Film Noir

by Alain Silver, James Ursini

General overview of film noir and covering its most important themes chapter by chapter. This illustrated book provides instant and in-depth access to the film noir genre.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Media Tie In, History, Pop Culture

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 25, 2004

About the author

Alain Silver has co-written and co-edited a score of books including The Samurai Film, The Noir Style, The Vampire Film, Raymond Chandlers Los Angeles, director studies of David Lean and Robert Aldrich, and four Film Noir Readers. His articles have appeared in numerous film journals, newspapers, and online magazines. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and is a member of the Writers Guild of America west and the Directors Guild of America.

Reviews

[Suvi · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first film noir ever was The Blue Dahlia (1946). I remember liking it, but didn't think it as anything special. Around three years ago, when my film craziness really started to take off, I stumbled upon Kiss Me Deadly (1955). My mouth was basically gaping the whole time, it was in a lot of ways modern and ahead of its time. Film noirs play with lights and shadows, making the atmosphere dark and without any dash of hope. This book works as a great introduction to the genre and its main features (or, as Silver says, a style as much as a genre), and even if you know everything there is to know about the topic, I'd imagine the pictures are still worth it. The font of the pages is white on black background, and so it fits perfectly with the overall look.

[Philip Athans · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully presented and well organized and researched overview of one of my favorite periods in American cinema.

[Ian B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very good overview of film noir with evocatively named chapters (‘The Fatalistic Nightmare,’ ‘The Burden of the Past,’ ‘The Darkness and Corruption’) on key themes, and masses of absolutely beautiful photographs. The authors are right to say that the movement is as much about style as it is content, which is why I have absolutely zero interest in modern attempts at ‘neo-noir.’ Unless it was produced between 1940 and 1958, shot in black and white (OK, I’ll make an exception for Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven), features chiaroscuro lighting and expressionist camera angles, partakes heavily of post-war malaise and a sense of impending personal doom, and the people in it look like Lizabeth Scott, Cornel Wilde, Joan Bennett, Gloria Grahame, Humphrey Bogart, Dana Andrews, Barbara Stanwyck, and the Roberts Ryan and Mitchum, to name a few, I don't want to know. Anything much after that era is failed pastiche to my eyes. I liked the - admittedly brief - discussion of the work undertaken by feminist writers to reclaim the figure of the femme fatale, and could have done with more of it:

In the femme fatale’s case, the object of her derision, rather than an absurd universe, may be male patriarchy. Post-feminist critics have analysed characters like Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, Vera in Detour and Anna in Criss Cross and found strong women trapped in a male-dominated universe, who were willing to use any weapon, including their own sexuality, to level the playing field.

In the chapter on ‘The Private Eye,’ the screenwriter of Kiss Me Deadly, a striking but distinctly repugnant late noir, A.I. Bezzerides, is lauded for his skill in transforming the original novel by Mickey Spillane. He is quoted as saying, ‘This is lousy. Let me see what I can do. I was having fun with it. I want to make every scene, every character interesting. A girl comes up to Ralph Meeker, so I make her a nympho’ [my italics]. That his idea of an interesting female character is a nymphomaniac (an antiquated term, and a semi-mythical creature in any case, surely?) speaks volumes for the disadvantages faced by women at the hands of male creatives, even in a genre where they dominated the screen.

A couple of minor caveats: an index would have been useful, and the Filmography which gives further details on only ten films, all of which are discussed at length in individual chapters, is pretty redundant. But overall, the book gave me lots of ideas for obscure noirs to hunt down, as well as the name of a noir author I hadn’t previously heard of, David Goodis.

[Luiz Santiago · Rating 2 out of 5]

Crítica | Film Noir, de Alain Silver e James Ursini: https://www.planocritico.com/critica-...

[Dat-Dangk Vemucci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great photos, excellent reference source for artists.
The text is sadly just synopses of the different movies without much analysis

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd give it five stars, but for the variance in author treatment of each director. It's a beautiful, comprehensive volume; a different scholar treats each director's entry. Certainly an excellent reference to have on hand. I think I'd actually prefer Silver and Ursini writing most entries themselves, but they've already produced a copious amount on the genre.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lot of good pictures from different films (30s to 50s), not much text, but basically informative. And: not expensive!

[Jose Moa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classified selection of the best movies