I do have a question or two about alienation, if you don't mind the questions of a non-alienated person and someone who knows nothing of the history of this idea, other than Karl Marx thought workers were alienated.

Is alienation supposed to be something that was widespread in the general population during the period of classic noir? (I never encountered it in the people I knew during that period and after. It wasn't until college that I even encountered people who had such ideas, and that was in a philosophy course in the treatment of existentialists.)

Or: Is alienation a concept devised by intellectuals who somehow think it applies to ordinary people? Or is it supposed to apply to intellectuals who think about things and can't come up with rational answers that satisfy them? Or to both? Who is supposed to be alienated? For example, there are many alienated cops in noir, men like Robert Ryan in "On Dangerous Ground". But, in my life, the cops I knew well were well-adjusted men.

And: Were the writers and movie-makers who emphasized alienation doing that because they felt it themselves?

Did they consciously introduce alienated characters? If so, what sort of motives did they have? Or were they following out other motives of work, creation, joy and profit?

What or whose concept of alienation are you employing in your work?