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A Panorama of American Film Noir
When it appeared in France in 1955, A Panorama of American Film Noir was the first book ever on the genre: this clairvoyant study of Hollywood film noir is at last available in English translation.
A Panorama of American Film Noir addresses the essential amorality of its subject from a decidedly Surrealist angle, focusing on noir's dreamlike, unwonted, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel atmosphere, and setting it in the social context of mid-century America.
Beginning with the first film noir, The Maltese Falcon, and continuing through the post war "glory days," which included such films as Gilda, The Big Sheep, Dark Passage, and The Lady from Shanghai, Borde and Chaumeton examine the dark sides of American society, film, and literature that made film noir possible, even necessary.
A Panorama of American Film Noir includes a film noir chronology, a voluminous filmography, a comprehensive index, and a selection of black-and-white production stills.
A Panorama of American Film Noir addresses the essential amorality of its subject from a decidedly Surrealist angle, focusing on noir's dreamlike, unwonted, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel atmosphere, and setting it in the social context of mid-century America.
Beginning with the first film noir, The Maltese Falcon, and continuing through the post war "glory days," which included such films as Gilda, The Big Sheep, Dark Passage, and The Lady from Shanghai, Borde and Chaumeton examine the dark sides of American society, film, and literature that made film noir possible, even necessary.
A Panorama of American Film Noir includes a film noir chronology, a voluminous filmography, a comprehensive index, and a selection of black-and-white production stills.
242 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1955
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March 19, 2014
For reasons which I probably don't need to go into very few American fims were released in France in the first half of the 1940s, and so come 1945 there was a lot of catching up to do. French film critics were in the unusual position of being able to watch the highlights of four or five years worth of Hollywood film production in a relative short space of time. What struck them was a very distinctive appraoch to the thriller, which although American critics had commented on hadn't previously been identified as a whole new genre. And so one of America's most distinctive contributions to C20th culture, something between a style and a genre, got a French name,'film noir'. Ten years later two critics from Toulouse, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, produced the first book length treatment of the subject which was finally translated into English in the late 1990s.
The book still stands up as a good general introduction. The study of film noir is beset by definitional issues and some readers will be struck by films which the authors consider not fully noir (Double Indemnity for one) but these issues are common to every book on the subject I've read. What interested me the most was the emphasis on content rather than style - many studies of noir emphasise the influence of German expressionisnist film and lighting but this is only really touched on here. The authors focus on issues like film noir's 'strangeness', its onieric (fine word) qualities, cruelty/violence and eroticism (they are after all French and rarely refer to an actress without highlighting in what particular way she is charmant). Given that for a lot of people appreciating film noir just means a nostalgia for stylish hats and A line dresses I found this emphasis welcome.
I enjoyed the thematic intro and conclusion most, and sometimes the middle sections read too much like a list of films. An excellent introduction by James Nareemore as well.
The book still stands up as a good general introduction. The study of film noir is beset by definitional issues and some readers will be struck by films which the authors consider not fully noir (Double Indemnity for one) but these issues are common to every book on the subject I've read. What interested me the most was the emphasis on content rather than style - many studies of noir emphasise the influence of German expressionisnist film and lighting but this is only really touched on here. The authors focus on issues like film noir's 'strangeness', its onieric (fine word) qualities, cruelty/violence and eroticism (they are after all French and rarely refer to an actress without highlighting in what particular way she is charmant). Given that for a lot of people appreciating film noir just means a nostalgia for stylish hats and A line dresses I found this emphasis welcome.
I enjoyed the thematic intro and conclusion most, and sometimes the middle sections read too much like a list of films. An excellent introduction by James Nareemore as well.
August 11, 2016
“In order to distinguish the noir series from ordinary detective stories or other film cycles, Borde and Chaumeton take a different approach from subsequent writers on the topic, placing less emphasis on narrative structure or visual style than on the emotional or affective qualities of the films, which they describe with five adjectives typical of Surrealism: oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent and cruel.”
