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Jones, Matthew. "Becoming 'film noir' : film noir adaptions of hard-boiled fiction, 1944-46." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2018. http://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/900/.
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This thesis interrogates a number of issues that surround what critics have designated ‘film noir’ and its relationship to that branch of modern American literature identified as ‘hard- boiled fiction’. Thus, the main subject matter for the thesis consists of selected films noirs from 1944—46, and the novels of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler. The thesis argues that the adaptation process is of central significance to the ‘film noir’ debate and to film noir itself. While it argues for a dialogic exchange between ‘noir’ and ‘hard-boiled fiction’, it proposes as well that there was also a fundamental incompatibility between the two modes. The thesis discusses the difficulties encountered by Hollywood studios in adapting Cain’s work due to the candid representation of ‘adult’ themes, and how this conflicted with Hollywood censorship, carried out by the Production Code Administration (PCA). In order for Cain’s fiction to be adapted, it is argued, Hollywood conventions regarding the representation of sex and violence and the PCA guidelines by which they were governed had to undergo radical change. The critical and scholarly contexts for this argument include debates concerning influence, censorship, and the involvement of the PCA with the adaptation process, and the notion, as maintained by elements within the revisionist debate, that ‘film noir’ has no conceptual or theoretical basis. The thesis challenges revisionist arguments that ‘noir’ was ‘invented’ by French critics in 1946, and argues that although the genre was named retrospectively, generic practice was established by Hollywood producers in acts of ‘applied criticism’ prior to production, from around 1944 onwards. The thesis contextualises the generic practice of ‘noir’ within the history of film, while arguing simultaneously for historic changes in Hollywood film-making of the mid-1940s in terms of the representation of ‘adult’ themes, and the relaxation of the Production Code. The thesis discusses how criticism has tended to privilege other media, such as the plastic arts and literature, over film, and argues that notions of artistic style and influence must give consideration to the immanence of the film production context. The notion that ‘noir’ was influenced by the artistic movement known as ‘German Expressionism’ has been questioned by the revisionist debate. The thesis examines and discusses key German films of the Weimar period, when the artistic movement ‘Expressionism’ flourished, arguing that the Weimar influence is discernible in the generic practice of ‘noir’. However, the thesis makes a case that this is, primarily, the legacy of Weimar cinema, and that the influence of ‘Expressionism’ should be discussed within this medium-specific context. The thesis examines the connections between the work of a number of influential directors and the signifying practice of ‘noir’, including Murnau, Lang, Hitchcock and Hawks. It is proposed that certain ‘noir’ conventions can be traced back to the work of these influential directors. The thesis proposes a way of understanding ‘film noir’ as a genre, and argues that the adaptation process needs to be seen as a nexus for various discourses, including directorial style, screenwriting, cinematography, the studio system, and censorship, in addition to the relationship between the film and the novelistic text.
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Dominková, Petra. "Film noir a příroda." Doctoral thesis, Akademie múzických umění v Praze. Filmová a televizní fakulta AMU. Knihovna, 2008. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-78200.
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Dahan, Patricia Irène. "Psychanalyse et film noir américain." Paris 3, 1988. http://www.theses.fr/1988PA030003.
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On peut dire que le cinema, comme tout art, est temoin de son temps en ce qu'il reflete les preoccupations, les phobies, les interets contemporains a sa societe, etc. En partant du principe que chaque epoque delivre un message, je m'emploie a essayer de determiner la nature du temoignage du film noir americain en proposant une analyse de ce cinema au travers de ses caracteristiques, de ses codes, de ses origines, de son contexte economique, historique et social. Un des moyens de lecture choisi pour eclairer ces films est la psychanlyse, dans le sens ou elle est bien ce qui permet de degager des principes universels quant au fonctionnement conscient inconscient de l'individu, entre ce qui est emis (le realisateur) et ce qui est recu (le spectateur). Car en filigrane, se joue dans ces films le drame que chaque individu peut vivre face aux divers obstacles qu'il rencontre dans la realite ou dans la fiction. Une autre grille de lecture nous est fournie par la semiologie, demarche encore recente, qui se veut reunir plusieurs parametres pour organiser le sens, et qui m'interesse en ce qu'elle integre tout ce qui distingue une civilisation (economie, architecture, mode,. . . ). Je m'attache donc a demontrer en quoi les films noirs americains peuvent reproduire et systematiser certains concepts d'analyse, determiner lesquels et pourquoi, et les vulgariserOne can that cinema, as any art, is a witness of its time in the sense that it reflects contemporary interests of its society. Considering that each period of time delivers a message, my work is an attempt to determine what type of message is conveyed by american film noir through an analysis of this cinema; its codes; archetypes; origins; economical, social and historical context. One of the processes chosen to higlight these films is psychoanalysis, as it enables the use of universal principles regarding the conscious unconscious functioning of the individual, between what is sent out (the director) and what is received (the audience). Because the drama each individual may experience in reality or fiction can be traced in the set up of these films. Another process of analysis is given by a recently developed science : semiology, which unites various parameters to organize the sense, it interests me as it integrates all that distinguishes a civilisation (economics, architecture, fashion,. . . ). My work aims at demonstrating in what way american film noir can reproduce and systematize some analytical concepts, determine which ones and why, and vulgarize them
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Poole, Mark William. "Film noir and the films of Christopher Nolan." Master's thesis, Universidade de Aveiro, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/10773/16688.
