Currently reading Mr Mullers 'Dark City' excellent, a must read. Also have 'Dark City Dames' on the way to me too (expensive!!) I sure I'll like it though so money well spent.
Currently reading Mr Mullers 'Dark City' excellent, a must read. Also have 'Dark City Dames' on the way to me too (expensive!!) I sure I'll like it though so money well spent.
Going to start reading More Than Night soon and ordered a near fine used copy of The Book of Film Noir for $40.00 since I have read raves of the latter book so I hope I am happy with the investment.Originally Posted by JCharles
Ovader, I don't think you'll be disappointed by The Book of Film Noir. It contains a plethora of good articles, not too academic and some on individual films. Plus it has a huge collection of superbly printed stills. Enjoy!
Has anyone read this book? Is it a recommended read?
Wow! Thanks for the heads-up on that Whistler book. This is the first I've heard of it, but I've seen most of the Whistler movies, and they're really good. It's great that there's a book about the series.
Now we just need remastered DVD releases of all of the films...
Press release from Turner Classic Moves web site:
The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism
Noir is among the most popular, acclaimed, and critically assessed film styles of all time. The unfortunate consequence is an ever-growing divergence between fans and scholars with regard to goals and methods for appreciating and studying noir. The Maltese Touch of Evil (Dartmouth College Press) aims to bridge that gap. Based on a series of popular podcasts, this unique and deeply informed investigation of film noir sets out to examine the case of noir more closely, and in the process reconfigures the critical evidence on noir that has been presented to date.
The Maltese Touch of Evil reproduces and re-sequences nearly 150 noir screen grabs from 31 great films, laying them out with the authors' informed and entertaining insights into the significance of each shot. The result is a de facto meta-film noir, a celebration of the genre that shows how these films are themselves "constrained" texts whose carefully calculated visual forms simultaneously generate narrative and critical commentary on that narrative. You will never look at film noir the same way again.
About the Authors
SHANNON SCOTT CLUTE is an independent scholar who works for Turner Classic Movies in Atlanta. RICHARD L. EDWARDS is an assistant professor of media arts and sciences at Indiana University's School of Informatics in Indianapolis.
The Maltese Touch of Evil will be available in December 2011 from most major booksellers.
Look forwards to that, keep meaning to buy a copy of this book, as a big Maltese Falcon fan, anyone read it?
I ordered James Ursini's latest book Directors on the Edge: Outliers in Hollywood based on DVD Savant recommendation a few weeks ago. (The current review at Amazon wasn't yet posted, so I'm not sure what to expect now). It finally shipped on Friday.
Noted film noir authority James Ursini (The Film Noir Reader series, L.A. Noir, and numerous DVD commentaries) analyzes the work of five underrated independent directors - Hugo Haas, Reginald LeBorg, Ida Lupino, Gerd Oswald, and Edgar G. Ulmer. This lavishly illustrated study examines their films as works of art and their careers as outsiders who directed films on the edge of Hollywood and paved the way for the modern American independent film movement.
Just discovered this book about Gloria Grahame on Amazon. Kinda pricey.
http://www.amazon.com/Gloria-Grahame.../dp/078643483X
Check out Blackout (WWII and the origins of Film Noir) by Sheri Chinen Biesen, very informative. Everyone should read this one. I'm about halfway through it.
I read Blackout a couple of years ago. It was very illuminatin'!
I also read Blackout about 3 or 4 years ago. I really enjoyed the discussion on the 1940's phase of film noir. A very well written book.
Full synopsis:
Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir by Sheri Chinen Biesen (Oct 19, 2005), and its given me some new insight into what I'm trying to quantify. I suggest everyone read it. Some quotes from the book below.