- James Naremore, from the Introduction
And that’s why we come to this, the ground-breaking French study, published right at the epicenter of Film Noir, in 1955. The analysis offered by Borde and Chaumeton goes right to the heart of what makes these movies uniquely influential. A quick rundown of their list may be best to start with. The central themes, and their examples:
• gangster & brutalism : “The Killers” “Asphalt Jungle”
• mistaken identity : “Shadow Of A Doubt”
• planned crime, caper : “Rififi”
• the thinking cop, policier : “Naked City” “Quai des Ofevres”
• pathology, criminal psychology : “Strangers On A Train”
• hunted man on the run : “Dark Passage”
• tormentor & prey : “Sorry Wrong Number”
• ticket to the underworld : “The Big Sleep” “The Third Man”
• moral corruption, dirty money : “Night And The City”
• femme fatale : “Lady From Shanghai” “The Postman Always Rings Twice” “Maltese Falcon”
The era that is covered in depth is mostly 1945 through 1953, and Borde & Chaumeton make the case that noir is or may be over, in their estimation, by 1955. Little did they know that the half-life would be almost impossible to calculate. Their visionary theory, though, was that the Noir sensibility invades other narrative genres, as time goes on; in this they were absolutely correct.
Noir was certainly well established before the Second World War, but B&C note that there was a period of absence, or gestation, maybe, as this style of film went undercover in the war years. The ‘anti-social’ aspect of the noir conception was perhaps not acceptable in a world already under fire. Quarantined by mutual agreement to the kind of period suspense of something like “Gaslight” during the war years, the end of hostilities released the noir concept in the postwar years, in all of its wrenching, contemporary potential. To an audience that was sobered and more accustomed to grim reality than five years before. The atmosphere critical to the genre— uncertain motive, coincidence, dread, suspicion, treachery, ambivalence and paranoia-- was finally allowed to take the stage without any conflict with wartime propaganda considerations.
Before the war, the influence of the German Expressionist film (Murnau, Lang) was evident; as the postwar period took shape, world cinema was entranced with the gritty truths of Neo-Realism, and it is safe to assert that Noir was an unsung influence in both catalogues. A pillar of world noir is Luchino Visconti’s “Ossessione”, made from the same James M. Cain novel as “Postman Always Rings Twice”. The new, cold-blooded frisson of strange intrigues emerging directly from the evil in man himself-- or woman-- ran counter to the Hollywooden scheme of mixed up kids involved in high jinks. Happy endings were now recognizably pre-war and defunct.
The Noir atmosphere is not really a whodunit situation, but set within the criminal milieu itself; or at very least in the imagination of a man or woman considering criminal options. It is not a cop story looking to find the villain, but the suspense of a practical soul drawn to evil by his own worst angels. Informers, deception, blackmail, malaise, and desperation are regulars in this environment. For audiences, the films are a trip to forbidden worlds, where eroticism, sin, and morbid curiosity take hold. And there again we have the markers of Neo-Realism as well. But there is something delightfully taboo about the ambiguity of the noir world, where the rules are changed behind the scenes, and the innocent man may find himself holding the bloody knife as dawn breaks.
For the romance aspect, there is raw sensuality in characters stripped to their last desperate hopes, living for sensation alone; there is tension and the anticipation of (unlikely) release. And a dark erotic charge to the idea that the woman you hold in your arms may be a murderer, maybe your murderer, unknown and completely untrustworthy.
Borde and Chaumeton rightly focus on the disappearance of psychological bearings in the Noirs, the way a dream state is lived by the innocent in the underworld, and the ability of the films to induce that feeling in the audience. Their contention that the root of Noir is in the uncanny, the quality of strangeness and oneirism-- maybe found on a foggy night tracking a veiled woman through the narrow lanes in the Hollywood Hills-- is on target. Uncertainty and strangeness, the unreliability of any ground rules, mean that what is right and logical in the first act will almost certainly be meaningless in the second. It is the love song of the coldwar existentialist, and only anti-heroes need apply.
- James Naremore, from the Introduction
And that’s why we come to this, the ground-breaking French study, published right at the epicenter of Film Noir, in 1955. The analysis offered by Borde and Chaumeton goes right to the heart of what makes these movies uniquely influential. A quick rundown of their list may be best to start with. The central themes, and their examples:
• gangster & brutalism : “The Killers” “Asphalt Jungle”
• mistaken identity : “Shadow Of A Doubt”
• planned crime, caper : “Rififi”
• the thinking cop, policier : “Naked City” “Quai des Ofevres”
• pathology, criminal psychology : “Strangers On A Train”
• hunted man on the run : “Dark Passage”
• tormentor & prey : “Sorry Wrong Number”
• ticket to the underworld : “The Big Sleep” “The Third Man”
• moral corruption, dirty money : “Night And The City”
• femme fatale : “Lady From Shanghai” “The Postman Always Rings Twice” “Maltese Falcon”
The era that is covered in depth is mostly 1945 through 1953, and Borde & Chaumeton make the case that noir is or may be over, in their estimation, by 1955. Little did they know that the half-life would be almost impossible to calculate. Their visionary theory, though, was that the Noir sensibility invades other narrative genres, as time goes on; in this they were absolutely correct.