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Mestrado em Estudos InglesesFilm noir has returned as a commercially attractive genre in the last ten years following the success of Pulp Fiction. This thesis discusses the differences of style and content and reasons for these differences between the present incarnation of film noir and its predecessors. As a director whose three feature films to date all contain noir elements, the work of Christopher Nolan is contextualized with that of his contemporaries while the purpose of his expression of these elements is also considered.
O Film Noir regressou como género comercialmente atraente nos últimos dez anos e na sequência do sucesso de Pulp Fiction. Nesta tese tentamos analisar as diferenças de estilo e de conteúdo, e as razões para estas diferenças entre a incarnação actual do Film Noir e a dos seus antecessores. Enquanto realizador cujos filmes até hoje apresentados contêm elementos de Film Noir, a obra de Christopher Nolan é contextualizada com a dos seus contemporâneos, ao mesmo tempo que se analisa igualmente o objectivo da expressão destes elementos.
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Dahan, Patricia Irène. "Psychanalyse et film noir américain." Lille 3 : ANRT, 1988. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37612858k.
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Kierstead, Joshua Anthony. "Noir of the past: anatomy of the historical film noir." Diss., University of Iowa, 2017. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5791.
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This dissertation documents how a series of cynical 1940s Hollywood films set in historical eras served as a forum for Hollywood to reconcile the complex relationship between America and its European past. While these films are rarely discussed in the ongoing discourse surrounding film noir, this study posits that they function as “noirs of the past” by transposing the pessimism and trauma surrounding World War II to the distant American and European past in a narrative and stylistic manner consistent with film noir. Film noir is a branching term to describe a group of 1940s and 50s Hollywood crime melodramas that are known for their cynical worldviews and femme fatales. Produced during the war and postwar era, film noirs primarily depict squalid urban settings that underscore the broken promise that is the American Dream. However, this project maintains that many of these noirs also critique American society through historical settings that trace present-day class and gender problems back to the European aristocracy and its excesses.
Noirs of the past are universally ignored in debates surrounding historical films because they appear at first blush to have little interest in depicting historical events in a precise manner. This is for good reason: they openly resist historical accuracy by employing devices that highlight their artificiality. The noir of the past’s lack of historical verisimilitude further extends to character types, dialogue, costumes, and aesthetics that feel closer in spirit to the gloomy shadows of contemporary-set film noirs than the glossy and monumental historical films of the 1940s. Through their overlap of historical and contemporary 1940s signifiers, “noirs of the past” construct a sense of location and time that borrows from both the past and present to demonstrate the cyclical nature of events and figures across history.
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Clayton, Leigh. "Authentic heroes : existentialism and film noir." Thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1996. http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk/R?func=search-advanced-go&find_code1=WSN&request1=AAIU099168.
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Film exhibits an existential time structure. It presents characters and events in the present moment and as the film progresses the future of the characters is built from their past within the film. Characterisation in film differs from that of the novel primarily in that characters are seen as they become what they are through their actions. In the novel a character is already fixed. Film also differs from theatre in that the differing use of space allows for a more intimate acting style on the part of the actor and more involvement on the part of the viewer. Film noir, in particular, manifests existential themes in its plot lines and characterisation, e.g. alienation, anxiety and the developmental nature of personality. A number of theorists have attempted to define film noir and to account for its distinctive look. These include David Bordwell, Borde and Chaumeton and Christine Gledhill. So far no definition has successfully accounted for all the features present in these films. An existential analysis offers a new way to approach this problem. Due to its distinctive use of philosophical themes film noir constitutes a separate and continuing genre. A noir paradigm can be established by isolating these philosophical themes and the stylistic methods which express them. This can be used as a criterion to identify noir films. Noirs can be divided into different periods by identifying the dominant theme of various decades. These reflect the social conditions of the time as well as popular response to existential philosophers, for instance, Sartre and Nietzsche who have both been considerable popularised. In addition noir can be seen as a response to restrictive Hollywood practices.
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Hakl, Vilém. "Chaos noir." Doctoral thesis, Akademie múzických umění v Praze.Filmová a televizní fakulta. Knihovna, 2016. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-253671.
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Butler, David George. "Artistry in noir : the use and representation of jazz in film noir." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.515501.
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Jazz has been associated with crime and immorality since early forms of the music were heard in. the brothels of New Orleans and the gangster-owned clubs of the "Jazz Age. " This association encouraged the use of jazz in film noir: tales of anxiety and urban decay that flourished in American cinema during the 1940s and 1950s. Yet, the extent to which jazz was used in film noir is the source of some confusion. The collaboration between the two idioms has often been alluded to but seldom explored in detail. Contemporary noirs, such as Body Heat (1981) and the series Fallen Angels (1993), have used jazz to evoke the classic period of film noir thus contributing to a "retrospective illusion" of the relationship between these idioms. Literature which refers to this relationship tends to discuss jazz and film noir in general rather than distinguishing between widely differing styles and periods of production. This lack of specificity, particularly regarding jazz, has resulted in considerable misunderstanding. This thesis seeks to determine the true extent of the involvement of jazz with film noir and why it has often been "taken for granted. " The thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates film theory, specifically work concerned with racial and gender discourses, sociology and music history. Beginning with a discussion of the relevant literature, the thesis suggests that the association of jazz with the noir themes of sex, crime and immorality stems from an understanding of black culture as being expressive of primitivism and irrationality that was prevalent in white imperialist ideologies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although contemporary writing and film noirs often refer to the modernist jazz style of bebop, which emerged in the mid-1940s at the same time as film noir, as the sound of the classic noir period, the thesis suggests that prevailing racial attitudes and conventions of 1940s film meant that the fundamentally black and intellectual nature of bebop could not be represented in noir of this time. The thesis places the films discussed in their historical context and makes considerable use of archival sources and documentation for extended studies of Phantom Lady (1944), Young Man with a Horn (1950) and I Want To Live! (1958). The tensions created by the involvement of jazz in these productions become more evident as a result of this archival material. The emergence of the jazz or jazz inflected score in films of the 1950s is examined as is the proliferation of jazz scores in television noir of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The penultimate chapter considers the use of jazz in neo-noirs of the last twenty-five years, particularly Taxi Driver (1976) and The Last Seduction (1994), before offering thoughts for further work and a summary of the thesis in the conclusion
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Gladman, Matthew J. "Film Noir--Purveyor of Cold War Anxiety." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1293817877.
