Download or read book Crime Films written by Thomas Leitch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-15 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys the entire range of crime films, including important subgenres such as the gangster film, the private eye film, film noir, as well as the victim film, the erotic thriller, and the crime comedy. Focusing on ten films that span the range of the twentieth century, Thomas Leitch traces the transformation of the three leading figures that are common to all crime films: the criminal, the victim and the avenger. Analyzing how each of the subgenres establishes oppositions among its ritual antagonists, he shows how the distinctions among them become blurred throughout the course of the century. This blurring, Leitch maintains, reflects and fosters a deep social ambivalence towards crime and criminals, while the criminal, victim and avenger characters effectively map the shifting relations between subgenres, such as the erotic thriller and the police film, within the larger genre of crime film that informs them all.
Download or read book Horror Noir written by Paul Meehan and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This critical survey examines the historical and thematic relationships between two of the cinema's most popular genres: horror and film noir. The influence of 1930s- and 1940s-era horror films on the development of noir is detailed, with analyses of more than 100 motion pictures in which noir criminality and mystery meld with supernatural and psychological horror. Included are the films based on popular horror/mystery radio shows (The Whistler, Inner Sanctum), the works of RKO producer Val Lewton (Cat People, The Seventh Victim), and Alfred Hitchcock's psychological ghost stories. Also discussed are gothic and costume horror noirs set in the 19th century (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hangover Square); the noir elements of more recent films; and the film noir aspects of the Hannibal Lecter movies and other serial-killer thrillers.
Download or read book Gangsters and G Men on Screen written by Gene D. Phillips and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-09-26 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the gangster film may have enjoyed its heyday in the 1930s and ’40s, it has remained a movie staple for almost as long as cinema has existed. From the early films of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson to modern versions like Bugsy, Public Enemies, and Gangster Squad, such films capture the brutality of mobs and their leaders. In Gangsters and G-Men on Screen: Crime Cinema Then and Now, Gene D. Phillips revisits some of the most popular and iconic representations of the genre. While this volume offers new perspectives on some established classics—usual suspects like Little Caesar, Bonnie and Clyde, and The Godfather Part II—Phillips also calls attention to some of the unheralded but no less worthy films and filmmakers that represent the genre. Expanding the viewer’s notion of what constitutes a gangster film, Phillips offers such unusual choices as You Only Live Once, Key Largo, The Lady from Shanghai, and even the 1949 version of The Great Gatsby. Also included in this examination are more recent ventures, such as modern classics The Grifters and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. In his analyses, Phillips draws on a number of sources, including personal interviews with directors and other artists and technicians associated with the films he discusses. Of interest to film historians and scholars, Gangsters and G-Men on Screen will also appeal to anyone who wants to better understand the films that represent an important contribution to crime cinema.
Download or read book Lawrence Tierney written by Burt Kearns and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2022-11-29 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawrence Tierney (1919–2002) was the kind of actor whose natural swagger and gruff disposition made him the perfect fit for the Hollywood "tough guy" archetype. Known for his erratic and oftentimes violent nature, Tierney drew upon his bellicose reputation throughout his career—a reputation that made him one of the most feared and mythologized characters in the industry. Born in Brooklyn to Irish American parents, Tierney worked in theater productions in New York before moving to Hollywood, where he signed with RKO Radio Pictures in 1943. His biggest roles would come in Dillinger (1945), in which he played 1930s gangster and bank robber John Dillinger, and Robert Wise's film noir classic Born to Kill (1947). Despite his natural talents, Tierney was trouble from the start, struggling with alcoholism and mental instability that emboldened him to start fights whenever and wherever he could. The continued bouts of alcohol-fueled rage, his subsequent stints in jail, and his continued attempts at rehabilitation curtailed his acting career. Unable to find work throughout much of the 1960s, he did a stint in Europe before eventually returning to New York, where he took odd jobs as a construction worker, bartender, and hansom cab driver. In the mid-1980s Tierney returned to acting. With a somewhat cooler head, he established himself again with recurring roles in shows such as Seinfeld and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He would take on his final projects as a septuagenarian in Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Armageddon (1998), where his on-set behavior would once again draw the ire of his colleagues and studio representatives. He would go down swinging just shy of his eighty-third birthday, his tough-guy image solidly intact until the end. In Lawrence Tierney: Hollywood's Real-Life Tough Guy, author Burt Kearns traces Tierney's storied life from his days as Dillinger, to his clash with Quentin Tarantino at the end of his film career, to his final public appearances. The first official biography of the late actor, the book draws on the writings of Hollywood reporters and gossip columnists who first reported on Tierney's antics, and exclusive interviews with surviving colleagues, friends, family members—and victims. Through their words and his research, Kearns paints a portrait of Tierney's brutish behavior and the industry's reaction to the pugnacious star, drawing parallels—and the line—between the man and the characters that made him a Hollywood legend.