Noir was certainly well established before the Second World War, but B&C note that there was a period of absence, or gestation, maybe, as this style of film went undercover in the war years. The ‘anti-social’ aspect of the noir conception was perhaps not acceptable in a world already under fire. Quarantined by mutual agreement to the kind of period suspense of something like “Gaslight” during the war years, the end of hostilities released the noir concept in the postwar years, in all of its wrenching, contemporary potential. To an audience that was sobered and more accustomed to grim reality than five years before. The atmosphere critical to the genre— uncertain motive, coincidence, dread, suspicion, treachery, ambivalence and paranoia-- was finally allowed to take the stage without any conflict with wartime propaganda considerations.
Before the war, the influence of the German Expressionist film (Murnau, Lang) was evident; as the postwar period took shape, world cinema was entranced with the gritty truths of Neo-Realism, and it is safe to assert that Noir was an unsung influence in both catalogues. A pillar of world noir is Luchino Visconti’s “Ossessione”, made from the same James M. Cain novel as “Postman Always Rings Twice”. The new, cold-blooded frisson of strange intrigues emerging directly from the evil in man himself-- or woman-- ran counter to the Hollywooden scheme of mixed up kids involved in high jinks. Happy endings were now recognizably pre-war and defunct.
The Noir atmosphere is not really a whodunit situation, but set within the criminal milieu itself; or at very least in the imagination of a man or woman considering criminal options. It is not a cop story looking to find the villain, but the suspense of a practical soul drawn to evil by his own worst angels. Informers, deception, blackmail, malaise, and desperation are regulars in this environment. For audiences, the films are a trip to forbidden worlds, where eroticism, sin, and morbid curiosity take hold. And there again we have the markers of Neo-Realism as well. But there is something delightfully taboo about the ambiguity of the noir world, where the rules are changed behind the scenes, and the innocent man may find himself holding the bloody knife as dawn breaks.
For the romance aspect, there is raw sensuality in characters stripped to their last desperate hopes, living for sensation alone; there is tension and the anticipation of (unlikely) release. And a dark erotic charge to the idea that the woman you hold in your arms may be a murderer, maybe your murderer, unknown and completely untrustworthy.
Borde and Chaumeton rightly focus on the disappearance of psychological bearings in the Noirs, the way a dream state is lived by the innocent in the underworld, and the ability of the films to induce that feeling in the audience. Their contention that the root of Noir is in the uncanny, the quality of strangeness and oneirism-- maybe found on a foggy night tracking a veiled woman through the narrow lanes in the Hollywood Hills-- is on target. Uncertainty and strangeness, the unreliability of any ground rules, mean that what is right and logical in the first act will almost certainly be meaningless in the second. It is the love song of the coldwar existentialist, and only anti-heroes need apply.
December 8, 2018
3,5/5. Impossible de l'apprécier sans le placer dans son contexte. Il a vieilli, mais il se porte bien.
February 23, 2017
4.5 stars - You probably won't agree with every word, but you must read it. Originally published in French in 1955, it's amazing how much the authors were able to understand about film noir from a time when film noir was still going on. Essential reading for all film noir fans.
April 7, 2022
Surveys of the history of Film Noir almost can’t help but be interesting. Noir is so loosely defined, and the films themselves are often so full of questions and provocations rather than simple morals, the subject never gets closed.
This book dates back to the France of 1955, just after the “end” of the Noir era in America and, as I understand, is the first book-length treatment of the subject. The tone is some mix of film critic style and a bit of academic style. That’s kind of in keeping with the subject matter, which is interesting in itself. Noir has always been kind of a high brow/low brow thing, pulp art.
Right off the bat the authors offer a kind of definition of Film Noir: “the state of tension created in the spectators by the disappearance of their psychological bearings. The vocation of film noir has been to create a specific sense of malaise.” As a definition, or maybe better, a characterization, of the genre, that resonates with me — that feeling that you are sinking into a discomfort, a situation that lies somewhere between anxiety and fatalism.
