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Film Noir
"A superb guide to the main streets, back alleys, penthouses and abandoned lots of film noir. A comprehensive survey of canonical movies, written with a fan's eye for noir's killer-cool and an academic's desire for contextual precision and analytical insight." "William Luhr is the intrepid sleuth of cinema studies, tracking down film noir under all the aliases – classic noir, pre-noir, neo-noir – that its infinite variety has produced. Writing with energy, clarity, and verve, Luhr explodes narrow conceptions of noir as conclusively as the Great Whatsit blew up postwar innocence in Kiss Me Deadly. Carry a copy of this timely, spirited book in your trenchcoat. It is a boon for film scholars, general readers, and movie buffs alike." "Informed by a rich body of previous scholarship, conceptually sophisticated, yet written with grace and clarity, Film Noir by William Luhr provides an ideal introduction for students and fans to the dark corner of American culture represented by these gloriously perverse crime films." "William Luhr, who knows all the many questions raised by film noir, supplies lucid, elegant, provocative answers. His knowledge is deep, his comments far-ranging. This is an essential addition to the vast literature on the genre." "Writing with broad expertise and deep sensibility, Professor Luhr heightens our nostalgic delight in noir films while also pointing to the lost spectatorial experience of film noir's once present tenseness."
—Peter Stanfield, University of Kent
—David Sterritt, Chairman, National Society of Film Critics
—Jerry W Carlson, PhD, The City College & Graduate Center CUNY
—Charles Affron, New York University
—Chris Straayer, New York University Department of Cinema Studies
William Luhr (Author)
9781405145954, Wiley
Paperback / softback, published 20 February 2012
246 pages
22.9 x 15 x 1.5 cm, 0.318 kg
“It is the most comprehensive and lucid study of the genre I have read … I was also impressed with Luhr's handling of the shift in Hollywood from the 1930s to 1940s. The morally compromised "heroes" of the 1940s were unthinkable in the 1930s. Like all good film critics, Luhr makes me want to see my favorite films again because he has shown me things I missed. And then there are all those films I didn't see that are now on my list because of William Luhr.” (Carl Rollyson, 16 June 2012)
Film Noir offers new perspectives on this highly popular and influential film genre, providing a useful overview of its historical evolution and the many critical debates over its stylistic elements.
List of Plates ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 Introduction 1 2 Historical Overview 20 3 Critical Overview 50 4 Murder, My Sweet 73 5 Out of the Past 100 6 Kiss Me Deadly 123 7 The Long Goodbye 146 8 Chinatown 171 9 Seven 191 Afterword 215 References 217 Further Reading 223 Index 225
Subject Areas: Society & culture: general [JF]