Download or read book Darkness Calls written by Sue Short and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-09-14 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the contrasting forms neo-noir has taken on screen, asking what prompts our continued interest in tales of criminality and moral uncertainty. Neo-noir plots are both familiar and diverse, found in a host of media formats today, and now span the globe. Yet despite its apparent prevalence—and increased academic attention—many core questions remain unanswered. What has propelled noir’s appeal, half a century on after its supposed decline? What has led film-makers and series-creators to rework given tropes? What debates continue to divide critics? And why are we, as viewers, so drawn to stories that often show us at our worst? Referencing a range of films and series, citing critical work in the field—while also challenging many of the assumptions made—this book sets out to advance our understanding of a subject that has fascinated audiences and academics alike. Theories relating to gender identity and neo-noir’s tricky generic status are discussed, together with an evaluation of differing comic inflections and socio-political concerns, concluding that, although neo-noir is capable of being both progressive and reactionary, it also mobilises potentially radical questions about who we are and what we might be capable of.
Download or read book Double Indemnity written by Richard Schickel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new kind of film emerged from Hollywood in the early 1940s, thrillers that derived their plots from the hard-boiled school of crime fiction but with a style all their own. Appearing in 1944, 'Double Indemnity 'was a key film in the definition of the genre that came to be known as film noir. Its script creates two unforgettable criminal characters: the cynically manipulative Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and the likeable but amoral Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray). Billy Wilder's brilliant direction enmeshes them in chiaroscuro patterns, the bright California sun throwing shadows of venetian blinds across dusty rooms, shafts of harsh lamplight cutting through the night. Richard Schickel traces in fascinating detail the genesis of the film: its literary origins in the crime fiction of the 1930s, the difficult relations between Wilder and his scriptwriter Raymond Chandler, the casting of a reluctant Fred MacMurray, the late decision to cut from the film the expensively shot final sequence of Neff's execution. This elegantly written account, copiously illustrated, confirms a new the status of 'Double Indemnity' as an undisputed classic.
Download or read book Perdita Durango written by Barry Gifford and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bad girl Perdita Durango and her dealer boyfriend Romeo Dolorosa get their kicks on a journey from Louisiana to Los Angeles that involves santeria rituals and kidnapping.
Download or read book Southern Nights written by Barry Gifford and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God in these Southern Nights is only another possibly deranged near relative, cast in the only nonspeaking part in this human drama. Everyone else talks and talks. And it's the dialogue in these novels that makes them three of Gifford' best, reminders of the author's seemingly unlimited range and versatility, a comic-tragic genius for our time. Night People, Arise & Walk, and Baby Cat-Face stand out for their sheer velocity; for the copious, raw violence; for the invented religions and gods that make people do things; and for all the other horrors that somehow cohabit—affably—with the genuine pathos and loveliness of the many unforgettable characters and the things these characters say so winningly that we've never heard anyone say before.
Download or read book David Lynch written by Greg Olson and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2008-09-29 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly 40 years, David Lynch's works have enthralled, mystified, and provoked viewers. Lynch's films delve into the subjective consciousness of his characters to reveal both the depraved darkness and luminous spirituality of human nature. From his experimental shorts of the 1960s to feature films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and INLAND EMPIRE, Lynch has pushed the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. In David Lynch: Beautiful Dark, author Greg Olson explores the surreal intricacies of the director's unique visual and visceral style not only in his full-length films but also his early forays into painting and short films, as well as his television landmark, Twin Peaks. This in-depth exploration is the first full-length work to analyze the intimate symbiosis between Lynch's life experience and artistic expressions: from the small-town child to the teenage painter to the 60-year-old Internet and digital media experimenter. To fully delineate the director's life and art, Olson received unprecedented participation from Lynch, his parents, siblings, old school friends, romantic partners, children, and decades of professional colleagues, as well as on-set access to the director during the production of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Throughout this study, Olson provides thorough analyses of the filmmaker's works as Lynch conceived, crafted, and completed them. Consequently, David Lynch: Beautiful Dark is the definitive study of one of the most influential and idiosyncratic directors of the last four decades.
Download or read book Film Noir written by Alain Silver and published by Taschen. This book was released on 2004 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with a general overview of film noir and covering its most important themes, this illustrated handbook provides instant and in-depth access to the film noir genre. Films covered include 'Double Indemnity', 'Kiss Me Deadly', 'Gun Crazy', 'Criss Cross' and 'Detour'.
