Film noir : hard-boiled modernity and the cultures of globalization

303 Pages·2010·2.168 MB·English

by  Nieland, Justus, Fay, Jennifer

FILM NOIR
The term “film noir” still conjures up images of a uniquely American malaise:
hard-boiled detectives, fatal women, and the shadowy hells of urban life. But,
from its beginnings, film noir has been an international phenomenon, and its
stylistic icons have migrated across the complex geo-political terrain of world
cinema. This book traces film noir’s emergent connection to European cinema, its
movement within a cosmopolitan culture of literary and cinematic translation,
and its postwar consolidation in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin
America.
The authors examine how film noir crosses national boundaries, speaks to
diverse international audiences, and dramatizes local crimes and the crises of local
spaces in the face of global phenomena like world-wide depression, war, politi-
cal occupation, economic and cultural modernization, decolonization, and
migration. This fresh study of film noir and global culture also discusses film
noir’s heterogeneous style and revises important scholarly debates about this per-
petually alluring genre.
Key films discussed include:
The Maltese Falcon(Huston, 1941)
Stray Dog(Kurosawa, 1949)
Aventurera(Gout, 1950)
Out of the Past(Tourneur, 1947)
Ossessione(Visconti, 1943)
La Bête humaine(Renoir, 1938)
C.I.D.(Khosla, 1956)
The Lady from Shanghai(Welles, 1947)
The American Friend(Wenders, 1977)
Chungking Express(Wong, 1994)
Jennifer Fay is Associate Professor of English and Director of Film Studies at
Michigan State University and is the author of Theaters of Occupation: Hollywood and the
Re-education of Postwar Germany(2008).
Justus Nielandis Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University and
the author of Feeling Modern: The Eccentriticies of Public Life(2008).
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ing characteristics and major films; a chronology; key debates sur-
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focusing on narrative structure,camera work and production quality.
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Horror
Brigid Cherry
Film Noir:Hard-Boiled Modernity and the Cultures of Globalization
Jennifer Fay and Justus Nieland
Film Noir
Hard-Boiled Modernity and
the Cultures of Globalization
JENNIFER FAY AND JUSTUS NIELAND
First published 2010
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2010 Jennifer Fay and Justus Nieland
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Fay, Jennifer.
Film noir : hard-boiled modernity and the cultures of globalization / Jennifer Fay
and Justus Nieland.
p. cm.—(Routledge film guidebooks)
1. Film noir—History and criticism. I. Nieland, Justus. II. Title.
PN1995.9.F54F39 2009
791.43'655—dc22
2009022509
ISBN 0-203-86968-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–45812–9 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–45813–7 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–86968–0 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–45812–2 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–45813–9 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–86968–0 (ebk)
CONTENTS
List of figures vii
Preface: Down these mean streets, again . . . ix
Acknowledgments xv
Chapter 1 Film noir and the culture of internationalism 1
Chapter 2 Critical debates: Genre, gender, race 124
Chapter 3 Film noir style and the arts of dying 183
Chapter 4 Fragments of one international noir history 236
Appendix: Suggestions for further reading, watching, discussing 263
Index 276
CONTENTS v

LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 Passion in a trainyard (La Bête humaine, 1938) 13
1.2 Time’s up for Séverine (La Bête humaine, 1938) 15
1.3 A rare close-up in Ossessione(1943) 25
1.4 Reading faces (The Maltese Falcon, 1941) 35
1.5 Rubble noir (The Murderers Are among Us, 1946) 46
1.6 “The Jungle Boogie” (Drunken Angel, 1948) 55
1.7 Kurosawa’s room of mirrors (Drunken Angel, 1948) 56
1.8 Welles’s hall of mirrors (TheLady from Shanghai, 1948) 57
1.9 Hurami’s incriminating dress (Stray Dog, 1949) 59
1.10 Local color and ugly American (House of Bamboo, 1955) 61
1.11 Global showdown (House of Bamboo, 1955) 62
1.12 Fascist amusements in The Third Man(1949) 63
1.13 “Cine Pico” (Out of the Past, 1947) 66
1.14 Henchman ex machina(Aventurera, 1950) 74
1.15 Sevilla’s cosmopolitan style (Aventurera, 1950) 78
1.16 Arrested development (Los Olvidados, 1950) 85
1.17 Plotting accidental murder (Story of a Love Affair, 1950) 91
1.18 Juan’s professorial guilt (Death of a Cyclist, 1955) 94
1.19 Ethnic drag for American investors (Death of a Cyclist, 1955) 96
1.20 Phoning in the hit (C.I.D., 1956) 101
1.21 Nargess (1991) 106
1.22 Out of the Past(1947) 107
1.23 The romance of displacement (Chungking Express, 1994) 114
2.1 Ripley plays himself (The American Friend, 1977) 144
LIST OF FIGURES vii
viii LIST OF FIGURES
2.2 Gutman pets his “gunsel” (The Maltese Falcon, 1941) 155
2.3 Harlem: gateway to Mexico (Out of the Past, 1947) 163
2.4 Longing for Paris in the Casbah (Pépé le Moko, 1937) 168
3.1 “Girl Hunt” (The Band Wagon, 1953) 187
3.2 Back at the pool again (Sunset Boulevard, 1950) 195
3.3 Spectatorship as fetishism (The Shanghai Gesture, 1941) 197
3.4 Michel does Bogey’s gesture (Breathless, 1960) 202
3.5 Patricia does Michel’s gesture (Breathless, 1960) 203
3.6 Melville’s line-up (Le Samouraï, 1967) 207
3.7 Huston’s line-up (The Asphalt Jungle, 1950) 208
3.8 The nature of violence (Branded to Kill, 1967) 222
3.9 The nature of violence (Ghost Dog, 1999) 222
3.10 A wounded Belmondo (Breathless, 1960) 228
3.11 A wounded Louie (Ghost Dog, 1999) 229
3.12 The Rashomon effect (Ghost Dog, 1999) 230
Halloween, noir style 286
PREFACE
Down these mean streets, again . . .
When we think of film noir,we tend to picture the uniquely American
features of this perpetually alluring genre:the hard-boiled detective
conversant in local customs,the sultry femme fatale,and a disintegrat-
ing American city filled with violent crime,seedy nightclubs,and psy-
chological distress. But, from its beginning, noir has been an
international phenomenon.This book traces noir’s emergent connec-
tion to European cinema,its international culture of literary and cine-
matic translation, and its postwar consolidation in the US, Europe,
Asia,and Latin America.Because we are interested in the way that cin-
ema circulates as a global commodity,especially after World War II,we
will examine how noir is capable of crossing national boundaries,
speaking to diverse international audiences, and dramatizing the
crises of local spaces.These local “crimes” are bred by global phe-
nomena like world-wide depression,war,political occupation,eco-
nomic and cultural modernization,and migration.This book argues
that film noir is best appreciated as an always international phenome-
non concerned with the local effects of globalization and the threats to
national urban culture it seems to herald.
For a good example of noir’s internationalism,consider the many
adaptations of James M.Cain’s hard-boiled American novel The Postman
Always Rings Twice (1934),a slim and lurid thriller written during the
throes of the Depression, and long considered a signature of the
PREFACE ix