French and American Noir: Dark Crossings PDF
Preview French and American Noir: Dark Crossings
CrimeFilesSeries GeneralEditor:CliveBloom Since its invention in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has never been morepopular.Innovels,shortstories,films,radio,televisionandnowincom- putergames,privatedetectivesandpsychopaths,primpoisonersandoverworked cops, tommy-gun gangsters and cocaine criminals are the very stuff of mod- ern imagination, and their creators one mainstay of popular consciousness. CrimeFilesisaground-breakingseriesofferingscholars,studentsanddiscerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fic- tion.Everyaspectofcrimewriting,detectivefiction,gangstermovie,true-crime exposé, police procedural and post-colonial investigation is explored through clear and informative texts offering comprehensive coverage and theoretical sophistication. Publishedtitlesinclude: MaurizioAscari ACOUNTER-HISTORYOFCRIMEFICTION Supernatural,Gothic,Sensational HansBertensandTheoD’haen CONTEMPORARYAMERICANCRIMEFICTION AnitaBiressi CRIME,FEARANDTHELAWINTRUECRIMESTORIES EdChristian(editor) THEPOST-COLONIALDETECTIVE PaulCobley THEAMERICANTHRILLER GenericInnovationandSocialChangeinthe1970s ChristianaGregoriou DEVIANCEINCONTEMPORARYCRIMEFICTION LeeHorsley THENOIRTHRILLER MerjaMakinen AGATHACHRISTIE InvestigatingFemininity FranMason AMERICANGANGSTERCINEMA FromLittleCaesartoPulpFiction LindenPeach MASQUERADE,CRIMEANDFICTION CriminalDeceptions AlistairRollsandDeborahWalker FRENCHANDAMERICANNOIR DarkCrossings SusanRowland CRIMINALDECEPTIONS AdrianSchober POSSESSEDCHILDNARRATIVESINLITERATUREANDFILM ContraryStates HeatherWorthington THERISEOFTHEDETECTIVEINEARLYNINETEENTH-CENTURY POPULARFICTION R.A.York AGATHACHRISTIE PowerandIllusion CrimeFiles SeriesStandingOrderISBN978–0–333–71471–3(hardback) 978–0–333–93064–9(paperback) (outsideNorthAmericaonly) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to usattheaddressbelowwithyournameandaddress,thetitleoftheseriesand theISBNquotedabove. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS,England French and American Noir Dark Crossings Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker ©AlistairRollsandDeborahWalker2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009978-0-230-53690-6 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noportionofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, SaffronHouse,6-10KirbyStreet,LondonEC1N8TS. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorizedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorshaveassertedtheirrightstobeidentified astheauthorsofthisworkinaccordancewiththeCopyright, DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2009by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN PalgraveMacmillanintheUKisanimprintofMacmillanPublishersLimited, registeredinEngland,companynumber785998,ofHoundmills,Basingstoke, HampshireRG216XS. PalgraveMacmillanintheUSisadivisionofStMartin’sPressLLC, 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,NY10010. PalgraveMacmillanistheglobalacademicimprintoftheabovecompanies andhascompaniesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld. Palgrave®andMacmillan®areregisteredtrademarksintheUnitedStates, theUnitedKingdom,Europeandothercountries. ISBN 978-1-349-35865-6 ISBN 978-0-230-24482-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230244825 Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources.Logging,pulpingandmanufacturing processesareexpectedtoconformtotheenvironmentalregulationsofthe countryoforigin. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 To Our Parents This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 FetishisticNoir:CharlesBaudelaireandLéoMalet 6 2 LiberationNoir:BorisVianandtheSérieNoire(1) 30 3 AllegoricalNoir:BorisVianandtheSérieNoire(2) 50 4 NoirStrangulation(1):TerryStewartandVernonSullivan 72 5 NoirStrangulation(2):AmélieNothomband Intertextuality 94 6 Jazz:ClassicFrenchFilmNoirasTransatlanticExchange 115 7 Fatal(e)Crossings:FiguresoftheFeminineinFrenchand AmericanFilmNoir 132 8 AmericansinParis 149 9 FromHonestThieftoMediaSociopath 168 10 Double-Crossings:ReversingtheRemake 184 Notes 200 Bibliography 215 Index 222 vii Acknowledgements We would like to thank the many individual people and institutions thathelpedtomakethisbookpossible.Ourrespectiveinstitutions,the UniversityofNewcastle(NSW,Australia)andtheUniversityofAuckland (Auckland,Aotearoa,NewZealand),supportedtheprojectinanumber ofways,throughresearchgrantsandsabbaticalleavesthatenabledusto worktogether,orcollaborativelyatadistance,andatothertimesindi- vidually,onourrespectivesectionsofthebook.Theinitialideabehind the project came when we met in Sydney, in 2002, at a bi-annual con- ferenceoftheSydneySocietyofLiteratureandAesthetics.Wethankthe societyforbringingustogetherandprovidingaplatformforresearchers like us, working out of quite different theoretical frameworks, and for encouragingthekindofopendialoguethatfostersthedevelopmentof newknowledge. Early, abridged versions of several chapters in the book were first published in academic journals, and we should like to thank the fol- lowing editors for kindly granting us their permission to reproduce in thisbookideaspreviouslypublishedinthefollowingarticles:Professor PeterGoodall(Rolls,A.“SilkorNylon:BorisVian,LegFetishismandthe AmericanWay”,AUMLAJournaloftheAustralasianUniversitiesLanguage and Literature Association, 103, 2005, 93–108); Professor Brian Nelson (Rolls, A. “Throwing Caution to the French Wind: Peter Cheyney’s SuccessOverseasin1945”,AustralianJournalofFrenchStudies,43.1,2006, 35–47); Associate Professor Hélène Jaccomard (Rolls, A. and Vuaille- Barcan,M.-L.“‘Merdeàlafin!L’écrivain,c’estvousouc’estmoi?’:Jeux derolesdansHygiènedel’assassind’AmélieNothomb”,EssaysinFrench Literature,43,2006,255–273);AlexandreTrudel(Walker,D.“FromHon- estThieftoMediaPsychopath:AmericanCulturethroughFrenchFilm Noir”, Post-Scriptum 4, 2004, http://www.post-scriptum.org/sin.pag.); Professor Peter Goodall (Walker, D. “Reversing the Remake: Jacques Audiard’s De battre mon cœur s’est arrêté”, AUMLA-Journal of The AustralasianUniversitiesLanguageandLiteratureAssociation,SpecialIssue, 2007,301–310);HannahBrodsky(Walker,D.“EuropeanDialogueswith Hollywood:ClassicFrenchFilmNoir”,NewZealandandtheEU:Perspec- tives on European Cinema, New Zealand Europe Institute Research Series, SpecialIssue,September2008,1–16). viii Acknowledgements ix Staffatanumberofresearchlibrariesassistedusinaccessingarchival material.DeborahWalkerwishestothankinparticular,theteamatthe ArchivesoftheBibliothèqueduFilm(BIFI)inParisfortheirgenerousand professionalsupport. Special thanks to film maker Bob Swaim, who took time off a busy writing schedule to grant two extensive interviews to Deborah Walker and who generously provided the cover image of the book. Thanks to Tim Page of the Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, for technical adviceonformattingthisimage. Alistair Rolls would like to add the following people: Associate Professors John West-Sooby and Jean Fornasiero of the University of Adelaide with their ongoing encouragement of my work on French noirfiction;ProfessorsMurrayPratt(NottinghamTrentUniversity)and Larry Schehr (University of Illinois) and Dr Marie-Laure Vuaille-Barcan (University of Newcastle), for their unfailing support throughout the writing of this book; Ross Chambers, Professor Emeritus of French andComparativeLiteratureattheUniversityofMichigan,whosework has been a great inspiration to my own over the last few years; and finally,AssociateProfessorChrisDixon(nowUniversityofQueensland), with whom I have shared more lunches at the University of Newcastle canteen than I care to remember and many evenings at 93 Bull Street thatIwishIcould... A number of colleagues, friends and family read and commented on early drafts and provided much needed encouragement and inspira- tion.DeborahWalkerextendswarmthankstoProfessorRayleneRamsay (UniversityofAuckland),SylvieSolier,NeilMorrisonandPascalSadoun inthisrespect. Finally,manythankstoCliveBloomandrestoftheeditorialteamat Palgrave,whoprovidedsupport,encouragement,constructivecriticism andprofessionaladvice.
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