Collections of this type have a strong tendency to leapfrog over the differences in approach between eras of filmmaking as the analyses attempt to tie together cinematic processes that are claimed to have continuity and connection in deeper layers of analysis. These essays seem more middlebrow than other, more markedly theoretical approaches (though such material is often referenced in these essays).
The overall result continues to seem a bit too diffuse to be of much use to the layman. Based on that, I'm still on the fence WRT to acquiring the book...
Hold on to your fedoras--another look at "urban noir"...
Posted by Don Malcolm on 5/29/2017, 8:58 pm
It's coming in the fall, with the title URBAN NOIR: New York and Los Angeles in Shadow and Light.
From the Amazon blurb:
"Film noir has always been associated with urban landscapes, and no two cities have been represented more prominently in these films than New York and Los Angeles. In noir and neo-noir films since the 1940s, both cities are ominous locales where ruthless ambition, destructive impulses, and dashed hopes are played out against backdrops indifferent to human dramas.
In Urban Noir: New York and Los Angeles in Shadow and Light, James J. Ward and Cynthia J. Miller have brought together essays by an international group of scholars that examine the dark appeal of these two cities. The essays in this volume explore aspects of the noir and neo-noir cityscape that have been relatively unexamined, including the role of sound and movement through space, the distinctive character of certain neighborhoods and locales, and the importance of individual moments in time. Among the films discussed in this book are classic noirs Double Indemnity (1944), He Walked by Night (1948), and Criss Cross (1949), as well as neo-noirs such as Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Klute (1971), Taxi Driver (1976), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Cruising (1980), Alphabet City (1984), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Drive (2011), Rampart (2011), and Nightcrawler (2014)."
Hard to imagine what kind of new ground can be broken here, though the neo-noir discussion could be an interesting addendum, particularly given how the two cities have changed over the course of seventy years.
Sorry to say that I'm not holding my breath for this one...
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