They also offer five characteristic attributes of Film Noir: “oneiric” (or dreamlike), strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel. I don’t think these are to be read as all necessary for something to qualify as Noir, and, for that matter, those first two — oneiric and strange seem dominant both in the authors’ discussions of particular films and in my own impressions.
There is a kind of suspension of the normal when you enter one of these movies. The norms of moral behavior, the norms of resistance to temptation, and also, I think, a tension in the normal consequences and connections among actions and events — a tension that keeps you engaged. Does conscience matter? How long can the character sustain this state of mind or state of affairs? When will everything crash down?
That tension is, for me as a fan anyway, one of the things that keeps bringing me back, even when I know what is going to happen. The unfolding of a fate. The flaws, character flaws, moral flaws, flaws of life-plans and crime-plans.
Think about Double Indemnity, certainly a paradigm of Film Noir. We KNOW this isn’t going to work. If you can’t see it intellectually, you can feel it in the tension of the characters, or in the certainty of Edward G. Robinson as the examiner. It’s just NOT going to work, we know it, and the plot will tell us, bit by excruciating bit, HOW it won’t work out. Noirs aren’t mysteries (for the largest part anyway). It isn’t about figuring out the puzzle — it’s about watching it all come together and fall apart, often just as it has to.
The authors take as central the task of telling the story of where Noir comes from — psychologically, sociologically, historically, and as a matter of art. I think their strongest accounts blend the sociological and the historical. World War II, its end, and the distance at which America experienced the war culturally despite the direct participation and sacrifices. Noir came only later to Europe.
Artistically, the authors point to the influence of German Expressionism, and also to the gangster and crime movies of the 1920s and 30s. And of course, there were the noir novels that predated the movies.
Intellectually, the place of psychoanalysis in American culture, particularly within the arts community, is properly pointed to as critical. That tension I was talking about is first and foremost a psychological tension — guilt, temptation, the push and pull of the norm, . . . And of course there are explicitly psychological and psychoanalytical plots — Gaslight, or even more explicitly, The Snakepit.
Often the stories are even told from the psychological standpoint of the bad guys (or women), so that we can crawl inside and feel how their minds work.
I think this is part of what make Noir so interesting. Its characters have a psychological complexity, often bound up with temptation. There is realism there, and food for thought about your own motives and behavior (hopefully on a less extreme scale). Few people are invulnerable to temptation or to overcooked emotions and ambitions. These are the people who gave in and restrained their better angels. These are the people we don’t want to be, and the events we don’t want to be part of.
As the authors say, “In the last analysis, the psychosocial substance of the series [or genre] is perhaps its most original and most solid contribution.”
If I were to fault the authors for one thing in their account, it would be their relative scant attention to the influence of the Hays Code on the content and style of the movies. The intersection of the Hays Code with the desire to show the corrupt, seamy, violent, and dishonest side of life seems to result, maybe not by design, in an interesting moral depiction — the weight of guilt, the frustration of plans that rely on deception and dishonesty, etc. The bad guys have to lose, by the Code, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting and even ingenious losers. The restrictions of the Code itself seem to contribute to the dramatic tension.
Well, I’ll also fault them for insufficient attention to the misogyny that may not be as consistent a theme as some of the others the authors mention, but is certainly rampant. Women are so often relegated to “girlfriends” or “wives,” or femmes fatales. Women are routinely abused, ignored, or treated by men as in their way. The femme fatale character is certainly interesting and is where cleverness can live in the genre’s female characters. But finding the good kind of cleverness, or even a depth of moral substance, in the female characters is unfortunately harder.
Okay, once we go down that road, we will have to talk also about race — again largely, although with exception, non-white characters are relegated to stereotypical or minor roles in the movies. This is the the 1940s and 1950s. Film Noir didn’t do a great job at breaking down barriers.
As a final chapter, the authors provide what they call a “balance sheet.” Included there is an interesting speculation on why Noir faded in the 1950s. “The series [genre] has died due to a crisis in the subject: Uninteresting strangeness or police realism: the series has been unable to escape this dilemma.” They believe that, as the genre evolved, it fell between those two poles of realism and a strangeness that had run its course, with documentary style police stories (e.g., The Naked City) pulling away from the strangeness, the unreality, of classic Film Noir.
