Through a Noir Lens

Shadows. Smoke. Dark alleys. Rain-slicked city streets. These are iconic elements of film noir visual style. Long after its 1940s heyday, noir hallmarks continue to appear in a variety of new media forms and styles. What has made the noir aesthetic at once enduring and adaptable?Sheri Chinen Biesen explores how the dark cinematic noir style has evolved across eras, from classic Hollywood to present-day streaming services. Examining both aesthetics and material production conditions, she demonstrates how technological and industrial changes have influenced the imagery of film noir. When it emerged in the early 1940s, the visual style's distinctive shadowy look was in part a product of wartime cinema conditions and technologies, such as blackouts and nitrate film stock. Since the 1950s, technical developments from acetate film stock and new cameras and lenses to lighting, color, and digitization have shaped the changing nature of noir style. Biesen considers the persistence of the noir legacy, discussing how neo-noirs reimagine iconic imagery and why noir style has become a touchstone in the streaming era. Drawing on a wealth of archival research, she provides insightful analyses of a wide range of works, from masterpieces directed by Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock to New Hollywood neo-noirs, the Coen brothers' revisionist films, and recent HBO and Netflix series.A groundbreaking technological and industrial history of an essential yet slippery visual style, Through a Noir Lens shines a light into the shadows of film noir.

Auteur
Sheri Chinen Biesen is a Professor of Film History at Rowan University. She is the author of Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films (2014) and Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir (2005).

Texte du rabat

Sheri Chinen Biesen explores how the dark cinematic noir style has evolved across eras, from classic Hollywood to present-day streaming services.

Contenu
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Film Noir Visual Style from Wartime to the Postwar 1940s Nitrate Era
2. Fade to Gray and Color Noir
3. Neo-Noir: The Legacy of Noir Visual Style
4. From Noir to Netflix: Streaming Darkness in the Digital Era
   Epilogue. The Persistence of Noir in the COVID-19 Era: 2020 and Beyond
   Notes
   Index