LIFE Film Noir

LIFE Film Noir
Author: The Editors of LIFE
Publisher: Time Inc. Books
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2016-08-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1683302494

By incorporating and transforming foreign influences, film noir became a uniquely American art form. Though it was overlooked at first, this powerful genre would give Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum career-defining roles, fuel Joan Crawford's middle-age comeback, and set the stage for the work of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Noir illuminated the dark side of the American dream, but despite its characteristic bleakness, these films are somehow always fun. Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films revisits 20 of the genre's best, from the first noir The Maltese Falcon to L.A. Confidential. We commence by delving into "Classic Noir," films released between 1941 and 1958 with their angular chiaroscuro and Teutonic angst combined with the influence of pup and hard-boiled crime fiction. Stunning photography walks us through Shadow of a Doubt, Double Indemnity, Laura, Mildred Pierce, Out of the Past, The Third Man, In a Lonely Place, Niagara, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil and more. Next in our "Neo Noir" section, you will see the transformation of noir from 1967 onward with films like Bonnie and Clyde, Dirty Harry, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Body Heat, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet, Pulp Fiction and more. Articles about how the genre was born, tabloids and film noir, offscreen noir, and what factors lead film back to black punctuate these spreads. Enter the cinematic world of "doom, fate, fear, and betrayal," as beloved film critic Roger Ebert said, with Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films.

Claire Trevor

Claire Trevor
Author: Derek Sculthorpe
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2018-05-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1476630690

Claire Trevor (1910-2000) is best remembered as the alluring blonde femme fatale in such iconic noir films as Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Raw Deal (1948). Yet she was a versatile performer who brought rare emotional depth to her art. She was effective in a range of diverse roles, from an outcast prostitute in John Ford's classic Stagecoach (1939) to the ambitious tennis mother in Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) to the embittered wife of a landowner in William Wellman's overlooked gem My Man and I (1952). Nominated for three Oscars, she deservedly won Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gaye Dawn, a gangster's broken-down moll in Key Largo (1948). The author covers her life and career in detail, recognizing her as one of the finest actresses of her generation.

Dark City

Dark City
Author: Eddie Muller
Publisher: Running Press Adult
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 076249896X

This revised and expanded edition of Eddie Muller's Dark City is a film noir lover's bible, taking readers on a tour of the urban landscape of the grim and gritty genre in a definitive, highly illustrated volume. Dark Cityexpands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life. Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley, takes readers on a spellbinding trip through treacherous terrain: Hollywood in the post-World War II years, where art, politics, scandal, style -- and brilliant craftsmanship -- produced a new approach to moviemaking, and a new type of cultural mythology.

Somewhere in the Night

Somewhere in the Night
Author: Nicholas Christopher
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2010-05-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1439137617

Film noir is more than a cinematic genre. It is an essential aspect of American culture. Along with the cowboy of the Wild West, the denizen of the film noir city is at the very center of our mythological iconography. Described as the style of an anxious victor, film noir began during the post-war period, a strange time of hope and optimism mixed with fear and even paranoia. The shadow of this rich and powerful cinematic style can now be seen in virtually every artistic medium. The spectacular success of recent neo-film noirs is only the tip of an iceberg. In the dead-on, nocturnal jazz of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, the chilled urban landscapes of Edward Hopper, and postwar literary fiction from Nelson Algren and William S. Burroughs to pulp masters like Horace McCoy, we find an unsettling recognition of the dark hollowness beneath the surface of the American Dream. Acclaimed novelist and poet Nicholas Christopher explores the cultural identity of film noir in a seamless, elegant, and enchanting work of literary prose. Examining virtually the entire catalogue of film noir, Christopher identifies the central motif as the urban labyrinth, a place infested with psychosis, anxiety, and existential dread in which the noir hero embarks on a dangerously illuminating quest. With acute sensitivity, he shows how technical devices such as lighting, voice over, and editing tempo are deployed to create the film noir world. Somewhere in the Night guides us through the architecture of this imaginary world, be it shot in New York or Los Angeles, relating its elements to the ancient cultural archetypes that prefigure it. Finally, Christopher builds an explanation of why film noir not only lives on but is currently enjoying a renaissance. Somewhere in the Night can be appreciated as a lucid introduction to a fundamental style of American culture, and also as a guide to film noir's heyday. Ultimately, though, as the work of a bold talent adeptly manipulating poetic cadence and metaphor, it is itself a superb aesthetic artifact.