I think there may also be an inherent limit to strangeness, at least in the context of Noir plots. Strangeness, with repetition, becomes a norm itself, the standard that the movies need to somehow rebel against and embrace at the same time.
For my own balance sheet: Does the book help me to understand the movies more deeply, and does it inspire me to rewatch movies I have seen, because I want to see more deeply into them? Definitely.
This book dates back to the France of 1955, just after the “end” of the Noir era in America and, as I understand, is the first book-length treatment of the subject. The tone is some mix of film critic style and a bit of academic style. That’s kind of in keeping with the subject matter, which is interesting in itself. Noir has always been kind of a high brow/low brow thing, pulp art.
Right off the bat the authors offer a kind of definition of Film Noir: “the state of tension created in the spectators by the disappearance of their psychological bearings. The vocation of film noir has been to create a specific sense of malaise.” As a definition, or maybe better, a characterization, of the genre, that resonates with me — that feeling that you are sinking into a discomfort, a situation that lies somewhere between anxiety and fatalism.
They also offer five characteristic attributes of Film Noir: “oneiric” (or dreamlike), strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel. I don’t think these are to be read as all necessary for something to qualify as Noir, and, for that matter, those first two — oneiric and strange seem dominant both in the authors’ discussions of particular films and in my own impressions.
There is a kind of suspension of the normal when you enter one of these movies. The norms of moral behavior, the norms of resistance to temptation, and also, I think, a tension in the normal consequences and connections among actions and events — a tension that keeps you engaged. Does conscience matter? How long can the character sustain this state of mind or state of affairs? When will everything crash down?
That tension is, for me as a fan anyway, one of the things that keeps bringing me back, even when I know what is going to happen. The unfolding of a fate. The flaws, character flaws, moral flaws, flaws of life-plans and crime-plans.
Think about Double Indemnity, certainly a paradigm of Film Noir. We KNOW this isn’t going to work. If you can’t see it intellectually, you can feel it in the tension of the characters, or in the certainty of Edward G. Robinson as the examiner. It’s just NOT going to work, we know it, and the plot will tell us, bit by excruciating bit, HOW it won’t work out. Noirs aren’t mysteries (for the largest part anyway). It isn’t about figuring out the puzzle — it’s about watching it all come together and fall apart, often just as it has to.
The authors take as central the task of telling the story of where Noir comes from — psychologically, sociologically, historically, and as a matter of art. I think their strongest accounts blend the sociological and the historical. World War II, its end, and the distance at which America experienced the war culturally despite the direct participation and sacrifices. Noir came only later to Europe.
Artistically, the authors point to the influence of German Expressionism, and also to the gangster and crime movies of the 1920s and 30s. And of course, there were the noir novels that predated the movies.
Intellectually, the place of psychoanalysis in American culture, particularly within the arts community, is properly pointed to as critical. That tension I was talking about is first and foremost a psychological tension — guilt, temptation, the push and pull of the norm, . . . And of course there are explicitly psychological and psychoanalytical plots — Gaslight, or even more explicitly, The Snakepit.
Often the stories are even told from the psychological standpoint of the bad guys (or women), so that we can crawl inside and feel how their minds work.
I think this is part of what make Noir so interesting. Its characters have a psychological complexity, often bound up with temptation. There is realism there, and food for thought about your own motives and behavior (hopefully on a less extreme scale). Few people are invulnerable to temptation or to overcooked emotions and ambitions. These are the people who gave in and restrained their better angels. These are the people we don’t want to be, and the events we don’t want to be part of.
As the authors say, “In the last analysis, the psychosocial substance of the series [or genre] is perhaps its most original and most solid contribution.”
If I were to fault the authors for one thing in their account, it would be their relative scant attention to the influence of the Hays Code on the content and style of the movies. The intersection of the Hays Code with the desire to show the corrupt, seamy, violent, and dishonest side of life seems to result, maybe not by design, in an interesting moral depiction — the weight of guilt, the frustration of plans that rely on deception and dishonesty, etc. The bad guys have to lose, by the Code, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be interesting and even ingenious losers. The restrictions of the Code itself seem to contribute to the dramatic tension.