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Maltère, Hugues. "The socio-political dimension of film noir /." This resource online, 1992. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08142009-040450/.
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Maltère, Hugues. "The socio-political dimension of film noir." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/44231.
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After World War II, Hollywood produced a series of low budget pictures characterized by a dark mood, bleak urban landscapes and fierce violence. French critics called them films noirs (black films). These movies presented a critical vision of the social injustice present in the American capitalist society. This thesis examines the socio-political dimension of film noir firstly through its social, literary and filmic origins, then through a piecework study of shots and dialogues from six noir pictures: Body and Soul (1947), Force of Evil (1948), Knock On Any Door (1949), Kiss of Death (1947), I Walk Alone(1948) and The Set-up (1949). It is shown how the Marxist convictions of their makers influenced their style and their content. Even films noirs made by apolitical or moderate filmmakers follow a similar pattern. It is concluded that film noir contains expressions of anti-capitalist struggle toward social justice and moral redemption. The appeal of these ideas to many Americans is shown by the box-office success of these pictures, while many noir writers, actors and directors were the victims of the reactionary repression of the early fifties.
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Letort, Delphine. "Du film noir au néo-noir : mythes et stéréotypes en représentation : (1941-2001)." Rennes 2, 2002. http://www.theses.fr/2002REN20020.
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Les années quarante ont vu l'émergence d'un mouvement esthétique original que le film noir synthétise en se démarquant des conventions alors en vogue à Hollywood. Surveillé par la censure en raison du contenu subversif qui le caractérise, le film noir convoque une série de stéréotypes dont l'étude nous permet de mesurer l'influence du politique et de l'idéologique sur son mode de représentation. Structures narratives et mode de représentation travaillent de concert à la création d'une mythologie (la femme est fatale tandis que le héros est dit "hard boiled") que l'industrie cinématographique va abondamment exploiter dans sa stratégie commerciale. Le film noir révèle l'instabilité des codes qui servent à représenter le féminin et le masculin, suggère l'ambiguité des désirs qui poussent à l'acte meurtrier, fouille l'inconscient des êtres en proie à des pulsions morbides à travers les lumières contrastées qui composent l'espace. La criminalité apparaît comme le symptôme d'une véritable crise d'identité sociale et individuelle, semant dès les années cinquante les racines d'un mal que l'on voit exploser dans la violence du polar et du film néo-noir. Modernité et postmodernité ont affecté la relation de l'individu à l'espace social, à lui-même, comme elles ont transformé le statut de l'image dans la société. Le film noir et ses avatars trahissent les angoisses qui accompagnent une évolution incontrôlable, remplissent toujours une fonction politique à l'intéérieur du pays, invitant à un questionnement des valeurs individuelles et collectives à travers l'investigation de crimes dont l'horreur va croissante. Le film néo-noir interroge directement la culture et la civilisation postmodernes, s'amuse à déconstruitre les codes cinématographiques du film noir afin de mettre l'accent sur l'artificialité de la construction des images qui nous entourent et nous représentent, mais dont les enjeux nous échappentClassical Hollywood narratives are characterized by a set of conventions which film noir shattered as it emerged in the 1940s. Not only did the newly born genre disrespect the realist effect that ruled representation in classical films while playing upon mise en scene, but it also proved quite subversive as far as content is concerned. It relied on a series of stereotypes (the femme is fatale while the hero is hardboiled) that need to be recognized and analyzed in order to understand why film noir was closely watched by censorship. No doubt the political power of film noir was enhanced by its narrative structure and its mode of representation, implicitly referring to mythological narratives and figures, which the film industry also endowed with a commercial purpose. Film noir plays on the expressionist quality of black and white in order to express the ambiguity of desires leading individuals to the margins of crime, thus emphasizing that instabilities of gender were already incipient in the forties. Violence has pervaded the genre while laying stress on the urban crisis and expressing the psychological conflicts undermining the individual's sense of identity. The study of crime and violence in film noir and neo-film noir allows us to understand how modernity and postmodernity have affected the relationship of the individual to his environment and to himself. Film noir echoes the troubles caused by the transformation of society into a modern world whereas neo-film reflects the social and identity crisis triggered by a postmodern state and a new cultural and economic order. Postmodern aesthetics questions the rules of cinematic representation while deconstructing the genre, thus demystifying the American set of values vulgarized by Hollywood films and cinema itself
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Foubert, Jean. "David Lynch et le film noir (1986-1997)." Paris 7, 2002. http://www.theses.fr/2002PA070049.
