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A panorama of American film noir, 1941-1953 / Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton ; introduction by James Naremore ; translated from the French by Paul Hammond.
Van Pelt Library PN1995.9.F54 B67 2002
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Borde, Raymond.
- Standardized Title:
- Panorama du film noir américain. English
- Language:
- English
- French
- Subjects (All):
- Film noir--United States--History and criticism.
- Film noir.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- xxv, 242 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
- Place of Publication:
- San Francisco : City Lights Books, [2002]
- Summary:
- When it appeared in France in 1955, A Panorama of American Film Noir was the first book ever on the genre: this clairvoyant study of Hollywood film noir is at last available in English translation. A Panorama of American Film Noir addresses the essential amorality of its subject from a decidedly Surrealist angle, focusing on noir's dreamlike, unwonted, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel atmosphere, and setting it in the social context of mid-century America. Beginning with the first film noir, The Maltese Falcon, and continuing through the postwar "glory days," which included such films as Gilda, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and The Lady from Shanghai, Borde and Chaumeton examine the dark sides of American society, film, and literature that made film noir possible, even necessary. A Panorama of American Film Noir includes a film noir chronology, a voluminous filmography, a comprehensive index, and a selection of black-and-white production stills.
- Contents:
- A Season in Hell or the Snows of Yesteryear? / James Naremore vii
- The "noir series"
- The series idea
- A preliminary convention
- 2 Toward a definition of film noir 5
- The crime adventure story
- Psychological ambiguity
- Moral ambivalence
- The theme of violence
- The strange
- The disappearance of psychological bearings and a specific sense of malaise
- 3 The sources of film noir 15
- Literature
- Psychoanalysis
- The social context and the influence of the war
- European sources
- Gangster and horror films, and the cartoon
- 4 The war years and the formation of a style (1941-1945) 29
- 1941, a pivotal year in Hollywood
- The Maltese Falcon
- The Shanghai Gesture
- This Gun for Hire
- The contributions of Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Curtis Bernhardt, and Fritz Lang
- The rallying of academicism
- The "noirified" period film
- 5 The glory days (1946-1948) 53
- The end of the war and its consequences
- 1946: Gilda, The Big Sleep, The Lady in the Lake
- 1947: The Lady from Shanghai, Dark Passage
- 1948: Sorry, Wrong Number, Ride the Pink Horse
- Minor productions
- Films about criminal psychology
- Hitchcock's oeuvre
- Police documentaries, and gangster and prison films
- 6 Decadence and transformation (1949-1950) 83
- Film noir's integration in adjacent series: He Walked by Night, The Enforcer, White Heat
- Three successful Elia Kazan, Jules Dassin, and John Huston films
- A noir version of amour fou: Gun Crazy
- 7 The demise of a series (1951-1953) 97
- New series: science-fiction, anti-Communist films, and the myth of the "thinking cop"
- Macao and the return of Sternberg
- Strangers on a Train
- The neorealist detective film
- A poetic transposition of the noir series: The Band Wagon
- 8 Influences 113
- Noir's influence on the feature-length social documentary: Crossfire, Thieves' Highway, The Set-Up
- The psychoanalytical series
- Parodies and cartoons
- European film noirs
- 9 French film noirs 127
- 10 A balance sheet 139
- The validity of cinema criticism and its methods
- A technical assessment of the noir series
- Eroticism of the thriller
- Moral questions
- The role of violence
- A psychosocial balance sheet
- Net assets and liabilities
- A season in hell
- Postface 155.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references, filmography and index.
- ISBN:
- 087286412X
- OCLC:
- 50124706
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