The Philosophy of Film Noir

The Philosophy of Film Noir
Author: Mark T. Conard
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2005-01-27
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0813171709

A drifter with no name and no past, driven purely by desire, is convinced by a beautiful woman to murder her husband. A hard-drinking detective down on his luck becomes involved with a gang of criminals in pursuit of a priceless artifact. The stories are at once romantic, pessimistic, filled with anxiety and a sense of alienation, and they define the essence of film noir. Noir emerged as a prominent American film genre in the early 1940s, distinguishable by its use of unusual lighting, sinister plots, mysterious characters, and dark themes. From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958), films from this classic period reflect an atmosphere of corruption and social decay that attracted such accomplished directors as John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, and Orson Welles. The Philosophy of Film Noir is the first volume to focus exclusively on the philosophical underpinnings of these iconic films. Drawing on the work of diverse thinkers, from the French existentialist Albert Camus to the Frankurt school theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, the volume connects film noir to the philosophical questions of a modern, often nihilistic, world. Opening with an examination of what constitutes noir cinema, the book interprets the philosophical elements consistently present in the films—themes such as moral ambiguity, reason versus passion, and pessimism. The contributors to the volume also argue that the essence and elements of noir have fundamentally influenced movies outside of the traditional noir period. Neo-noir films such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Fight Club (1999), and Memento (2000) have reintroduced the genre to a contemporary audience. As they assess the concepts present in individual films, the contributors also illuminate and explore the philosophical themes that surface in popular culture. A close examination of one of the most significant artistic movements of the twentieth century, The Philosophy of Film Noir reinvigorates an intellectual discussion at the intersection of popular culture and philosophy.

Women in Film Noir

Women in Film Noir
Author: E. Ann Kaplan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2019-07-25
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1839021225

The first edition of 'Women in Film Noir' (1978) assembled a group of scholars and critics committed to understanding the cinema in terms of gender, sexuality, politics, psychoanalysis and semiotics. This edition is expanded to include further essays which reflect the renewed interest in Film Noir. Exploring 'neo-noir', postmodernism and other contemporary trends, new essays offer readings of, among others, 'Bound' and 'Basic Instinct', broadening the scope of the book to include questions of race and homosexuality.

Silver Screen Fiend

Silver Screen Fiend
Author: Patton Oswalt
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451673221

"Between 1995 and 1999, Patton Oswalt lived with an unshakable addiction. It wasn't drugs, alcohol or sex: it was film. After moving to L.A., Oswalt became a huge film buff (or as he calls it, a sprocket fiend), absorbing classics, cult hits, and new releases at the New Beverly Cinema. Silver screen celluloid became Patton's life schoolbook, informing his notion of acting, writing, comedy, and relationships. Set in the nascent days of L.A.'s alternative comedy scene, Oswalt's memoir chronicles his journey from fledgling stand-up comedian to self-assured sitcom actor, with the colorful New Beverly collective and a cast of now-notable young comedians supporting him all along the way"--

Fatalism in American Film Noir

Fatalism in American Film Noir
Author: Robert B. Pippin
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2012
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0813931894

This book reveals the ways in which American film noir explore the declining credibility of individuals as causal centers of agency, and how we live with the acknowledgment of such limitations.

Nightmare Alley

Nightmare Alley
Author: Mark Osteen
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2013-01-30
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1421408325

Classic film noir offers more than pesky private eyes and beautiful bad girls—it explores the quest for the not-so-attainable American dream. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Desperate young lovers on the lam (They Live by Night), a cynical con man making a fortune as a mentalist (Nightmare Alley), a penniless pregnant girl mistaken for a wealthy heiress (No Man of Her Own), a wounded veteran who has forgotten his own name (Somewhere in the Night)—this gallery of film noir characters challenges the stereotypes of the wise-cracking detective and the alluring femme fatale. Despite their differences, they all have something in common: a belief in self-reinvention. Nightmare Alley is a thorough examination of how film noir disputes this notion at the heart of the American Dream. Central to many of these films, Mark Osteen argues, is the story of an individual trying, by dint of hard work or, more often, illicit enterprises, to overcome his or her origins and achieve material success. In the wake of World War II, the noir genre tested the dream of upward mobility and the ideas of individualism, liberty, equality, and free enterprise that accompany it. Employing an impressive array of theoretical perspectives (including psychoanalysis, art history, feminism, and music theory) and combining close reading with original primary source research, Nightmare Alley proves both the diversity of classic noir and its potency. This provocative and wide-ranging study revises and refreshes our understanding of noir's characters, themes, and cultural significance.

The Philosophy of Film Noir

The Philosophy of Film Noir
Author: Mark T. Conard
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2007-08-17
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780813191812

From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958), the classic film noir is easily recognizable for its unusual lighting, sinister plots, and feeling of paranoia. For critics and fans alike, these films defined an era. The Philosophy of Film Noir explores philosophical themes and ideas inherent in classic noir and neo-noir films, establishing connections to diverse thinkers ranging from Camus to the Frankfurt School. The authors, each focusing on a different aspect of the genre, explore the philosophical underpinnings of classic films such as The Big Sleep (1946), Out of the Past (1947), and Pulp Fiction (1994). They show how existentialism and nihilism dominate the genre as they explore profound themes in a vital area of popular culture.