A Companion to Film Noir - Hardcover

Spicer, Andre; Hanson, Helen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1444336274 ISBN 13: 9781444336276

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013

Synopsis

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

About this title

From the Back Cover

Ever since French commentators identified a new mode of American film-making as they watched Double Indemnity and Murder, My Sweet just after World War II ended, film noir has fascinated cineastes like no other genre. This authoritative companion features the work of a highly distinguished group of international scholars, adopting a thematic approach that examines key topics rather than focusing on individual titles or auteurs. It reflects the expanding purview of analysts by including novel subjects such as neo-noir, international noir movies from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australasia, and ‘noir’ as expressed in other forms such as comics, graphic novels, posters, radio and television.

As our understanding of the noir corpus expands to constitute a ‘noir mediascape’, this volume represents a compelling addition to the academic debate, interrogating film noir from a range of angles including its conceptualization; its hidden, hybrid and transmedia histories; its social, industrial and commercial contexts; its aesthetic fabric; its presentation of identity; and its proliferation in other media forms and geographical loci. The companion explores noir in relation to film history, questions of genre and categorization, issues of style and identity, and its particularized modes of production. Informed by cutting-edge scholarship, A Companion to Film Noir extends and deepens the developing understanding of this enduringly captivating mode of cultural expression.

About the Author

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1444336274
• ISBN 13: 9781444336276
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544