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Cette thèse a pour objet principal d'éclairer le rapport de David Lynch au film noir américain classique et contemporain. Notre analyse porte sur les films "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Twin Peaks : Fire Walk with me" (1992) et "Lost Highway" (1997) ainsi que sur la série télévisée "Twin Peaks" : (1989-91). On y étudie plus particulièrement les stratégies d'appropriation et de subversion des conventions narratives du film noir et on y considère les spécificités et les qualités novatrices du "noir" lynchien. On a ainsi voulu montrer comment, en s'appropriant et en renouvelant le genre hollywoodien du film noir, David Lynch célèbre le potentiel expressif et créatif du cinémaThis dissertation is essentially concerned in exploring the relation of David Lynch to classic and contemporary American film noir. Our analysis bears on the films "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me" (1992) and "Lost Highway" (1997) as well as on the television series "Twin Peaks" (1989-1991). It focuses on David Lynch's appropriative and subversive strategies of film noir's narratives conventions and it also deals with the specificities and the innovative qualities of his noirs. Our object was to show how, by reappropriating and renewing Hollywood film noir genre, Lynch celebrates the expressive and creative potential in the cinematographic discourse
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Von, Gunden Thomas James. "Snaring the spectator : narration, sexual difference, film noir /." The Ohio State University, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487844105977659.
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Barnswell, Evan. ""A Dish Best Served Cold": Revenge Plots in Neo-Noir Narratives." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2016. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1354.
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In this paper, I trace the theme of revenge across Drive (Refn, 2011) and John Wick (Leitch and Stahelski, 2014). Professor von Hallberg helped me understand these films as vehicles for understanding certain ideas. Throughout the semester I consulted the work of several literary critics to arrive at a better sense of what neo-noir is and to better understand the world of these films. Through close analysis of specific scenes, I hoped to determine what I would learn about vengeance if I lived in the world that these characters inhabit.
After watching and re-watching both films several times, I went through scene by scene and observed the details that stood out to me the most. I related these to the literature I had read and suggested what each detail might mean before drawing any conclusions. Once I had completed the core analysis, I reviewed these observations and synthesized them into general claims. I affirmed that revenge was closely related to von Hallberg’s notion of “trust” as a “horizon of hope” (von Hallberg 2). In the end, it was apparent that in punishing those responsible, the protagonists of these films committed to destroying any and all “obstacles to the [re]construction of trust” (von Hallberg 5). Both protagonists are portrayed as avengers who are driven toward the destruction of “the fakery and greed of those around them” (von Hallberg 36). In these films, to extract revenge is to punish the “corrupt[t] [and] [re]buil[d] [in] a world governed by self-interest” (von Hallberg 36).
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Challis, John David. "'The Knowledge', a collection of poetry, and, The poem noir : film noir in contemporary poetry." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/3072.
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This thesis consists of a collection of poetry, The Knowledge, and the first critical investigation into the ‘poem noir’, an unidentified and unexplored mode within contemporary poetry that exhibits thematic and visual echoes from the body of films known as film noir. Taking its title from the London taxi driver’s rigorous examination, The Knowledge’s key theme is displacement: from social class, education and from a sense of home. It echoes the quest of the doomed film noir protagonist, who, in a thirst for knowledge, is drawn into a psychological descent into a metaphorical underworld. Like the poems noir analysed in the critical section, these possess an anxious, pessimistic and obsessive engagement with the world, and are set within noirish locales to excavate the autobiographical and the imaginative. Inspired by film noir’s portrayal of individuals whose identity is called into conflict, the poems take the lid off the works of memory and place, to examine a personal and public moral compass, and to dramatize the past and the present. After providing a definition of film noir, the critical section outlines a model for reading a poem noir by analysing a selection of seminal American films noir of the classic 1941 to 1958 period, along with several neo-noir films produced from the 1970s onwards. It then provides close readings of Paul Muldoon’s hard-boiled Chandleresque poem, ‘Immram’ (1980), Deryn Rees-Jones’ book-length murder-mystery poem, Quiver (2004), and David Harsent’s nightmarish labyrinthine poem, ‘Elsewhere’ (2011), and introduces them as poems noir. In conclusion I consider how writing poetry is a noirish act, sharing a similarity with Seamus Heaney’s notion that the role of writing poetry is to unearth revelations about the self, and with Henrik Gustafsson’s thesis that film noir is concerned with taking the lid off the works to expose whatever truth lies beneath.
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Nolan, Petra Désiréé. "The cinematic flâneur : manifestations of modernity in the male protagonist of 1940s film noir /." Connect to thesis, 2004. http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000122.
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Hall, Kenneth Estes, and Chritian Krug. "Noir Westerns after World War II." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/590.
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Excerpt: Towards the end of Ethan and Joel Coen's Academy-Award winning No Country for Old Men (2007), Carla Jean Moss's life depends on the toss of a coin. Heads or tails will decide whether she lives or dies.
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Hofmann, Ingrid. "Deadly seductions : femme fatales in 90's film noir." Title page, table of contents and abstract only, 1998. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09ARM/09armh713.pdf.
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Tyrer, Ben. "Out of the past : reading Lacan and film noir." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2012. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/out-of-the-past(9906b480-8f56-45ad-8605-8790b039fa0e).html.