Well, I’ll also fault them for insufficient attention to the misogyny that may not be as consistent a theme as some of the others the authors mention, but is certainly rampant. Women are so often relegated to “girlfriends” or “wives,” or femmes fatales. Women are routinely abused, ignored, or treated by men as in their way. The femme fatale character is certainly interesting and is where cleverness can live in the genre’s female characters. But finding the good kind of cleverness, or even a depth of moral substance, in the female characters is unfortunately harder.
Okay, once we go down that road, we will have to talk also about race — again largely, although with exception, non-white characters are relegated to stereotypical or minor roles in the movies. This is the the 1940s and 1950s. Film Noir didn’t do a great job at breaking down barriers.
As a final chapter, the authors provide what they call a “balance sheet.” Included there is an interesting speculation on why Noir faded in the 1950s. “The series [genre] has died due to a crisis in the subject: Uninteresting strangeness or police realism: the series has been unable to escape this dilemma.” They believe that, as the genre evolved, it fell between those two poles of realism and a strangeness that had run its course, with documentary style police stories (e.g., The Naked City) pulling away from the strangeness, the unreality, of classic Film Noir.
I think there may also be an inherent limit to strangeness, at least in the context of Noir plots. Strangeness, with repetition, becomes a norm itself, the standard that the movies need to somehow rebel against and embrace at the same time.
For my own balance sheet: Does the book help me to understand the movies more deeply, and does it inspire me to rewatch movies I have seen, because I want to see more deeply into them? Definitely.
May 5, 2010
When I was very small, my mom and dad went to the movies quite often. Lacking a babysitter and the will to find one, they packed me along. That was in the late '40s, the heyday of film noir, so I like to imagine my toddlerhood filled with doomed and double-crossed lovers, intrigue, and murder. When I was a teenager, I would stay up late for television's noir offerings, while my friends were watching Gidget movies. I saw Chinatown during its opening run and wanted the experience to never end. Written in 1955, and so far as I could tell unsullied by updating, A Panorama of American Film Noir is a treasure trove of what is obviously my favorite kind of film.
So, it is no wonder that I devoured this book. In addition, and more importantly, it is well written (or perhaps more appropriately, well translated) and presents some interesting analysis. I admit that the chapter of French film noir wasn't particularly enlightening - but I also admit to knowing almost nothing of French films of any sort. I am glad I own this book: I made my summer movie list on its front page!
So, it is no wonder that I devoured this book. In addition, and more importantly, it is well written (or perhaps more appropriately, well translated) and presents some interesting analysis. I admit that the chapter of French film noir wasn't particularly enlightening - but I also admit to knowing almost nothing of French films of any sort. I am glad I own this book: I made my summer movie list on its front page!
December 30, 2010
This book is billed as an important study of film noir. Not a bad book. I found some of the discussions of the individual films of interest and definitely opinionated. I'm not sure I agree with their end date for the film noir period. Also, their postscript assessment of SERPICO doesn't accord with mine--it was a great film. Extensive listings of film noirs are included, too. So, if you want a different take, you might like reading some parts.
February 2, 2008
It takes great friends who live far away to appreciate one's culture. The French re-visited American cinema of the 40's and 50's and realized that there was a running theme throught the work. Fear, dread, crime, and insanity among other things. With a Surrrealist twist, these works are considered classics (and rightfully so) via the eyes of a pair of Parisians.
December 10, 2015
A terrific resource with some excellent general commentary on films noir. Parts in the middle occasionally feel like mere recitations of favorite moments in various films, but keeping in mind the resources available in the 50s to critics writing surveys of film genres, this book was an amazing achievement. Predictions about where film noir's influence will go from there are scary prescient.
December 27, 2007
Yet again, one of the best things that happened to American film is French film criticism. Thanks, France, for reminding us about the coolness of film noir.
April 23, 2023
Raymond Borde, a Frenchman, has written an insightful and cogent analysis of Film Noir during the Classic Period. Focusing on a twelve year period, he discusses the first example, The Maltese Falcon, and advances up through 1953. Movies such as Gilda, The Big Sleep, The Lady of Shanghai and The Big Heat are covered in-depth. This is the first book published on Film Noir. The French admired the genre and perhaps discovered the mainly American films. There were British examples, for instance, Brighton Rock and The Third Man. Several of the directors in the U.S. were European men, eg. Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak and Otto Preminger. Lang had done German Expressionism and the proto Noir, M. It's debatable whether or not Noir is a genre or a style, kind of an approach to directing. Surrealism had an early influence. Much of the sequences are dreamlike and the atmospheres are spooky. Characters tend to be ambivalent and cruel. The femme fatale is a prevalent character. Eroticism and sadism are discussed. Recommended for anyone interested in the history of film and American culture.
