More than night : Film noir in its contexts / James Naremore.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Naremore, James.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Film noir--History and criticism.

Film noir.

Physical Description:

xviii, 384 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

Updated and expanded edition.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2008]

Summary:

"Film noir" evokes memories of stylish, cynical, black-and-white movies from the 1940s and '50s--melodramas about private eyes, femmes fatales, criminal gangs, and lovers on the run. James Naremore's prize-winning book discusses these pictures, but also shows that the central term is more complex and paradoxical than we realize. It treats noir as a term in criticism, as an expression of artistic modernism, as a symptom of Hollywood censorship and politics, as a market strategy, as an evolving style, and as an idea that circulates through all the media. This new and expanded edition of "More Than Night "contains an additional chapter on film noir in the twenty-first century.

Contents:

Introduction: This Is Where I Came In 1

1 The History of an Idea 9

Noir Is Born: Paris, 1946-1959 11

Darkness Everywhere 27

2 Modernism and Blood Melodrama: Three Case Studies 40

Believing in Nothing 48

Sympathy for the Devil 63

The Death Chamber 81

3 From Dark Films to Black Lists: Censorship and Politics 96

Bourbon with a Bourbon Chaser 107

The Snakes Are Loose 114

After 1947 123

4 Low Is High: Budgets and Critical Discrimination 136

B Pictures versus Intermediates 140

Post-B Pictures 155

5 Old Is New: Styles of Noir 167

Black and White and Red 169

Parody, Pastiche, Fashion 196

6 The Other Side of the Street 220

Asia 225

Latin America 229

Africa 233

7 The Noir Mediascape 254

8 Noir in the Twenty-first Century 278

Legends and Lists 278

More Styles of Noir 290

Noir Never Dies 297.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 343-353) and indexes.

ISBN:

0520254023

9780520254022

OCLC:

154697774