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This project proposes a new reading of the constitution of the critical category of film noir in terms of Lacan’s theorisation of the retroactive construction of meaning. The thesis contends that, despite a turn away from Lacan in Film Studies, psychoanalytic theory must not be abandoned and - rather than regressing to questions of film, language and psychoanalysis articulated in the 1970s (Metz, Screen) - aims to plot a new trajectory, alongside theorists such as McGowan and Zizek, for such inquiry into the cinema. The relationship between psychoanalysis and noir is itself well-trodden ground; however, the major interventions (Kaplan, Krutnik) have been oriented towards questions of gender, leaving unexplored the possibility of noir’s relation to Lacan’s theory of signification. Specifically, this thesis engages the historiography of film noir (Naremore, Vernet, Elsaesser) with Lacan’s theory of the point de capiton to work through the implications for a theory of discursive construction suggested by the registers of the Symbolic, Real and Imaginary. This thesis engages film and theory to discover not simply what Lacan can reveal about noir but crucially what noir can reveal about the structure of meaning. The project also explores various noir tropes as they raise theoretical questions: of particular interest are films such as Double Indemnity (1944) and D.O.A. (1950) that are concerned with the retroactive production of knowledge. In addition, the roles of contingency and necessity in such a relationship to the past are investigated, and both the ontology of noir as a category and the structures of film noir narratives - such as Gilda (1946) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) - are explored in terms of the Lacanian theory of sets and concepts such as lalangue and suture; an extended reading of The Maltese Falcon (1941) explores the Lacanian notion of fiction.
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Moore, Terry L. "Twilight and Shadows: The Lesbian Presence in Film Noir." The Ohio State University, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1393075233.
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Silva, Joaquim da. "Sources, signification and genre stability in American Film Noir." Doctoral thesis, Universidade de Aveiro, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10773/4200.
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Doutoramento em CulturaO conceito film noir é manifestamente complexo de ser definido. Atendendo a que não existe um estudo verdadeiramente completo sobre a estilística do film noir, esta tese, inserida no âmbito dos Estudos Cinematográficos, pretende ser uma tentativa de exploração do conceito film noir e do género cinematográfico sob vários aspectos. Trata-se, no fundo, de uma forma de restabelecer este conceito descritivo americano, desde o início dos anos quarenta até finais dos cinquenta, através de um processo de análise iconográfica. Este projecto focaliza-se na seguinte questão de investigação: pode o film noir americano ser considerado um género cinematográfico enquanto tal? Numa primeira fase, analisam-se os contextos cinematográfico e social preexistentes no cinema noir de modo a compreender este fenómeno cinematográfico, enquanto uma extensão do movimento hard-boiled, uma cosmovisão subversiva que descaradamente se opõe aos mitos americanos da auto-promoção americana, que marcaram muitos filmes de Hollywood durante a época da Depressão. Depois, descrevem-se os movimentos culturais específicos, bem como os acontecimentos sociopolíticos da época, a psicanálise, o estruturalismo e a teoria de autor, que ajudaram a contextualizar os padrões do film noir e a forma como o conceito acabou por gradualmente penetrar na cultura americana. As películas a analisar concentrar-se-ão sobre símbolos visuais específicos e elementos cinematográficos (tais como os das técnicas de iluminação e fotografia), adoptando uma perspectiva semiótica. Através dos conceitos saussuriano de “signo” e de “ícone” perceiano, procuro demonstrar de que forma os símbolos em filmes noir constituem significados que são enfaticamente indexicais, isto é, de que maneira eles são transversais, passando de um símbolo para outro (ou evento), direccionando e coagindo a atenção do espectador. A tese conclui então que o filme noir não pode ser considerado e entendido como um género fílmico e que o seu estilo visual (o aspecto dominante do cinema noir) tem como propósito acentuar o desencanto sentido no rescaldo da guerra, representar os meandros da vida urbana americana e, principalmente, enfatizar a incerteza, a ansiedade e o lado obscuro da existência humana.
Film noir is a notoriously complex concept to define. Since a complete study of the stylistics of film noir has not yet appeared, this thesis, integrated in the area of film studies, is an endeavour to come to terms with film noir and film genre in a number of ways, and is essentially an earnest attempt at reexamining through a process of iconographic analysis this descriptive term applied to American films of the early forties to the late fifties. This project concentrates on the following research question: can film noir be regarded as a cinematic genre as such? The cinematic and social backgrounds to film noir are outlined so as to understand this cinematographic phenomenon as an extension of the literary hard-boiled movement, a subversive worldview that blatantly set itself in opposition to the self-promoting American myths that had marked many Depression-era Hollywood films. Specific cultural movements and socio-political events, psychoanalysis, structuralism and auteurism will be explored, as they all have helped contextualise noir patterns, and enabled the term film noir to gradually gain authority in American film criticism. The films to be analysed focus on specific visual symbols and cinematographic elements (like lighting techniques and photography), and their iconographic signification will be examined from a semiotic perspective. Through the notions of the Saussurian “sign” and the Peircean “icon”, it is intended to demonstrate how the film symbols in noirs give rise to signifiers which are emphatically indexical, that is, how they crosscut from one symbol (or event) to another, directing and constraining the spectator’s attention. The thesis then concludes that film noir, for reasons of its complexity and indefinition, cannot be considered and understood as a film genre, and that its visual style (the dominant aspect of noir) spans a number of genres serving the purpose of stressing the disenchanted aftermath of the war, represents the underside of American urban life, and most especially emphasises uncertainty, anxiety, and the dark side of human existence.
