I hope Cap'n Bill & others annoyed by the recent Film
Noir: Content vs Style debate will not be overly upset by my
(I promise, really!) last word on the topic. I really don't
believe the discussion was off-topic as in the good captain's
own words, discussion of film noir is acceptable if it can be
tied in to writing. As the argument basically raged around
the question of whether film noir is a style defined
completely (or nearly so) by visual criteria or whether it is
defined by narrative concerns (i.e. writing) it would appear
to me to be relevant.Somebody on this list (I don't recall if
it was off-list or on-list, I thought it might be Al) asked
me where they could find Nino Frank's article from 1946. The
article, "A New Kind of Police Drama: The Criminal
Adventure", along with "Crime Certainly Pays on the
Screen"
(1945) by Lloyd Shearer and "Americans Also Make Noir Films"
(1946) by
(somebody) Chartier are reprinted in Film Noir Reader II ed
Silver & Ursini (Limelight Editions). The article by
Shearer is the first one to deal with films noirs although it
doesn't use the term. The two French pieces are the first to
use the expression. All three articles talk about the films
in question purely in terms of narrative. In fact, visual
techniques barely get mentioned and, from memory, are not
discussed in reference to any of the movies discussed. As Jim
noted, I had indeed only listed five movies and not six in an
earlier posting. Being a highly fallible being, I miscounted.
It also turned out my info was slightly inaccurate - having
read the article in question it turns out that Frank had only
discussed four movies: The Maltese Falcon; Murder, My Sweet;
Laura & Double Indemnity. But, don't take my word for it
- if you're interested enough track down Film Noir Reader II,
it's still in print, and see if anybody in these very early
articles discusses these films in terms of visual
stylistics.
Rene
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