A Companion to Film Noir

An authoritative companion that offers a wide-ranging thematic
survey of this enduringly popular cultural form and includes
scholarship from both established and emerging scholars as well as
analysis of film noir's influence on other media including
television and graphic novels.

• Covers a wealth of new approaches to film noir and neo-noir
  that explore issues ranging from conceptualization to cross-media
  influences

• Features chapters exploring the wider 'noir
  mediascape' of television, graphic novels and radio

• Reflects the historical and geographical reach of film noir,
  from the 1920s to the present and in a variety of national
  cinemas

• Includes contributions from both established and emerging
  scholars

Auteur

Andrew Spicer is Reader in Cultural History at the
University of the West of England, UK. His principal research
interests lie in film and cultural history, including genre,
stardom and constructions of masculinity, British cinema, and the
role of producers and screenwriters in film-making. He has
published widely on all these topics, including Typical Men
(2003) and Sydney Box (2006), and three volumes on film
noir: Film Noir (2002), European Film Noir (2007),
and the Historical Dictionary of Film Noir (2010). He is
currently co-editing a volume about film producers, and writing a
study of Sean Connery.

Helen Hanson is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the
University of Exeter, UK. Her research interests cover adaptation,
gender and genre, film history, film style and technology, with a
particular focus on the history of Hollywood. She has written
articles and chapters on these topics, and has authored
Hollywood Heroines: Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film
(2007) and co-edited The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories,
Contexts (2010). She also has a forthcoming book on the
evolution of sound technology, sound craft and film style in
Hollywood cinema from 1931-1950.

Résumé
An authoritative companion that offers a wide-ranging thematic survey of this enduringly popular cultural form and includes scholarship from both established and emerging scholars as well as analysis of film noir's influence on other media including television and graphic novels.

• Covers a wealth of new approaches to film noir and neo-noir that explore issues ranging from conceptualization to cross-media influences
• Features chapters exploring the wider 'noir mediascape' of television, graphic novels and radio
• Reflects the historical and geographical reach of film noir, from the 1920s to the present and in a variety of national cinemas
• Includes contributions from both established and emerging scholars

Contenu

List of Illustrations viii

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgments xviii

Foreword xix

James Naremore

Introduction: The Problem of Film Noir 1

Andrew Spicer

Part I Conceptualizing Film Noir 15

1 The Strange Case of Film Noir 17

Robert Porfirio

2 Genre, Hybridity, Heterogeneity: or, the
Noir-SF-Vampire-Zombie-Splatter-Romance-Comedy-Action-Thriller
Problem 33

Mark Bould

3 A Wet Emptiness: The Phenomenology of Film Noir 50

Henrik Gustafsson

4 Cinephilia and Film Noir 67

Corey K. Creekmur

Part II Hidden, Hybrid, and Transmedia Histories and
Influences 77

5 Precursors to Film Noir 79

Wheeler Winston Dixon

6 Crisscrossed? Film Noir and the Politics of Mobility and
Exchange 94

Alastair Phillips

7 Film Noir and Horror 111

Peter Hutchings

8 Borderings: The Film Noir Semi-Documentary 125

R. Barton Palmer

9 Crime Fiction and Film Noir 142

William Marling

10 Film Noir, American Painting and Photography: Questions of
Influence 158

Tom Ryall

Part III Social, Industrial, and Commercial Contexts
175

11 The Politics of Film Noir 177

Brian Neve

12 The Black Typewriter: Who Wrote Film Noir? 193

David Wilt

13 Film Noir and Studio Production Practices 211

Geoff Mayer

14 Film Noir and Post-Studio Production Practices 229

John Berra

15 Selling Noir: Stars, Gender, and Genre in Film Noir Posters
and Publicity 245

Mary Beth Haralovich

Part IV The Fabric of Film Noir: Style and Performance
265

16 Out of the Shadows: Noir Lighting and Hollywood
Cinematography 267

Patrick Keating

17 The Ambience of Film Noir: Soundscapes, Design, and Mood
284

Helen Hanson

18 In a Lonely Tone: Music in Film Noir 302

David Butler

19 Acting and Performance in Film Noir 318

Donna Peberdy

Part V Identities and Film Noir 335

20 Film Noir and Subjectivity 337

Christophe Gelly

21 Women in Film Noir 353

Yvonne Tasker

22 "The Corpse on Reprieve": Film Noir's Cautionary Tales of
"Tough Guy" Masculinity 369

Gaylyn Studlar

23 Ethnicity and Race in American Film Noir 387

Dan Flory

24 The Climb and the Chase: Film Noir and the Urban Scene

• Representations of the City in Three Classic Noirs
  405

Murray Pomerance

Part VI Noir in Other Forms 421

25 Radio Noir in the USA 423

Jesse Schlotterbeck

26 Television Noir 440

Steven Sanders

27 "It Rhymes with Lust": The Twisted History of Noir Comics
458

James Lyons

Part VII New Geographies of Film Noir 477

28 Film Noir in Asia: Historicizing South Korean Crime Thrillers
479

Nikki J.Y. Lee and Julian Stringer

29 Bombay Noir 496

Lalitha Gopalan

Index 512