Crime Films: Investigating the Scene

by Kirsten Moana Thompson

Overview

Crime Films: Investigating the Scene analyzes the wide body of films that fall under the rubric of crime, from the gangster film to the film noir to classic whodunit television series like Law and Order and CSI. Ever since Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery in 1903, audiences have been fascinated by films about crime and the world as seen from both sides of the law. Crime Films approaches a crime scene from the standpoint of the criminal, the crime, and the crime-solver, revealing the master plan behind the world of crime on screen. The criminal underworld takes on many forms, and this volume delves into recent developments in erotic thrillers like Basic Instinct (1992) and neo-noirs like Body Heat (1981) and LA Confidential (1997). Also included are a number of close readings of enduring crime films, from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) to Seven (1995) as well as such television series as Hill Street Blues, Homicide, and CSI.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781905674138
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	09/20/2007
Series:	Short Cuts
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kirsten Moana Thompson is assistant professor of film studies at Wayne State University and the co-editor of Perspectives on German Cinema.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations
Acknowledgement
Introduction     1
Crime as puzzle: whodunits and heists     29
The professional crime solver: from hard-boiled detectives to crusading cops     49
The criminal I: erotic thrillers, neo-noir and trial films     71
The criminal II: the serial killer film and postmodern hybrids     87
Glossary
Filmography
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Mark Bould

From Sleuths in deerstalkers on fog-shrouded moors and little old ladies from St. Mary Mead to psychological profilers and forensic criminologists in the mean streets of Las Vegas and Miami, from the library-with-a-candlestick to the bedroom-with-an-icepick, this compact volume leads us in the company of gangsters and g-men, safecrackers and serial killers, private dicks and public defenders, feds and femme fatales on a whistle-stop tour of our cinematic and televisual fascination with the left-handed form of human endeavour.

— Mark Bould, University of the West of England

Editorial Reviews

This book succeeds admirably in presenting a concise yet thorough look at the genre.

Moviescope