Download or read book Out of the Past written by Barry Gifford and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 1988 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Imagination of the Heart written by Barry Gifford and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Imagination of the Heart is the final chapter in the saga of Sailor Ripley and Lula Pace Fortune, the "Romeo and Juliet of the Deep South." Their story began in Barry Gifford's novel Wild at Heart, which in 1990 was made into a Palme d'Or–winning feature film by David Lynch. Following Sailor’s death at the age of sixty-five in New Orleans, Lula moved back to her home state of North Carolina. This novel begins fifteen years later when Lula, at age eighty, decides to write a memoir in diary form, reflecting on her life with Sailor while also keeping a journal describing her last road trip: a journey with Beany Thorn, her best friend since childhood, back to New Orleans. Like a contemporary book of Revelations, dutifully recorded by Lula as a dialogue between self and soul, it becomes a bittersweet, often dangerous journey into the imagination of the heart, and what may lie beyond. Also included in this edition is "The Truth is in the Work," a conversation between Barry Gifford and Noel King which delves into a range of topics, from Gifford’s early publishing experiences to his film projects and to professional sports.
Download or read book Film Noir American Workers and Postwar Hollywood written by Dennis Broe and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2009-01-25 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Film noir, which flourished in 1940s and 50s, reflected the struggles and sentiments of postwar America. Dennis Broe contends that the genre, with its emphasis on dark subject matter, paralleled the class conflict in labor and union movements that dominated the period. By following the evolution of film noir during the years following World War II, Broe illustrates how the noir figure represents labor as a whole. In the 1940s, both radicalized union members and protagonists of noir films were hunted and pursued by the law. Later, as labor unions achieve broad acceptance and respectability, the central noir figure shifts from fugitive criminal to law-abiding cop. Expanding his investigation into the Cold War and post-9/11 America, Broe extends his analysis of the ways film noir is intimately connected to labor history. A brilliant, interdisciplinary examination, this is a work that will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.
Download or read book Blue Velvet written by Michael Atkinson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many, Blue Velvet is David Lynch's masterpiece. It represents a unique act of cinema: an 80s Hollywood studio film as radical, visionary and cabalistic as anything found in the avant-garde; a mysteriously symbolic and subterranean 'cult' movie that nevertheless has recognisable stars and was broadly distributed; a genre piece with the ambience of a fearsome, hyper-composed nightmare; an American 'art film' by Hollywood's only reputable 'art film' director. Michael Atkinson's intricate and layered reading of the film shows how crystallises many of Lynch's chief preoccupations: the evil and violence underlying the surface of suburbia, the seedy by-ways of sexuality, the frightening appearance of the adult world to a child's eyes, presenting it as the definitive expression of the traumatized innocence which characterizes Lynch's work. In his afterword to this new edition, Atkinson situates Blue Velvet within a culture that has changed drastically in the 35 years since its release, and in doing so, he considers the film's lasting significance as it slowly turns from contemporary phenomenon to an interpretable artifact.
Download or read book Nightmare Movies written by Kim Newman and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 641 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now over twenty years old, the original edition ofNightmare Movies has retained its place as a true classic of cult filmcriticism. In this new edition, Kim Newman brings his seminal work completelyup to date, both reassessing his earlier evaluations and adding a second partthat analyses the last two decades of horror films with all the wit,intelligence and insight for which he is known. Since the publication of thefirst edition, horror has been on a gradual upswing and has gained a new andstronger hold over the film industry. Newman negotiates his way through a vastback catalogue of horror and charts the on-screen progress of our collectivefears and bogeymen, from the low-budget slasher movies of the 1960s, through tothe slick releases of the 2000s. Nightmare Movies is an invaluable companion that not onlyprovides a newly updated history of the darker side of film but also acts as atruly entertaining guide with which to explore the less well-trodden paths ofhorror and rediscover the classics with a newly instructed eye.
Download or read book Fearing the Dark written by Edmund G. Bansak and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2003-10-09 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943) established Val Lewton's hauntingly graceful style where suggestion was often used in place of explicit violence. His stylish B thrillers were imitated by a generation of filmmakers such as Richard Wallace, William Castle, and even Walt Disney in his animated Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). Through interviews with many of Lewton's associates (including his wife and son) and extensive research, his life and output are thoroughly examined.
Download or read book Night People written by Barry Gifford and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Wild at Heart and The Wild Life of Sailor and Lula writes of what Tennessee Williams called "something wild in the country/that only the night people know." He draws his characters from the shadows of the Deep South, where they confront the chaotic horror of the United States at the end of the twentieth century.