A number of elements all came together into what The New York Times tagged the "red meat crime cycle" (before French critics coined the term Film Noir) at the onset of WWII. "The PCA' s lapses in code enforcement, the Office of Censorship banning "un-American" Hollywood gangsters but condoning of depictions of war related atrocities, and the Office of War Information's regulation of screen stories depicting the combat front or domestic home front to promote the war effort---all of these developments complicated WWII censorship and encouraged hard-boiled film adaptations that initially reformed gangsters and promoted patriotic crime." Pictures were filmed with "tremendous studio rationing of lighting, electricity, film stock, and set materials" in an uncharacteristically dark urban Los Angeles basin in response to wartime blackouts.
The first Noir where all of the elements came together was Double Indemnity, and along with other wartime productions such as The Phantom Lady and, Murder My Sweet represented some of the most expressionistic, stylistically black phase of film noir (what I'm calling the *Hard Core Noirs*). "The noir aesthetic evolved from the wartime constraints on film making practices. Brooding, often brutal realism was conveyed in low lit images recycled sets (disguised by shadows, smoke, artificial fog, and rain), tarped studio back lots, or enclosed sound stages.
In the post war period film makers redefined noir realism having more flexibility in location shooting and lighting. Wartime Noir created a psychological atmosphere that in many ways marked a response to an increasingly realistic and understandable anxiety---about war, shortages, changing gender roles, and "a world gone mad"---that was distinctive from the later postwar paranoia about the bomb, the cold war, HUAC, and the blacklist which was more intrinsic to the late 40's and 50's Noir pictures." (lighter grayer or Films Gris, *Soft Core Noir*)
And you can see this in the films. Wilder's Double Indemnity is darker in visual style than 1950's Sunset Boulevard, Fritz Langs Ministry of Fear and Scarlett Street are darker than The Big Heat (1953). But there are some exceptions Aldrich's *Kiss Me Deadly*(1955) and Lewis' *The Big Combo*(1955) are pretty dark, but the general trend outlined in the book is distinctive and sort of explains the reason for the range in the pallet of Films Noir.
Alain Silver and James Ursini are back with Film Noir, The Directors!
Anyone pick up a copy yet?
Roger Ebert has a noir E-book coming out today- Ebert's Essentials: 27 Movies from the Dark Side. Couldn't find it yet at the Apple Store or Amazon. More about it on his FB page: http://www.facebook.com/RogerEbert
While browsing on Amazon, i came across this book:
Film Noir FAQ celebrates and reappraises some 200 noir thrillers representing 20 years of Hollywood's Golden Age. Noir pulls us close to brutal cops and scheming dames, desperate heist men and hard-boiled private eyes, and the unlucky innocent citizens that get in their way. These are exciting movies with tough guys in trench coats and hot tomatoes in form-fitting gowns. The moon is a streetlamp and the narrow streets are prowled by squad cars and long black limousines. Lives are often small but peoples plans are big, sometimes too big. Robbery, murder, gambling; the gun and the fist; the grift and the con game; the hard kiss and the brutal brush-off. Film Noir FAQ brings lively attention to story, mood, themes, and technical detail, plus behind-the-scenes stories of the production of individual films. Featuring numerous stills and posters, many never before published in book form highlighting key moments of great noir movies. Film Noir FAQ serves up insights into many of the most popular and revered names in Hollywood history, including noirs greatest stars, supporting players, directors, writers, and cinematographers. Pour a Scotch, light up a smoke, and lean back with your private guide to film noir.
Fifteen years in the making, a new biography of Barbara Stanwyck coming, A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True, 1907-1941, by Victoria Wilson, September 24, 2013. This first volume falls just short of the noir years.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
The excellent Nghtmare Alley: Film Noir and the American Dream, Mark Osteen, Johns Hopkins Press, 2013, examines various themes of film noir and what they tell us about the American Dream. There are chapters on the cars of noir, vet noir, music, femmes fatale, memory, trauma, and more. Academic study but very readable. Lots of films discussed in detail, lots of illustrations. Available as hardcover and download.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Two volume boxed set of Dashiell Hammet's work from Library of America, now available thru Amazon, B&N. All the novels and selected short stories.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Just got it, but haven't started it yet.While browsing on Amazon, i came across this book:
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