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Heiman, Christopher James. "LAKESIDE: AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT FILM." Kent State University Honors College / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1313072280.
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Magnani, Matthew Daniel. "Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and the Crime Films of the Nineteen Nineties." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1996. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278623/.
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Martin Scorsese's films, GOODFELLAS and CASINO, and Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS and PULP FICTION are examined to determine if the crime film of the 1990s has become increasingly more in the style of film noir. The differences and similarities between the two crime films each director has either written or co-written in the 1990s are delineated to demonstrate this trend. Other crime films of the latter 1990s (SEVEN, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and MULHOLLAND FALLS) are also examined to aid in defining the latest incarnation of the crime film as "Noir Modernist," a term that is demonstrated to be a more accurate description for the current crime films than B. Ruby Rich's, "Neo-Noir of the 1990s."
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Vernet, Marc. "Narrateur, personnage et spectateur dans le film de fiction à travers le film noir." Paris 3, 1985. http://www.theses.fr/1985PA03A061.
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Hales, Barbara. "Dark mirror: Constructions of the femme fatale in Weimar film and Hollywood film noir." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/187445.
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The femme fatale is a marker for the past is evident in the film noir work of German exile directors. These directors created a femme fatale character similar to Weimar examples of the sexual woman icon, using Weimar cultural constructions as a template for their work in Hollywood. The femme fatale figure in film noir is specifically an enigma or duplicitous mystery, a woman with a gun who threatens the male protagonist. She represents a piece of the male character's past often seen through the structure of the voice-over and flashback. These narrative devices enable the male protagonist to rework this jaded past vis-a-vis his relationship to the femme fatale and his fatal attraction to her. The film noir femme fatale is linked to German exile directors' desire to review a past that has been lost and cannot be recuperated. In the case of the Weimar femme fatale, she is a sign for the trauma of World War I and the ensuing political/social crises of the Weimar republic. The femme fatale in her castrating capacity is a marker for historical upheaval and male subjectivity in flux. She is ultimately the scapegoat for male questions of self and a split subjectivity brought on by historical events such as war and the experience of exile. Her various guises include the criminal woman, the technological entity, and the double.
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Goulden, Jan. "The western, the buddy movie and noir : lesbian re-readings of the American action movie." n.p, 1999. http://library7.open.ac.uk/abstracts/page.php?thesisid=13.
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Brinker, Gretchen. "The Alluring and Manipulative "Spider Women" of the Silver Screen: Femmes Fatales of the Hard-Boiled Fiction, Classic Noir and Contemporary Noir Periods." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2008. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/887.
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This thesis delves into three categories of femmes fatales: the ones of hard-boiled fiction/classic noir and contemporary noir. Moreover, it generates several comparisons among those aforementioned categories, and extrapolates on them. Third wave feminism and how it draws relevance/is significant to the Bound and The Last Seduction films is additionally explored in this thesis. This thesis will discuss the similarities of the femmes fatales of the '30s/1940s-50s and contemporary noir (1980s-90s), while delving into differences between them.
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Camargo, Sandy. "Once more with feeling : film genre and emotional experience /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2000. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p9988650.
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Decottignies, Isabelle. "La mort dans le film noir américain classique (1940-1960)." Lille 3, 2005. http://www.theses.fr/2005LIL30035.
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"Cette recherche porte sur la mort dans le film noir américain classique (1940-1960). Tout film noir est hanté par l'idée de la mort. Bien qu'elle prétende à un certain réalisme criminel, la mort dans le cinéma noir prend parfois une forme qui au premier abord paut paraître étrange, délibérément invraisemblable. En effet, dans ces films, la logique de la mise en scène ne s'attache pas aux faits objectifs du monde réel, analysables rationnellement : elle relève de l'ordre de l'imaginaire et du fantasme. Le film noir étant fait de l'étoffe dont sont tissés les cauchemars, la mort noire se déchiffre comme on interprète les rêves. Elle est l'un des actes les plus signifiants que l'on puisse trouver au cinéma, le meurtre étant révélateur des désirs enfouis de celui qui le commet, de celui qui le subit, et de la relation qui lie ainsi la victime et son bourreau. Tuer constituant le paroxysme de l'action "noire", en se plongeant dans ses eaux sombres, on touche ainsi à l'essence du film noir"
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Hanson, Helen. "Painted women : framing portraits in film noir and the gothic woman's film of the 1940s." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.364751.
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Oxenhall, Johan. "The Thin Man och Film Noir : En Jämförande Studie i Genre." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för film och litteratur (IFL), 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-66857.
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Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att genomföra en jämförande studie av den klassiska Hollywood-deckaren, representerad av de tre första filmerna i Thin Man-serien, och film noir. Analysen utgår ifrån Thin Man-filmerna The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936) och Another Thin Man (1939) och noir filmerna The Maltese Falcon (1941), Laura (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) och Dark Passage (1947). Den grundläggande teorin för uppsatsen är genreteori och hur den klassiska Hollywood-deckarfilmen skilde sig ifrån film noir. Analysen är uppdelad i fyra kapitel, i vilka olika delar av innehållet i både Thin Man-filmerna och de fyra exemplen av film noir analyseras. De olika kapitlen handlar om manliga huvudkaraktären, den kvinnliga huvudkaraktären, hur de olika filmerna hanterade ämnen berörande sex och sexualitet och hur samhället och människorna representeras i filmerna. Slutsats omfattar sedan en diskussion om uppsatsens resultat och svaret på varför Thin Man-filmerna inte räknas som film noir.
