The Big Book of Noir Review

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The Big Book of Noir ReviewAs the lowly web guy behind The Thrilling Detective Web Site, I'm always looking for good reference books, and this one's a keeper! It collects some of the very best articles, essays and critiques in one handy volume, covering everything from film and fiction to radio, television and comics. Passionate, diverse, opinionated, cranky, illuminating and enlightening, it's like a Greatest Hits of Noir Criticism.The Big Book of Noir Overview

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Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) Review

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Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) ReviewAs Alain Silver explains in the book's Introduction, "Film Noir Reader 4" is different in purpose from the previous Film Noir Readers. It focuses on key films and key themes, rather than attempting to be inclusive or comprehensive. In that spirit, Silver has included a few lists of the most important film noirs according to himself and others in the Introduction. "Film Noir Reader 4" contains 23 mostly modern essays, many apparently not previously published, presented in two parts. The paper the book is printed on is pure white, instead of the off-white of previous volumes, so the black-and-white stills look better.
Part I, "Case Studies", includes 12 essays on key films. The films discussed are: "Double Indemnity", "Detour", "The Big Sleep", "Out of the Past", "The Unsuspected", "Gun Crazy", "D.O.A", "The Big Night", "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Big Heat", "The Big Combo", and "Touch of Evil". Glenn Erickson's enthusiastic and insightful essay "Fate Seeks the Loser: Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour" is particularly interesting. The same can be said for Kevin Hagopian's study of "The Big Sleep" and Stephen B. Armstrong's history of "Touch of Evil". Both films were radically altered by recuts, with the result of making them nonsensical. These carefully researched essays explain what was changed and why.
Part II focuses on "Noir Themes", although I don't think that most of these can reasonably be called "key" themes. Eleven essays discuss a variety of themes that can be found or projected upon classic noir films, including psychodrama, images of women, noir antecedents, horror-noir, war noirs, left-wing politics in noir and crime films, hybrid noir-westerns, and noir title sequences. In other words, Part II is a catch-all. "Cat People", "Rancho Notorious" (in comparison to "The Big Heat"), and "Double Indemnity" are discussed in the most depth.
I'm giving "Film Noir Reader 4" a lower rating than I gave the previous Film Noir Readers, because it is overwhelmed by the sort of absurd ideological readings that I haven't heard this much of since I studied film in college. The reader can't get far without running into dogmatic -and, I might add, eternally ill-defined- terminology like "patriarchal capitalism" and "misogyny". For grown persons to legitimize their socio-economic hang-ups by deliberately misrepresenting 60-year-old movies is pitiful. I am reminded of the reason director Fritz Lang left Germany: The Nazi Party liked his films so much that they offered Lang the opportunity to run the German film industry. His films were anti-fascist. Anyway, there are some good, informative, essays in "Film Noir Reader 4", and it's useful to present different interpretations. But these aren't so different, and I get the impression of scraping the bottom of the barrel.Film Noir Reader 4: The Crucial Films and Themes (Bk. 4) OverviewThe earlier Film Noir Readers, which now boast a combined sale of well over 30,000 copies, have all quite deliberately conveyed a sweeping overview of the classic period, demonstrating how broad and inclusive noir movies are. Film Noir Reader 4 moves in a different direction. Its purpose is to identify the key films and motifs of noir and to analyze in depth the prototypical pictures that, while vivid examples of certain cinematic themes, bend and break their molds to find new ways to enthrall and frighten us. Like its predecessors, Film Noir Reader 4 is generously illustrated and features essays by such respected film critics and scholars as Robin Wood, J.P. Telotte, R. Barton Palmer, and Robert Porfirio. All have as their purpose to explain why and how these classic films work; the way screenplay, direction, acting, cinematography, editing and all the other filmmaking crafts blended together to produce work that exemplifies both a particular movement in film history and the innovations that keep the noir style fresh and compelling.

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Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968 Review

