Film Noir

Four Books on Film Noir (pdf) - Film Quarterly

by Martin Fradley

in Film Quarterly (Summer 2012): 70-73.

“The Maritorious Melodrama: Film Noir with a Female Detective.” Journal of Film and Video 61.3 (Fall 2009): 24-39.

by Philippa Gates

Visions of Defeat

by Richard McKenzie

Paper presented at the 49th National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London on Thursday, 24th March 2011

At the end of World War II Germany and Austria’s cities were in ruins, its people shattered by 6 years of “Total War”... more At the end of World War II Germany and Austria’s cities were in ruins, its people shattered by 6 years of “Total War” and vilified as guilty monsters around the world. Curt Reiss, returned German émigré and  American War Correspondent, described the streets of 1945 Berlin as “endless ruins, [...]bombed out tanks, the ubiquitous machine guns and helmets shot to pieces”. This fantastic landscape and guilty citizens fascinated filmmakers. They produced films which tried to depict the implications of defeat for the Reich and for the victors. The backdrop to these films was the endless ruins of Berlin and Vienna and in the foreground to questions of guilt and redemption.


This presentation will discuss three films which present the Reich’s defeat, and how filmmakers dealt with questions of guilt, responsibility and possible redemption. It will also examine how the films assess the effect of victory on Allied soldiers. The films examined are: Die Mörder sind unter uns, 1946, Wolfgang Staudte, Germany, DEFA,  A Foreign Affair, 1948, Billy Wilder, US, Paramount , and The Third Man, 1949, Carol Reed, UK, London Films.

Staudte’s  Die Mörder sind unter uns the first Post-War German movie and began the tradition of the Trümmerfilm described by Ezra as “a hard edged look at the difficulties of reconstructing Post War Germany”. Trümmerfilme used the catastrophic ruins as an oppressive backdrop and lean on interwar film techniques such as expressionism and melodrama. Wilder produced a black comedy with a message, described by Gemünden as, “waver[ing] between educational program, an overwrought history lesson and a comedy of very dark humor”. Reed’s 1949 Film Noir, The Third Man, is a film which Gemünden describes the action as taking  place “not in a domestic city but the chaotic continental theatre of war, often viewed through Robert Krasker’s tilted lens, chiaroscuro effects[...]”. 

In using elements of expressionism the directors present a representative vision of the defeated Germany and Austria, rejecting both the direct assault of neorealism and the upbeat spectacle of Hollywood film making. The presentation will explore how each director has examined German guilt, physical and psychological destruction, retribution, denazification and management of a Germanic or Austrian post war dystopia.

Hollywood's Noir Detours: Unease In the Mental Megalopolis

by Graham Barnfield

Film Noir und OUT OF THE PAST

by Henry M. Taylor

"The Gritty City"; Batman's First Year in Gotham

by Will O'Mullane

Review of Jonathan Auerbach, Dark Borders: Film Noir and American Citizenship

by Matt Tierney

Published in Film Criticism 36:2 (2011).

Dekonstruksi Nilai-Nilai Keluarga dalam Film Noir

by Adrian Jonathan Pasaribu

A thesis for Universitas Gadjah Mada, in Indonesian.

Film noir merupakan anomali tersendiri dalam sejarah Hollywood. Dengan segala variasinya tentang misteri pembunuhan... more Film noir merupakan anomali tersendiri dalam sejarah Hollywood. Dengan segala variasinya tentang misteri pembunuhan dan perselingkuhan rumah tangga, film noir menjadi hiburan populer masyarakat Amerika dari tahun 1942 sampai 1958. Periode tersebut merupakan pertama kalinya dalam sinema Hollywood karakter perempuan digambarkan memiliki kebebasan atas tanggung jawab domestik. Dalam perspektif yang lebih makro, film noir tidak menjadikan rumah dan keluarga sebagai solusi konflik cerita, yang sebelumnya merupakan tradisi bercerita mayoritas film-film keluaran Hollywood.

Secara historis, kemunculan film noir terjadi bersamaan dengan perubahan lanskap sosial-politik Amerika Serikat pasca Perang Dunia II. Negara adidaya tersebut mengalami transformasi peran gender yang drastis, di mana laki-laki kembali ke lapangan kerja usai mengabdi untuk negara di medan perang, dan perempuan kembali ke kehidupan domestik setelah menikmati kebebasan merintis karier di luar rumah. Pada saat yang bersamaan, pemerintah mengkampanyekan pentingnya kehidupan komunal, dengan harapan keluarga dapat menjadi unit pemantap ideologi negara dalam level akar rumpun.

Ada kontras yang mencolok dalam pendirian terhadap keluarga dalam film noir dan lanskap-sosial politik yang melingkupinya. Kontras tersebut yang diharapkan dapat dijembatani melalui penelitian ini.

Book Review - Tech-Noir: The Fusion of Science-Fiction and Film Noir, by Paul Meehan

by Deborah Allison

Published in Screening the Past, issue 24 (2009)

Book Review - Dames in the Driver’s Seat: Rereading Film Noir, by Jans B. Wager

by Deborah Allison

Published in Film Criticism, vol. 30, no. 2, winter 2005-6, pp. 76-9.

Book Review - Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City, by Mark Bould

by Deborah Allison

Published in Film Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 2, winter 2006-7, pp. 80-1.

Orientalism and Film Noir

by Susana Loza

Wilder Als Scenarist In Hollywood: Double Indemnity

by Cattrysse Patrick

Los Angeles, una ciudad outsider y outtimer

by Juan Pablo Serra

Published in Elena Farini (dir.), TIME AND CITIES, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, 2011, 142-145 (spanish version) and 146-147 (english version) [contribution to collective book]

A brief reflection on the odd and formless character of Los Angeles, a city with no center, no concrete boundaries, no... more A brief reflection on the odd and formless character of Los Angeles, a city with no center, no concrete boundaries, no chance of a panoramic glance and no living starting point. According to Bernard Henry-Lévy, an "illegible" city like this is also "a city without history". In this short paper I offer a positive argument to defend Los Angeles' historicity, which can be found in fiction, because both literature and cinema have made a wonderful job keeping up the memory of this town.

Los Angeles, a city out of space and… out of time?

by Juan Pablo Serra

Published in Elena Farini (dir.), TIME AND CITIES, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Madrid, 2011, 142-145 (spanish version) and 146-147 (english version) [contribution to collective book]

A brief reflection on the odd and formless character of Los Angeles, a city with no center, no concrete boundaries, no... more A brief reflection on the odd and formless character of Los Angeles, a city with no center, no concrete boundaries, no chance of a panoramic glance and no living starting point. According to Bernard Henry-Lévy, an "illegible" city like this is also "a city without history". In this short paper I offer a positive argument to defend Los Angeles' historicity, which can be found in fiction, because both literature and cinema have made a wonderful job keeping up the memory of this town.

La ciudad como escenario del crimen

by Jorge Gorostiza

La ciudad es suya

by Jorge Gorostiza

Of Mestizos and Half-Breeds: Orson Welles' Touch of Evil

by William Nericcio

The 'director's cut' of this essay appears in Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America--it is larger, has better pictures, and all of the jokes that did not make the cut in the first published edition. Get it here: http://amzn.to/textmex

The Strange Pleasure of THE LEOPARD MAN: Gender, Genre and Authorship in a Val Lewton Thriller

by Scott Preston

published in Cineaction 71

Shadows and Doubts: Hitchcock, Genre and Villainy

by Rowland Hughes

Published in The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film, eds. Stacy Gillis and Phillippa Gates (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002), pp. 107-119.