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Gallant, Mathieu. "Comprendre l'émergence du film noir : une étude sociohistorique, esthétique et thématique." Thesis, Université Laval, 2014. http://www.theses.ulaval.ca/2014/30580/30580.pdf.
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Ce mémoire a pour but de mettre à jour les conditions d’émergence du film noir états unisien. Il mobilise des approches multiples, dont celles qui ont été proposées par Michèle Lagny dans son ouvrage intitulé De l’Histoire du cinéma : méthode historique et histoire du cinéma. Les conditions socioéconomiques des États-Unis ont été explorées, de même que l’industrie cinématographique des années 1940 et 1950. Se sont ajoutées des considérations thématiques et esthétiques susceptibles de révéler le caractère contre-culturel du film noir. Les conditions d’émergence et le caractère contre-culturel de trois mouvements européens, dont l’expressionnisme allemand, le réalisme poétique français et le néoréalisme italien, ont préalablement été étudiés. De cette manière, il a été possible de tisser une toile qui permet de comprendre en quoi les manifestations contre-culturelles au cinéma sont facilitées par un climat de crise.Using an historical approach inspired by Michèle Lagny in her book De l’Histoire du cinéma : méthode historique et histoire du cinema, this thesis’s goal is to explore the context in which American film noir was born and how it is an example of counter-culture. In order to achieve this goal, the socioeconominal portrait of the 1940-50s United States of America was drawned, the state of the film industry of the same period was looked at and a thematic and aestethic study of film noir was done. The contexts and the counter-cultural nature of three European movements of the same period, German expressionism, French poetic realism and Italian neorealism, were initially studied. This way, it was possible to understand how counter-cultural manifestations are facilitated by a climate of crisis.
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Ricci, James. "Attractions and negotiations of film noir in American cinema and culture." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2008. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0002372.
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Beaudet, Madison. "Can the Good Man Be Happy? The Production of "Beyond Memory"." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2016. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2129.
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Han, Lei. "Pixel Noir: a style for cinematic computer-generated lighting." Texas A&M University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/3048.
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This thesis provides an example of creating a special cinematic style of Film Noir
in computer-generated animation. The thesis is designed as a discussion of how a
unique lighting style in computer graphics can be used to enhance visual storytelling
for cinematic purposes. It provides digital filmmakers a beginning guide to deal with
various lighting situations, and with cinematic lighting in 3D production.
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Gates, Philippa Charlotte. "Investigating the male : masculinity and the Hollywood detective film." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.391838.
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Maher, Sean William. "Noir and the urban imaginary." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2010. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/42216/1/Sean_Maher_Thesis.pdf.
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Noir and the Urban Imaginary is creative practice based PhD research comprising critical analysis (40%) exegesis (10%) and a twenty-six minute film, The Brisbane Line (50%). The research investigates intersection of four elements; the city, the cinema, history and postmodernity. The thesis discusses relationships between each of the four elements and what cinematic representation of cities reveals about modern and postmodern urban experience and historicisation. Key concepts in the research include, 'urbanism', 'historiography', 'modernity', 'postmodernity', 'neo-noir'.
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LaPorte, Anthony. "Shadows fall on main street : film noir travels out of the city." [Tampa, Fla] : University of South Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/usf/dc/et/SFE0003212.
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Loh, Shinmin Amanda. "A Postmodern Love Affair: Los Angeles and Neo-Noir." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/931.
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This paper aims to investigate how film neo-noir functions as an ideal medium to engage in a postmodernist critique of our society, focusing on its negotiation in the city of Los Angeles. Through incorporating postmodernism theorists Fredric Jameson and Linda Hutcheon’s arguments of the themes of the Nostalgia Mode, Parody and Pastiche, and the Decentered, Destructured and Dehumanized, this paper will demonstrate how they manifest in neo-noir’s Los Angeles to totalize contradictions in society and evoke a critical awareness.
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Hoyson, Jacob M. "The Cobbler and the Diamond." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2015. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2086.
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This paper will provide a comprehensive account of the making of the University of New Orleans Graduate Thesis film The Cobbler and the Diamond. The first part will cover the filmmaker’s intentions, the development of the story, and the screenwriting process. The second part will break down the preproduction and planning phase, with an emphasis on the collaborations between the director and other members of the film’s cast, crew, and other concerned parties. The third part will describe the seven-day shoot of The Cobbler and the Diamond, the fourth will cover post production, and the fifth and final part will evaluate the success of the finished work, both as a fulfillment of the initial intentions of the filmmaker, and as a work of art in its own right.
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Wong, Wai-yee. "Returning the gaze the femme fatale in the film noir of the 90s /." Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2000. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B31952884.
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Wong, Wai-yee, and 黃慧儀. "Returning the gaze: the femme fatale in the film noir of the 90s." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2000. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31952884.
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Krutnik, Frank S. "'In a lonely street' : 1940's Hollywood, film noir and the 'tough' thriller." Thesis, University of Kent, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.253422.
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Broman, Cecilia. "Nocturnal Animals : En stilanalys ur ett neo-noir-perspektiv." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för film och litteratur (IFL), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-95297.
