Author: David Cochran
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588345505
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
In America Noir David Cochran details how ten writers and filmmakers challenged the social pieties prevalent during the Cold War, such as the superiority of the American democracy, the benevolence of free enterprise, and the sanctity of the suburban family. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone featured victims of vast, faceless, bureaucratic powers. Jim Thompson's noir thrillers, such as The Grifters, portrayed the ravages of capitalism on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Patricia Highsmith, in The Talented Mr. Ripley, placed an amoral con man in an international setting, implicitly questioning America's fitness as leader of the free world. Charles Willeford's pulp novels, such as Wild Wives and Woman Chaser, depicted the family as a hotbed of violence and chaos. These artists pioneered a detached, ironic sensibility that radically juxtaposed cultural references and blurred the distinctions between “high” and “low” art. Their refusal to surrender to the pressures for political conformity and their unflinching portrayal of the underside of American life paved the way for the emergence of a 1960s counterculture that forever changed the way America views itself.
Author: Barry Forshaw
Publisher: Oldacastle Books
ISBN: 1843449196
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 136
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Book Description
The word "Noir" is used here in its loosest sense: every major living American writer is considered (including the giants Harlan Coben, Patricia Cornwell, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy and Sara Paretsky, as well as non-crime writers such as Stephen King who stray into the genre), often through a concentration on one or two key books. Many exciting new talents are highlighted, and Barry Forshaw's knowledge of—and personal acquaintance with—many of the writers grants valuable insights into this massively popular field. But the crime genre is as much about films and TV as it is about books, and this book is a celebration of the former as well as the latter. American television crime drama in particular is enjoying a new golden age, and all of the important current series are covered here, as well as key important recent films.
Author: Alistair Rolls
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230244823
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
A longstanding misconception surrounding the term French noir suggests that the post-war French thriller and film noir were a development of, or response to, a pre-existing American tradition. This book challenges this misconception, examining the complexity of this trans-Atlantic exchange and refocusing debate to include a Franco-French lineage.
Author: David Cochran
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588345505
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
In America Noir David Cochran details how ten writers and filmmakers challenged the social pieties prevalent during the Cold War, such as the superiority of the American democracy, the benevolence of free enterprise, and the sanctity of the suburban family. Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone featured victims of vast, faceless, bureaucratic powers. Jim Thompson's noir thrillers, such as The Grifters, portrayed the ravages of capitalism on those at the bottom of the social ladder. Patricia Highsmith, in The Talented Mr. Ripley, placed an amoral con man in an international setting, implicitly questioning America's fitness as leader of the free world. Charles Willeford's pulp novels, such as Wild Wives and Woman Chaser, depicted the family as a hotbed of violence and chaos. These artists pioneered a detached, ironic sensibility that radically juxtaposed cultural references and blurred the distinctions between “high” and “low” art. Their refusal to surrender to the pressures for political conformity and their unflinching portrayal of the underside of American life paved the way for the emergence of a 1960s counterculture that forever changed the way America views itself.
Author: Erik Dussere
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199969922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
This study conceives the literary and cinematic category of 'noir' as a way of understanding the defining conflict between authenticity and consumer culture in post-World War II America. It analyses works of fiction and film in order to argue that both contribute to a 'noir tradition' that is initiated around the end of World War II and continues to develop and evolve in the present.
Author: Andrew Spicer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317875036
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Film Noir is an overview of an often celebrated, but also contested, body of films. It discusses film noir as a cultural phenomenon whose history is more extensive and diverse than American black and white crime thrillers of the forties. An extended Background Chapter situates film noir within its cultural context, describing its origin in German Expressionism, French Poetic Realism and in developments within American genres, the gangster/crime thriller, horror and the Gothic romance and its possible relationship to changes in American society. Five chapters are devoted to ‘classic’ film noir (1940-59): chapters explore its contexts of production and reception, its visual style, and its narrative patterns and themes chapters on character types and star performances elucidate noir’s complex construction of gender with its weak, ambivalent males and predatory femmes fatales and also provide a detailed analysis of three noir auteurs, - Anthony Mann, Robert Siodmak and Fritz Lang Three chapters investigate ‘neo-noir’ and British film noir: chapters trace the complex evolution of ‘neo-noir’ in American cinema, from the modernist critiques of Night Moves and Taxi Driver, to the postmodern hybridity of contemporary noir including Seven, Pulp Fiction and Memento the final chapter surveys the development of British film noir, a significant and virtually unknown cinema, stretching from the thirties to Mike Hodges’ Croupier Films discussed include both little known examples and seminal works such as Double Indemnity, Scarlet Street, Kiss Me Deadly and Touch of Evil. A final section provides a guide to further reading, an extensive bibliography and a list of over 500 films referred to in the text. Lucidly written, Film Noir is an accessible, informative and stimulating introduction that will have a broad appeal to undergraduates, cinéastes, film teachers and researchers.
Author: Woody Haut
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
Neon Noir, the follow-up to Woody Haut's highly regarded Pulp Culture, brings the story of American crime fiction and film uptodate. From the Kennedy assassination to the Vietnam War and Watergate, through Reaganomics to Irangate and Whitewater, Neon Noir is a roller-coaster ride through the American nightmare. Haut investigates the dark side of America through the work of crime writers such as James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, James Sallis, George Pelecanos, Charles Willeford, Jerome Charyn, Sara Paretsky, Vicki Hendricks, KC Constantine, George V Higgins and James Crumley. Mapping the fissures and scars of America's psychogeography, its morally ambiguous shadowlands, Neon Noir also considers the difference between past and present hardboilers, the impact of war and journalism on noirists, the portrayal of cities, the aesthetics of crime fiction, and the changing relationship between the books and the films. Like Pulp Culture, Neon Noir is set to become the reference book on its subject.
Author: Erik Dussere
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199969922
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
This study conceives the literary and cinematic category of 'noir' as a way of understanding the defining conflict between authenticity and consumer culture in post-World War II America. It analyses works of fiction and film in order to argue that both contribute to a 'noir tradition' that is initiated around the end of World War II and continues to develop and evolve in the present.
Author:
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271046880
Category : African American motion picture producers and directors
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
"Examines how African-American as well as international films deploy film noir techniques in ways that encourage philosophical reflection. Combines philosophy, film studies, and cultural studies"--Provided by publisher.
Author: Michael Mirabile
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1805392816
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
Edges of Noir challenges the notion that noir film nearly vanished after 1958 until its subsequent “neo-noir” revival between 1973 and 1981. The 1960s, regardless of critical neglect, include some of the most provocative films of the post-World War II decades. Often formally disruptive and experimental, films including Shock Corridor (1963), Mirage (1965), The 3rd Voice (1960), and Point Blank (1967) evoke controversial issues of the era, deriving dynamic influences amongst exploitation cinema, sensationalistic American B movies, and the European New Wave movement. Whether the focus is on nuclear destruction, mind control, or surveillance, late noir films, above all else, vividly portray the collective fears from the time.
