More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts

Rating:
Summary: black-and-white photography and melodramatic danger
Review: As James Naremore notes in the introductory chapters to this book, the term "noir" has become, for film crticism and academia in general, as amorphic, uncertain and dangerous a term as the films themselves; like Jane Greer in "Out of the Past," moving in and out of the shadows as she strolls into that Mexican barroom, noir seems to occupy several levels of meaning at once (as stylistic movement, historical marker, theoretical battleground and space of nostalgic recuperation), and every new piece of data and analysis added to the voluminous corpus of work that exists seems to simultaneously cast light and shadow onto its form. How wonderful, then, that we have a critic as graceful, piercing, and generous as James Naremore writing on the genre. One of the best American writers on film-- and certainly one of the best academics writing on any subject-- Naremore brings to noir the qualities anyone familiar with such previous works as The Films of Vincente Minnelli or The Magic World of Orson Welles will recognize-- intelligence, accessibility, thoroughness and an abiding love of the subject matter. He does a good job of sharing with the reader the insights and breakthroughs of psychoanalytic and feminist readings of the films, while offering his own (often different) readings and new historical connections (quick quiz to anyone who thinks they know everything about noir-- who is Boris Vian? And why does Naremore think he's the key figure in noir's history?), as well as updating and expanding the boundaries of the form to include such works as L.A. Confidential and John Woo's The Killer. And as always, he writes in a voice that wraps around the reader like a cloud of cigarette smoke, as stylish, rich and alluring as the films under discussion.

Rating:
Summary: black-and-white photography and melodramatic danger
Review: As James Naremore notes in the introductory chapters to this book, the term "noir" has become, for film crticism and academia in general, as amorphic, uncertain and dangerous a term as the films themselves; like Jane Greer in "Out of the Past," moving in and out of the shadows as she strolls into that Mexican barroom, noir seems to occupy several levels of meaning at once (as stylistic movement, historical marker, theoretical battleground and space of nostalgic recuperation), and every new piece of data and analysis added to the voluminous corpus of work that exists seems to simultaneously cast light and shadow onto its form. How wonderful, then, that we have a critic as graceful, piercing, and generous as James Naremore writing on the genre. One of the best American writers on film-- and certainly one of the best academics writing on any subject-- Naremore brings to noir the qualities anyone familiar with such previous works as The Films of Vincente Minnelli or The Magic World of Orson Welles will recognize-- intelligence, accessibility, thoroughness and an abiding love of the subject matter. He does a good job of sharing with the reader the insights and breakthroughs of psychoanalytic and feminist readings of the films, while offering his own (often different) readings and new historical connections (quick quiz to anyone who thinks they know everything about noir-- who is Boris Vian? And why does Naremore think he's the key figure in noir's history?), as well as updating and expanding the boundaries of the form to include such works as L.A. Confidential and John Woo's The Killer. And as always, he writes in a voice that wraps around the reader like a cloud of cigarette smoke, as stylish, rich and alluring as the films under discussion.