Film Noir Reader 2

by Alain Silver

Overview

(Limelight). Generously includes film stills and essays on crime films, The Postman Always Rings Twice , "Hitchcock's Noir Landscape," "Samuel Fuller's Tabloid Cinema," "Son of Noir," "Noir Science," "Girl Power: Female Centered Neo-Noir," and "Abstract Expressionism and Film Noir."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780879102807
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/01/2004
Series:	Limelight , #2
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.85(d)

Table of Contents

PART ONE: MORE SEMINAL ESSAYS

Crime Certainly Pays on the Screen
Lloyd Shearer (1945)

A New Kind of Police Drama: The Criminal Adventure
Nino Frank (1946)

Americans are also Making Noir Films
Jean-Pierre Chartier (1956)

The Evolution of the Crime Drama
Claude Chabrol (1955)

Three Faces of Film Noir
Tom Flinn (1972)

Violence and the Bitch Goddess,
Stephen Farber (1974)

The Filmic Transaction: On the Openings of Films Noirs
Marc Vernet (1983)

Film Noir: Style and Content
Dale E. Ewing, Jr. (1988)

PART TWO: CASE STUDIES

Whatever Happened to the Film Noir?: The Postman Always RingsTwice (1946-1981)
Robert G. Porfirio

Creativity and Evaluation: Two Film Noirs of the Fifties
Robin Wood

Fragments of the Mirror: Hitchcock's Noir Landscape
Alain Silver

The Unintended Femme Fatale: The File on Thelma Jordan and Pushover
Elizabeth Ward

Translate and Transform: from Cornell Woolrich to Film Noir
Francis M. Nevins

Film Noir and Samuel Fuller's Tabloid Cinema: Red (Action), White (Exposition) and Blue (Romance)
Grant Tracey

Dark Jazz: Music in the Film Noir
Robert G. Porfirio

Mad Love is Strange: More Neo-Noir Fugitives
Linda Brookover and Alain Silver

PART THREE: THE EVOLUTION OF NOIR

Son of Noir
Richard Jameson

Writing the New Noir Film
Sharon Y. Cobb

Blanc et Noir: Crime as Art
Linda Brookover

Noir Science
James Ursini

British Film Noir
Tony Williams

Peinture Noire: Abstract Expressionism and Film Noir
Kent Minturn

Girl Power: Female-Centered Neo-Noir
William Covey

Noir 101
Philip Gaines

Editorial Reviews

Many of the same compliments can be paid to this collection of pieces on the film noir approach to hard-boiled fiction. Writer-director Paul Scharader writes a dazzling -- if somewhat debatable -- piece on the themes of noir cinema over the years, and the estimable Raymond Durgnat contributes an overview of noir that is stunning in its scope and lucidity. There are also fine essays on such noir icons as Anthony Mann, Cornell Woolrich, and Raymond Chandler, and what is now being called "neo noir," notably Quentin Tarantino. Alain Silver is a formidable scholar and vital writer. Even by his high standards, this is an excellent and engaging book.

—Ed Gorman

bn.com

An anthology of 22 seminal and contemporary essays on the art of noir in film, drawing together definitive studies and ruminations on the philosophy and techniques that made movies like The Maltese Falcon classics. The essays include the first English translation of "Towards a Definition of Film Noir," by Borde and Chaumeton, and Paul Shrader's "Notes on Film Noir." Other critical discussions examine narrative structure, lighting, the evolution of the femme fatale, and the neo-noir rebirth of the genre in films like Reservoir Dogs and Gun Crazy. Lots and lots of black and white (of course) photographs make this a film buff's dream collection. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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