Liminal Noir in Classical World Cinema / edited by Elyce Helford and Christopher Weedman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Helford, Elyce, Author.

Contributor:

Helford, Elyce, editor.

Weedman, Christopher, editor.

Series:

Traditions in world cinema.

Traditions in World Cinema Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Film noir.

Liminality in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (232 p.) : 19 B/W illustrations 19 b&w images

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh, Scotland : Edinburgh University Press Ltd, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Applys a noir lens to films which defy easy generic categorizationRevaluation of classical-era international films through focus on noir elements in films otherwise not considered film noirConsideration of liminality as a driving feature of film noir, including genre, cultural norm, border, and boundary crossingsA case study approach that explores individual film examples within critical, production, and historical contextsWhile few can deny its incalculable influence on popular filmmaking during and after World War II, film noir has been and remains one of the most contentious categories of cinema, involving more debates than consensus about what constitutes a noir. This collection explores the amorphous parameters of this dark cinematic phenomenon by utilising an expanded, nuanced definition of film noir, which reaches beyond traditional conceptions of genre, style, and cycle to examine its complex international origins and emphasis on issues of liminality. Through illuminating case studies of single films from nations including Argentina, the former Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Poland, Spain, and the US, authors consider elements of genre hybridity, border crossing, boundary breaching, and other signifiers of liminality to reassess classical-era films that defy conventional generic and stylistic categorisation.

Contents:

Intro

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

Traditions in World Cinema

Introduction: Liminality and the Boundaries of Film Noir

PART I. EXPOSING CULTURAL ANXIETIES

1. The Despair of the Noir Generation: Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds

2. The Fleap Being Neither Flea nor Fly: Ida Lupino's Interrogations of Female Trauma in Never Fear

3. Running Aimlessly: Camino Cortado and Autarkic Spain

4. Race and the Noir Western: Navigating The Walking Hills

PART II. RECONCEPTUALISING NATIONAL CINEMAS

5. 'My Mama Done Tol' Me': Jewish .migr. Noir, Hybridity, and Black-Jewish Relations in Blues in the Night

6. Expressionism, Existentialism, and Socialism in Scars of the Past

7. The Deadly Seduction of a Rake: British Costume Melodrama, Noir, and the 'Othered' Woman in The Gypsy and the Gentleman

8. Argentine Gothic-Noir Fusion in The Black Vampire

PART III. AESTHETICS AND ANTECEDENTS

9. A 'Feeling of Suspension': Tradition and Modernity in La Pointe Courte

10. Dostoyevsky '58: Richard Brooks's Brothers Karamazov as Baroque Noir

11. Men in Black: I Confess , the Hitchcock Noir, and the American Gothic

Selected Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Nov 2023)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4744-9817-5

1-4744-9816-7

OCLC:

1320809414