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Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968 ReviewThis is one of the best books I've read about movies in a few years. Prince looks at the PCA papers for movies from the early talkies to the start of the "ratings system" in the Sixties. He looks at how the films depicted violence, and how they got into trouble with the Code Authority. (Prince doesn't use the word censor, and he shows he has a valid point for this.)
The result is simply eye-opening. It will make you want to see Frankenstein, The Public Enemy, Scarface (1931) and G-Men again. Prince shows how the PCA was especially troubled by violence in horror and gangster films and by edge weapons more than guns. He also shows how "film noir" was a sustained assault on the conventions of screen violence handed down in the Thirties. (Oddly, Prince hardly uses the term "film noir" although the films he mentions: The Glass Key, Brute Force, Kiss Me Deadly, are all from the noir canon.)
Not only does Prince tell the history of American screen violence, but he analyzes the techniques by which filmmakers depicted violence. He never becomes dry or academic as he discusses these films.
Strongly recommended for anyone with an interest in the horror film, gangster movies or film noir.Classical Film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1968 OverviewStephen Prince has written the first book to examine the interplay between the aesthetics and the censorship of violence in classic Hollywood films from 1930 to 1968, the era of the Production Code, when filmmakers were required to have their scripts approved before they could start production.He explains how Hollywood's filmmakers designed violence in response to the regulations of the Production Code and regional censors.Graphic violence in today's movies actually has its roots in these early films.Hollywood's filmmakers were drawn to violent scenes and "pushed the envelope" of what they could depict by manipulating the Production Code Administration (PCA).Prince shows that many choices about camera position, editing, and blocking of the action and sound were functional responses by filmmakers to regulatory constraints, necessary for approval from the PCA and then in surviving scrutiny by state and municipal censor boards. This book is the first stylistic history of American screen violence that is grounded in industry documentation. Using PCA files, Prince traces the negotiations over violence carried out by filmmakers and officials and shows how the outcome left its traces on picture and sound in the films.Almost everything revealed by this research is contrary to what most have believed about Hollywood and film violence. With chapters such as "Throwing the Extra Punch" and "Cruelty, Sadism, and the Horror Film," this book will become the defining work on classical film violence and its connection to the graphic mayhem of today's movies.

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Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century (Cultural Exegesis) Review

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Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century (Cultural Exegesis) ReviewI wish I could summon the spirit of the late Don LaFontaine here - it would come across much more powerful, of course - but I cannot. In a world where required reading often means required time and nothing less, it's a rarity that we're able to dig through the junk to find the jewels. Into the Dark gives you nugget after nugget of the finest film gold. From Memento to Donnie Darko -- 45 of IMDb's top 250 - and page by page, movie by movie, it's a perfectly paced walk through the best aspects of cinema. Detweiler stays the course to provide a trustworthy guide and an altogether insightful interpretation, all the while providing theological insight along the way. It's like watching the movies all over again, with a different set of eyes. A little deeper, a little smarter, a little slower wins the race.
Into the Dark is the journey of films through some of the darkest hours in order to show the brightest of grace. The chapters poignantly scribe the picture of a holistic faith seen in contrast with a dynamic culture. To speak personally, the book acted as an awakening towards the movies I could not reconcile. It was my own journey through the theater in hopes of finding others - Evangelicals even - sitting next to me, ready to commence The Great Discussion with two ears, one mouth and an eternal sense of grace in sight.
Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century (Cultural Exegesis) OverviewIn this book, Craig Detweiler examines forty-five films from the twenty-first century that resonate theologically--from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Little Miss Sunshine--offering groundbreaking insight into their scriptural connections and theological applications.Detweiler writes with the eye of a filmmaker, leads Hollywood and religion initiatives at Fuller Seminary, and even came to faith through cinema. In this book, he unpacks the "theology of everyday life," exploring the Spirit of God in creation, redemption, and "general revelation" through sometimes unlikely filmmakers. It's the first authoritative book that dissects up-to-date movies selected by the popular Internet Movie Database. This book is recommended for teachers, students, pastors, film fans, and those interested in the intersection of Christianity and culture.

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Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia Review

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Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia Reviewmolto interessante. I testi universitari italiani sono decisamente meno dettagliati ed appassionanti come un libro
di narrativaFilm Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia OverviewWheeler Winston Dixon engages readers in an overview of noir and fatalist film from the mid-twentieth century to the present, ending with a discussion of television, the Internet, and dominant commercial cinema. Beginning with the 1940s classics, Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia moves to the "Red Scare" and other ominous expressions of the 1950s. The dark cinema of the 1960s reflected the tensions of a society facing a new and, to some, menacing era of social expression.

