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The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism
Author(s): Richard L. Edwards (Author), Shannon Scott Clute (Author)
- Publisher: Dartmouth College Press
- Publication Date: 12 Jan. 2012
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 336 pages
- ISBN-10: 1611680476
- ISBN-13: 9781611680478
Book Description
Noir is among the most popular, acclaimed, and critically assessed film styles of all time. The unfortunate consequence is an ever-growing divergence between fans and scholars with regard to goals and methods for appreciating and studying noir. The Maltese Touch of Evil aims to bridge that gap. Based on a series of popular podcasts, this unique and inspired investigation of film noir sets out to examine the case of noir more closely, and in the process reconfigures the critical evidence on noir that has been presented to date. The Maltese Touch of Evil reproduces and re-sequences nearly 150 still images from 31 great films, laying them out with the authors’ informed and entertaining insights into the significance of each shot. The result is a de facto meta-film noir, a celebration of the genre that shows how these films are themselves”constrained” texts whose carefully calculated visual forms simultaneously generate narrative and critical commentary on that narrative. You will never look at film noir the same way again.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Readers may have different senses how these noiremes cohere into a meta-film, but the individual commentaries are unfailingly insightful and suggestive of the noir ethos. In addition to the usual suspects, films include Sunset Boulevard, It’s a Wonderful Life, Blade Runner, Batman Begins, and Good Night and Good Luck. This last chapter, a model for close analysis, will reward the reader more than the opening chapters. . . . Recommended.”– “Choice”
Readers may have different senses how these noiremes cohere into a meta-film, but the individual commentaries are unfailingly insightful and suggestive of the noir ethos. In addition to the usual suspects, films include Sunset Boulevard, It’s a Wonderful Life, Blade Runner, Batman Begins, and Good Night and Good Luck. This last chapter, a model for close analysis, will reward the reader more than the opening chapters. . . . Recommended.
Choice“Choice”
About the Author
SHANNON SCOTT CLUTE is an independent scholar who works for Turner Classic Movies in Atlanta. RICHARD L. EDWARDS is Lead Instructional Designer in the Integrated Learning Institute at Ball State University.
