Despite a glut of black and white filters the digital revolution in videography has all but abandoned the art science beauty and power of cinematic lighting that literally illuminated the Golden Age of motion pictures. ŹFilm Noir Light and ShadowŹ explores an era before CGI ä a time when every photon mattered and the lighting of a set served a grander purpose than simply rendering its subjects visible. Edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini the duo behind numerous critically acclaimed studies of other aspects of noir this anthology presents a series of essays that examine the visual style of the filmmakers of cinema's classic period. Some focus on individual pictures or directors; others discuss elements of style or sub-groups of movies within the movement. All are sharply focused on what makes the noir phenomenon unique in American ä and global ä cinematic history. Aside from highlighting the innovative work of its editors and their late colleague Robert Porfirio ŹFilm Noir Light and ShadowŹ also shares its light with a bevy of contributors who have written and edited their own books on the subject ä a list of luminaries that includes Sheri Chinen Biesen Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards Julie Grossman Delphine Letort Robert Miklitsch R. Barton Palmer Homer Pettey Marlisa Santos Imogen Sara Smith and Tony Williams. As befits the topic this volume is lavishly illustrated with 500 images that capture the richness and breadth of the classic period's imagery making it an ideal companion for students of the genre film historians sprocket fiends and the retrospectively inclined.
| Acknowledgments |
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7 | (1) |
| Introduction |
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8 | (4) |
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Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir |
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12 | (14) |
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The Gangster and Film Noir |
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26 | (38) |
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The Noir Title Sequence: Evolution of Style |
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64 | (12) |
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Rooms like Reveries: Interiors and Interiority in Film Noir |
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76 | (12) |
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Women's Song and Dance Performances in Film Noir |
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88 | (14) |
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The Long Take and the Sequence Shot in Film Noir |
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102 | (28) |
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The Sequence Shot: Spatial and Temporal Articulations in The Killers |
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130 | (2) |
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"A gray web woven by a thousand spiders": Dream Sequence Construction in Film Noir |
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132 | (20) |
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Hollywood Noir: Scripting the Death of Romance in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and In a Lonely Place (1950) |
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152 | (20) |
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Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) |
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172 | (10) |
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Welles, Toland, Aldrich, and Baroque Noir Expressionism |
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182 | (28) |
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Double Indemnity: A Shadowy Exemplar of Film Noir Visual Style |
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210 | (8) |
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Fragments of the Mirror: Hitchcock's Noir Landscape |
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218 | (26) |
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Realism, Expressionism, Style: The Unsuspected (1947) and The Big Clock (1948) |
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244 | (12) |
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Crossfire and Homeland Insecurity |
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256 | (16) |
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Ida Lupino's Television Noir |
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272 | (10) |
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In the Dark: The Noir Visual Style of Russell Metty |
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282 | (12) |
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Nothingness and Purpose: Light and Shadow in It's a Wonderful Life |
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294 | (14) |
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"The Dynamism of Violent Death": Lighting, Censorship, and Violence in Film Noir |
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308 | (8) |
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Nine Elements of Style in Kiss Me Deadly |
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316 | (12) |
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"We Couldn't Always Stay in the Dark": Stylistic Innovation in Richard Fleischer's Violent Saturday |
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328 | (10) |
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Inscribing Film Noir's Epitaph: Self-Consciousness and Visual Punning in Orson Welles's Touch of Evil |
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338 | (10) |
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| Notes on Contributors |
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348 | |
ALAIN SILVER (Los Angeles, CA) has written or edited almost 30 books, many of which focus on the noir movement, such as The Noir Style and The Film Noir Jigsaw. His articles have appeared in Film Comment, Movie (UK), Wide Angle, Literature/Film Quarterly, and Photon. His filmed screenplays include White Nights (from Dostoyevsky), the Showtime feature Time at the Top, Nightcomer (which he also directed), and Sacred Blood. He has also produced more than two dozen independent features, ranging from Cyborg 2 to the recent Torch. He has commented about noir in numerous interviews and on classic period titles released on DVD.JAMES URSINI (Los Angeles, CA) co-wrote and co-edited Film Noir the Encyclopaedia, the Film Noir Reader series and many other books and anthologies. His film noir DVD commentaries (most often with Alain Silver) range from Out of the Past and The Dark Corner to the more recent Criterion releases of Kiss Me Deadly and Ride the Pink Horse. He has been a producer on features and documentaries, wrote and co-directed the independent neo-noir Nasty Piece of Work, and has lectured on filmmaking at UCLA and other colleges in the Los Angeles area.
