of place where one might realistically expect to see someone bludgeoned to death with a toilet.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I remember a short story by Atwood where some girl is found dead in a ravine. And that for me is the dark side of Toronto -dead kids in a ravine.

Yes, ravines are scary because they represent untamed nature in our midst. We can't pave them over, they can't be thoroughly policed, and the idea of peace order and good government takes a raincheck when you're down there, especially at night.