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Film noir slutar aldrig att fascinera med sin förmåga att kombinera ljus och mörker i en otroligt stiliserad och väl genomarbetad mise-en-scène. Den omisskänneliga mörka stämningen och tonen – den karakteristiska noir-känslan – är konstant närvarande och reflekteras i såväl de typiska noir-karaktärerna som i storyn och i mise-en-scène. Liksom film noir är Tom Fords filmer genomtänkta i minsta detalj och det visuella sätts i fokus. Min uppsats är en stilanalys av den samtida noir-filmen Nocturnal Animals (2016) ur ett neo-noir-perspektiv. Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera olika stildrag – mise-en-scène, cinematografi och klippning – samt utmärkande noir-teman. Vilken funktion har de olika stildragen i berättarstrukturen? Hur synliggörs klassiska noir-teman i filmen och hur skiljer sig neo-noir från den klassiska film noir? Genrefrågan debatteras fortfarande och därför används genreteori som en bakgrundsteori. De flesta filmforskare och filmkritiker ser film noir som en stil och inte en genre, eftersom de inte kunnat enas om en gemensam struktur och då film noir anses vara starkt förbunden med en viss tidsperiod och delar för många egenskaper med andra genrer. Neo-noir bygger på dagens filmskapares medvetenhet om den klassiska noir-filmens stilistiska och narrativa konventioner. Nocturnal Animals innehåller flera noir-teman. Det som skiljer den klassiska film noir från neo-noir är framförallt användningen av färg, och miljöerna och handlingen som tagits till en ny nivå, dvs. brottstemat och våldet har blivit brutalare och visas inte sällan utan upplösning. Neo-noir innehåller också mer skräck och karaktärerna, klippningen och ljussättningen har utvecklats. Både film noir och neo-noir lägger tonvikten på det visuella med en väl genomtänkt mise-en-scène, vilket även är karakteristiskt för Tom Fords filmer. Neo-noir-filmernas uppbyggnad och stil återspeglar den höga graden av medvetenhet om den klassiska noir-filmens stilistiska och narrativa konventioner.
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Swanson, Stephen. "The stranger in the dark the ethics of Levinasian-Derridean hospitality in noir /." Bowling Green, Ohio : Bowling Green State University, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=bgsu1182190991.
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Mathis, Corine Elizabeth Silverstein Marc. ""That girl of yours, she's pretty hard-boiled" film noir and the claiming and performance of gender in Veronica Mars /." Auburn, Ala, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10415/1639.
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Chinen, Biesen Sheri Lynn. "Film noir and World War II : wartime production, censorship, and the "red meat" crime cycle /." Digital version accessible at:, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/utexas/main.
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Pillard, Thomas. "Négociations identitaires : le film noir français face aux bouleversements de la France d’après-guerre (1946-1960)." Thesis, Paris 10, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013PA100066.
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Bien que le terme « film noir » soit généralement réservé au cinéma hollywoodien, cette appellation a en réalité été forgée dans la France des années 1930 pour désigner des films français, et elle renvoie plutôt à une forme transnationale, circulant entre l’Europe et Hollywood. C’est à ce titre que l’on se propose de l’étudier dans le cinéma hexagonal, en montrant que le genre noir s’inscrit en France dans le cadre d’une tradition ancienne, et en analysant l’évolution du « film noir français » après-guerre, selon une approche historique et culturelle. En postulant que le film noir est indissociable d’un discours sur la modernité, cette thèse montre qu’il existe trois actualisations de la forme « noire » dans la France de 1946-1960, qui témoignent chacune des ambivalences d’une nation en transition, devant négocier le basculement entre l’Occupation et l’entrée dans la société de consommation : le « réalisme noir » exprime un fort pessimisme ayant des implications nostalgiques, masculinistes et nationalistes ; la « série noire pour rire » propose au contraire une réappropriation ludique de l’Histoire et de la modernité ; le film de gangsters confronte des personnages vieillissants marqués par la guerre aux mutations contemporaines et à l’American way of life. Par sa diversité même, le film noir français illustre ainsi les contradictions de la France d’après-guerre : désireuse de se plonger dans l’avenir mais obsédée par son passé traumatique, en partie séduite par la « tentation américaine » mais déterminée à conserver sa « francité »Although the term « film noir » is generally associated with Hollywood cinema, this generic label was originally coined in France in reference to French films made in the 1930s, and the « noir » genre defines a transnational form which circulated between Europe and Hollywood. We intend to study « noir » films in French cinema through this lens, highlighting that the genre is rooted in an old French tradition. Our analysis of the evolution of French film noir foregrounds historical and cultural aspects, positing that film noir articulates a critical discourse on modernity. This doctoral thesis shows that the « noir » form underwent changes which evidenced the ambivalence of identity in a nation in transition between 1946 and 1960, that had to negotiate the cultural shift from Occupation to the Consumer society : the « noir realism » cycle expressed a strong pessimism that has nostalgic, masculinist and nationalist implications, in opposition to the « série noire pour rire » which illustrated a playful reappropriation of History and modernity ; last but not least, gangster films built on the contrast between older characters, marked by the burdens of war, and contemporary mutations, including the development of the American way of life in France. Through its diversity, French film noir reveals the contradictions of post-war French society : the country was keen to dive into the future but obsessed with its traumatic past ; in part seduced by the « American model », it was however determined to keep its « French identity »