ABSTRACT
The opening sequence of Joel Coen’s The Man Who Wasn’t There (Working Title Films, 2001) presents an aural configuration that has become one of the most clichéd features of film noir: a voice-over narration. It is not the first element to be heard: to begin with, we hear the noises from an urban environment – the chirping of birds, the rumbling of cars (against a black screen) – then some music – the beginning of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Archduke Trio – and, finally, the voice-over. There is nothing unusual in this configuration, except that, as so often with the Coen brothers, there is a twist in the way the cliché is so painstakingly presented: the choice of Beethoven’s music alludes to the register of classical music, which one would not expect within the codes of film noir.
