More Than Night

by Naremore, James

• ISBN13: 9780520254022
• ISBN10: 0520254023
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-14
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

"Film noir" evokes memories of stylish, cynical, black-and-white movies from the 1940s and '50s--melodramas about private eyes, femmes fatales, criminal gangs, and lovers on the run. James Naremore's prize-winning book discusses these pictures, but also shows that the central term is more complex and paradoxical than we realize. It treats noir as a term in criticism, as an expression of artistic modernism, as a symptom of Hollywood censorship and politics, as a market strategy, as an evolving style, and as an idea that circulates through all the media. This new and expanded edition ofMore Than Nightcontains an additional chapter on film noir in the twenty-first century.

Author Biography

Jmaes Naremore is Emeritus Chancellors' Professor of Communication and Culture, English, and Comparative Literature at Indiana University

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Preface to the 2008 Edition	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Introduction: This Is Where I Came In	p. 1
The History of an Idea	p. 9
Noir Is Born: Paris, 1946-1959	p. 11
Darkness Everywhere	p. 27
Modernism and Blood Melodrama: Three Case Studies	p. 40
Believing in Nothing	p. 48
Sympathy for the Devil	p. 63
The Death Chamber	p. 81
From Dark Films to Black Lists: Censorship and Politics	p. 96
Bourbon with a Bourbon Chaser	p. 107
The Snakes Are Loose	p. 114
After 1947	p. 123
Low Is High: Budgets and Critical Discrimination	p. 136
B Pictures versus Intermediates	p. 140
Post-B Pictures	p. 155
Old Is New: Styles of Noir	p. 167
Black and White and Red	p. 169
Parody, Pastiche, Fashion	p. 196
The Other Side of the Street	p. 220
Asia	p. 225
Latin America	p. 229
Africa	p. 233
The Noir Mediascape	p. 254
Noir in the Twenty-first Century	p. 278
Legends and Lists	p. 278
Further Research	p. 286
More Styles of Noir	p. 290
Noir Never Dies	p. 297
Notes	p. 311
Bibliography	p. 343
Index	p. 355
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