For postwar Hollywood, the world was a place where you hoped you were stable and centred. If there was a problem, it was not with you - it was the world around you. Your surroundings were alien, other, threatening. This is nowhere more apparent than in the chiaroscuro chasms wedged open in Film Noir. Despite reams written on the period from a sociological view, the point often missed is that the visuals 'state' this dilestffng, while the soundtrack grants us access to the interior state of the agonized protagonists.