“This is recommended for film studies and for humanities collections.” (Reference Reviews, 1 September 2015)
“The twenty-eight essays in this collection represent a landmark in noir criticism. Written by some of the most accomplished veterans in the field, as well as many new and promising voices, these essays are both deeply engaged with previously contested critical territory and agressively turned toward undiscovered and untilled terrain … This is a collection that will be studied, cited, and, as with all of the most influential film noir criticism, contested for many years to come.” (Wide Angle, 1 March 2014)
“A rich volume exploring the depth, breadth and scope of scholarship on film noir from a diverse array of perspectives. A valuable contribution to the evolving landscape of noir criticism.”
Sheri Chinen Biesen, Rowan University
“Wide-ranging yet historically specific, global in scope but sensitive to local contexts of production, reception, and style, Spicer and Hanson’s collection is a superb guide to an elusive category—the film noir—that continues to fascinate students, scholars, and cinephiles alike.”
Justus Nieland, Michigan State University
From the Inside Flap
Ever since French commentators identified a new mode of American film-making as they watched Double Indemnity and Murder, My Sweet just after World War II ended, film noir has fascinated cineastes like no other genre. This authoritative companion features the work of a highly distinguished group of international scholars, adopting a thematic approach that examines key topics rather than focusing on individual titles or auteurs. It reflects the expanding purview of analysts by including novel subjects such as neo-noir, international noir movies from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australasia, and ‘noir’ as expressed in other forms such as comics, graphic novels, posters, radio and television.
As our understanding of the noir corpus expands to constitute a ‘noir mediascape’, this volume represents a compelling addition to the academic debate, interrogating film noir from a range of angles including its conceptualization; its hidden, hybrid and transmedia histories; its social, industrial and commercial contexts; its aesthetic fabric; its presentation of identity; and its proliferation in other media forms and geographical loci. The companion explores noir in relation to film history, questions of genre and categorization, issues of style and identity, and its particularized modes of production. Informed by cutting-edge scholarship, A Companion to Film Noir extends and deepens the developing understanding of this enduringly captivating mode of cultural expression.
From the Back Cover
Ever since French commentators identified a new mode of American film-making as they watched Double Indemnity and Murder, My Sweet just after World War II ended, film noir has fascinated cineastes like no other genre. This authoritative companion features the work of a highly distinguished group of international scholars, adopting a thematic approach that examines key topics rather than focusing on individual titles or auteurs. It reflects the expanding purview of analysts by including novel subjects such as neo-noir, international noir movies from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australasia, and ‘noir’ as expressed in other forms such as comics, graphic novels, posters, radio and television.
As our understanding of the noir corpus expands to constitute a ‘noir mediascape’, this volume represents a compelling addition to the academic debate, interrogating film noir from a range of angles including its conceptualization; its hidden, hybrid and transmedia histories; its social, industrial and commercial contexts; its aesthetic fabric; its presentation of identity; and its proliferation in other media forms and geographical loci. The companion explores noir in relation to film history, questions of genre and categorization, issues of style and identity, and its particularized modes of production. Informed by cutting-edge scholarship, A Companion to Film Noir extends and deepens the developing understanding of this enduringly captivating mode of cultural expression.
About the Author
Andrew Spicer is Reader in Cultural History at the University of the West of England, UK. His principal research interests lie in film and cultural history, including genre, stardom and constructions of masculinity, British cinema, and the role of producers and screenwriters in film-making. He has published widely on all these topics, including Typical Men (2003) and Sydney Box (2006), and three volumes on film noir: Film Noir (2002), European Film Noir (2007), and the Historical Dictionary of Film Noir (2010). He is currently co-editing a volume about film producers, and writing a study of Sean Connery.
Helen Hanson is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research interests cover adaptation, gender and genre, film history, film style and technology, with a particular focus on the history of Hollywood. She has written articles and chapters on these topics, and has authored Hollywood Heroines: Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film (2007) and co-edited The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts (2010). She also has a forthcoming book on the evolution of sound technology, sound craft and film style in Hollywood cinema from 1931–1950.
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