Abstract

William Blake and film noir apparently had the same problem with the urban landscape. While Blake attempts to create a mental world within language that would give a new face of religion to offer comfort to the inhabitants of London, film noir in Los Angeles finds noise and nihilism in the absence of faith. Both struggle with Immanuel Kant, who claimed that reason actively makes the world worthwhile. Hickey and Boggs, a relatively obscure neo-noir movie from 1972, represents the meaninglessness and noise of language, bereft of the religion of Blake and the reason of Kant.