May 13, 2024
Essential text defining film noir from French film critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton originally written in the 50s. This edition has an updated afterword from the authors on the state of noir in the 1970s.
At any rate, an enjoyable overview and attempt to define noir which would inform future film conversations going forward.
I have to laugh at the notion that classic era noir ended in 1953 as observed by the authors (it was written in 1955 to be fair), but the classic era would have plenty of life left in it up until 1959 or 1960 depending on who you ask.
Anyways worth the read if you’re a noirista.
At any rate, an enjoyable overview and attempt to define noir which would inform future film conversations going forward.
I have to laugh at the notion that classic era noir ended in 1953 as observed by the authors (it was written in 1955 to be fair), but the classic era would have plenty of life left in it up until 1959 or 1960 depending on who you ask.
Anyways worth the read if you’re a noirista.
March 2, 2017
This foundational text is largely responsible for popularizing the term FILM NOIR to describe a "series" of films like THE MALTESE FALCON, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE BIG SLEEP, LAURA, and KISS ME DEADLY. Though some of the films they single out (like THE ENFORCER and GILDA) don't have as strong a reputation today, and despite omitting mentions of newly rediscovered classics (such as DETOUR and D.O.A.), this is still a great and important read.
December 13, 2021
My first entry for a "film" category, though i have never been too crazy about books about movies (just watch them, right?), still- this one breaks through and is necessary. Classic- older, French book - stands out for me at least in part due to the great enthusiasm for the genre that the authors evince. That is enough for me to relish this read- add to that lots of great background, obviously and context. I am using it to make up a list of must see titles.
March 8, 2020
Really great, fun affective French approach to categorizing genre. Sometimes I feel only French critics should write about American cinema.
May 11, 2015
This was the first critical work on film noir and essentially defined the genre and you don't have to get far into the book to start seeing the debt that all subsequent writers on the topic owe to Borde and Chaumeton. At one point they even create the skeleton for future critics and the current bibliography on film noir sees that skeleton fully muscled and fleshed out. And all you have to do is go to page 152 and see the challenge that Tarrentino picked up and delivered on with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
Borde and Chaumeton were purists. They defined a narrow definition of noir and stuck to it. They accepted that Hollywood, then as now, will quickly destroy any new style with excessive imitation. So, although they discuss hundreds of movies, only 21 fit in their definition of film noir. The rest have noir aspects but fall into other categories. They make an important point: "Often a noir detail in a non-noir film is simply due to realist orientation."
If I were to start a study of film noir from scratch this book would be the starting point; and then let everything spiral out from there. As it is, I'm finally reading it now after having read many of its progeny and seeing it referenced over and over. A seminal work that deserves its reputation.
Borde and Chaumeton were purists. They defined a narrow definition of noir and stuck to it. They accepted that Hollywood, then as now, will quickly destroy any new style with excessive imitation. So, although they discuss hundreds of movies, only 21 fit in their definition of film noir. The rest have noir aspects but fall into other categories. They make an important point: "Often a noir detail in a non-noir film is simply due to realist orientation."
If I were to start a study of film noir from scratch this book would be the starting point; and then let everything spiral out from there. As it is, I'm finally reading it now after having read many of its progeny and seeing it referenced over and over. A seminal work that deserves its reputation.
June 20, 2010
An interesting look at film noir, written from the perspective of 1955. The authors were some of the first to define what has now become a well-known, easily recognizable gnere. But at the time, this wasn't the case.
I only reccommend this to someone who is a major fan of film noir, otherwise it will most likely be tedious and you'll never finish it.
I only reccommend this to someone who is a major fan of film noir, otherwise it will most likely be tedious and you'll never finish it.
February 9, 2010
Almost 60 years old, this book still invigorates the definition of noir style. This edition is a solid translation from the French which, despite some slight awkwardness, conveys well the Gallic sensibilities that brought a nebulous form into sharp focus for the American audience.
January 14, 2010
Essential reading for noir fans
February 17, 2016
Wow, what a book! A phenomenal critique of American art and culture. A must for all film noir enthusiasts.
January 8, 2017
Still the best book on Film Noir and the oldest.
Read
September 1, 2018Great Filmography at the end.
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