Film Noir Reader

Bys: Silver, Alain, Ursini, Alain, Ursini, James

Book Overview

This bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style, now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879101970
• ISBN13: 9780879101978
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Limelight
• Length: 354 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Lightning Strikes Twice

Film Noir Reader 2 is as interesting as its forerunner. Not every article is great, but there is a lot of interest here.The book opens with film writings from the Forties that show that while Americans did not coin the term film noir, some writers did notice a trend developing.There are interesting articles on Cornell Woolrich, Sam Fuller and noir and painting. The article on British Film Noir is quite fascinating.At the end of the book is a piece by a professor who discusses how he teaches a course on film noir. So this book traces film noir from a barely discerned trend to an academic course of study. Neat.

A Good Anthology

This is a very good anthology of noir criticism. It contains three of the first assessments of noir in English, by Higham, Durgnat and Schrader right next to each other - boom, boom, boom - so one can see the criticism of noir developing before one's eyes.The rest of the essays/arcticles are mostly very interesting. There is one on John Farrow, who is usually overlooked, so it is good to see his films grouped together and examined. The essay on Anthony Mann's noirs is quite strong, and Ursini's article on noir TV, shows such as "Peter Gunn" and "The Fugitive" is very interesting and makes one wish that there were more written on this part of TV history.I think this would be an essential part of any noir fan's library.

An Essential Film Noir Reference

Barring an English translation of Borde and Chaumeton's seminal Panorama du Film Noir Américain, this collection may well be the most valuable Film Noir reference available. It gathers nearly all the most important essays and articles of the last 40 years, including the introduction to the above-mentioned work by Borde and Chaumeton, Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir", Raymond Durgnat's "Family Tree of Film Noir" and Higham and Greenberg's "Black Cinema" chapter from Hollywood in The Forties. The collection is exceptionally valuable, if rather poorly edited; I wouldn't suggest throwing out one's original, dog-eared copies of the items mentioned above. The book also suffers from a difficult-to-read sans serif typeface. Still, you're unlikely to find all these valuable articles together in any other book. That alone makes it a valuable buy.