The American film noir, the popular genre that focused on urban crime and corruption in the 1940s and 1950s, exhibits the greatest amount of narrative experimentation in the modern American cinema. Spurred by postwar disillusionment, cold war anxieties, and changing social circumstances, these films revealed the dark side of American life and , in doing so, created unique narrative structures in order to speak of that darkness. J.P. Telotte's in-depth discussion of classic films noir--including The Lady from Shanghai, The Lady in the Lake, Dark Passage, Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly, and Murder, My Sweet--draws on the work of Michel Foucault to examine four dominant noir narrative strategies.


About the Author
J.P. Telotte is associate profesor of English at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the author of Dreams of Darkness: Fantasy and the Films of Val Lewton.



Reviews
"Argues that film noir constitutes collectively a kind of 'curative speech' in an age of cultural alienation... A substantial contribution to our understanding of the role storytelling in popular culture." -- Choice



Book Information
ISBN 9780252060564
Author J P. Telotte
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint University of Illinois Press
Publisher University of Illinois Press
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 18mm