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Film Noir Reader Review

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Film Noir Reader ReviewI'm including reviews of both "Film Noir Reader" and "Film Noir Reader 2" in the same review until Amazon gets the two books unlinked.
FILM NOIR READER (1)
"Film Noir Reader" is a collection of 22 essays about film noir, written between the mid-1950s and mid-1990s by a diverse group of film theorists, including a few essays by the editors themselves, Alain Silver and James Ursini. Some of the essays are illustrated with black-and-white photographs. Mr. Silver takes the opportunity of the book's Introduction to deliver a scathing rebuttal of French critic Marc Vernet's views before commenting on the book's content.
"Film Noir Reader" has three parts: Part I is "Seminal Essays", which include 8 essays written 1955-1979. An excerpt from Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton's seminal 1955 book "A Panorama of American Film Noir" is included, as well as Paul Schrader's essential 1972 essay "Notes on Film Noir". Other essays discuss film noir's visual style, existential motifs, and there is a very interesting essay by Paul Kerr on the circumstances that caused B movies, including B-noirs, to flourish in the 1940s. Part II, "Case Studies", includes 8 essays about specific films and directors, all but one addressing films of the classic noir period. Essays are dedicated to directors John Farrow and Anthony Mann, while others discuss the films "Phantom Lady", "Angel Face", "The Killers", "Night and the City", "Kiss Me Deadly", "Hickey and Boggs", and "The Long Goodbye". Part III, "Noir Then and Now", includes 6 articles that seemed not to fit into Part I or Part II, including a few about neo-noir films. Karen Hollinger discusses the effects of first-person male voiceovers on the images of female characters in classic film noir. Others essays explore films that feature fugitive couples, noir television series, neo-B noirs, and Jeremy G. Butler writes about "Miami Vice".
The date of first publication is clearly stated for all essays in Part I, but I found myself wondering when some of the other essays had been written. Publication information, including dates, are provided for each essay at the end of the book's Acknowledgments. There are some interesting and essential essays in "Film Noir Reader", and some less so, but the book provides a nice collection of opinions and observations on the style that are great food for thought for noir fans and scholars.
FILM NOIR READER 2
"Film Noir Reader 2" is a collection of 24 essays, written 1945-1999, that attempt to define the film noir sensibility and explore particular films and facets of the style in depth. This book shares the same format with the first "Film Noir Reader": Essays are arranged in 3 parts. Part I contains "More Seminal Essays" that augment the defining material in "Film Noir Reader". There are 8 essays, written 1945-1988, including a surprising article written by Lloyd Shearer for "The New York Times" in 1945. A year before French film critics identified and began to discuss the film noir style, Shearer plainly recognized a distinct trend in Hollywood toward "lusty, hard-boiled, gut-and-gore crime stories, all fashioned on a theme with a combination of plausibly motivated murder and studded with high-powered Freudian implication." Pretty neat definition only 4 years into the noir movement. And Shearer goes on to ask "why at this time are so many pictures of the same type being made?" Funny that his article should be reproduced in a book that is still trying to answer that question 60 years later. Shearer's article is followed by French critic Nino Frank's 1946 essay in which the term "noir" was first applied to film. For all the talk of film noir having been created in the minds of critics after the fact, it's apparent that these writers comprehended the existence of film noir style as it was being created.
Part II is dedicated to "Case Studies". It includes 8 essays that discuss "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946 & 1981 versions), "Kiss Me Deadly", "The Big Heat", "The File on Thelma Jordan", "Pushover", the neo-noirs "Mississippi Mermaid" and "Badlands", as well as the films of directors Alfred Hitchcock and Samuel Fuller. There is also an essay by Francis M. Nevins on films adapted from the works of Cornell Woolrich and an essay by Robert G. Porfino on jazz music in film noir. Part III, "The Evolution of Noir", is an eclectic assortment of 8 essays. Topics include: noir science fiction, British film noir, abstract expressionism in film noir, female protagonists in neo-noir, and tabloid/crime photographer WeeGee's (Arthur Fellig) relationship to film noir, including discussion of the 1992 film "Public Eye" that was inspired by his career. Film professor Philip Gaines provides an outline of his film noir course, with recommended films and suggested reading. I'd like to mention, in response to Linda Brookover's essay on WeeGee, that although WeeGee's talent for self-promotion was equal to his gift for photojournalism, his photographs were not unique. The work of many excellent and tireless crime photographers adorned the pages of daily newspapers in the 1920s-1950s. Some of them can be seen in the "New York Noir" gallery of the "New York Daily News" archive at www.dailynewspix.com . Tabloid photography is usually overlooked as an influence on film noir, so I'm glad that Ms. Brookover has addressed that oversight, even if I don't entirely agree with her assessment.Film Noir Reader OverviewThis bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style, now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

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The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre Review

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The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre ReviewI've waited decades for the definitive biography to be written about this unique and talented actor...and finally it's here! This book explores Lorre's public and private life in great detail, with previously unknown or unrevealed facts about this often underappreciated genius. The names of people interviewd for this book are like a who's who of 20th century cinema, many of them long since gone. The personal photographs, are great and help the reader truly understand the man behind the actor who made a career out of "making faces". If you've ever enjoyed seeing this great performer's work, you won't be able to put this book down!The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre Overview

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