Product Description

In elegant and engaging prose, Nicholas Christopher explains how elements like the play of light and shadow, the backdrop of the city's mysterious maze, and the hero's haunting voice-over come together to produce the mood we love in film classics like Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, and Chinatown, as well as neo-noirs like Blade Runner and The Usual Suspects. His insightful analysis of more than 300 films reveals the many cultural archetypes and artistic influences that come into play, focusing on the modern psyche and all of the psychosis, anxiety, and existential dread that lurk just below our society's bright, pop-culture surface. But Somewhere in the Night does more than describe and explain the importance of a truly American art form, it pays homage to it as only a poet could. Christopher is, quite simply, the first author who has imbued a book on film noir with the style, humor, depth, and intelligence that has filled the genre and drawn to it countless fans for more than four decades.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1644315 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
When World War II segued into the Cold War and the American dream deflated a half-size, a dull-gray patina settled over cities across the U.S. As the urban landscape shifted and swelled, these changes crept into the collective psyche via the silver screen and a cinematic genre termed "film noir." Employing dramatic use of shadow, night scenes, and voice-overs--as well as frequent shots of jagged skylines, dark street corners, and hidden crannies--the style revealed the underside of American life struggling to be heard amidst the existential clamor in the streets. In Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City, novelist and poet Nicholas Christopher uses the city as a vehicle for exploring the world of film noir, treating the urban setting more like a universal character than a mere backdrop for human action. Alluding to pop culture, literature, bits of history, sociology, and, of course, countless films from the past 50 years, Christopher examines the genre and its history in an entertaining and imaginative style that flows like a seamlessly edited film.

From Library Journal
According to Christopher (Walk on the Wild Side, LJ 3/1/94), film noir exposes "the psychic labyrinth" of the postwar United States within which lurked the specters of nuclear war, communism, psychoanalysis, and wholesale urbanization. Christopher demonstrates his thesis through impressionistic readings of over 300 films, grouped around such themes as the city, money, and sexuality. A concluding chapter addresses the spate of neonoirs released during the 1980s and 1990s. While Christopher adeptly conveys the textures of noir, his study relies on historical generalizations, ignoring local differences that problematize any claims for "the American City." One could argue that genre study is predicated on generalizations, but Christopher fails to enter into sustained dialog in this respect with prior noir scholarship such as Ann E. Kaplan's Women in Film Noir (BFI, 1990. reprint) or J.P. Telotte's Voices in the Dark (Univ. of Illinois, 1989). Noir enthusiasts among the general public may cotton to the result, but specialists will likely be disappointed.?Neal Baker, Dickinson Coll. Lib., Carlisle, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Film noir has spawned empty imitations, laughable commercial products (including perfume), and some of the worst pseudoscholarly gibberish ever uttered by foolish academics. What it hasn't produced until now is a really good critical study, one that gets beyond style and camera angles to explore in some meaningful way what these oddly dark films of the 1940s and 1950s were saying about the world and about ourselves. Poet and novelist Christopher does all that and more. Defining film noir simply but effectively as "the dark mirror reflecting the dark underside of American urban life," he focuses his account on the subterranean city of the postwar atomic world, a "labyrinth of human construction" and also a "reflection of its inhabitants' inner lives." With the scene set, Christopher traces the journeys of countless noir heroes into the labyrinth of the postwar city, a journey from which, unlike their mythological predecessors, they rarely return intact. He also reflects perceptively on the objects they encounter and the places they visit along the way--telephones, cars, office buildings, nightclubs, casinos--and how these visual emblems contribute to both the symbolic and the contextual meaning of the films. Throughout, Christopher moves fluidly from the films to the real world and back again, ruminating suggestively on the appeal of film noir to psychically wounded postwar Americans and on why the genre is currently enjoying a renaissance. Most of all, though, Christopher takes us back to the films, driving us to the video store to search out Kiss Me Deadly and see it again through enlightened eyes. Bill Ott

Customer Reviews

Not Just the Usual Film Noir Suspects
This isn't the perfect book on film noir, but it is very interesting because Christopher touches on films that don't get discussed in a lot of books on film noir.

Chief among these are two Val Lewton horror films, Cat People and The Seventh Victim. It is nice to see someone discussing Lewton from a film noir perspective. Also, Christopher left me burning to see Breakdown, a 1965 film dealing with a scientist's mental crisis that he makes sound fascinating.

He also does a good job talking about more famous noirs, particularly Criss Cross, which he examines from the Dan Dureyea character's perspective. That brings a fresh approach to his discussion of this classic film noir.

This should not be anyone's first book on film noir, but it takes interesting positions and makes the reader look at things differently. Recommended for the person deeply into noir.

Elaborate Exploration of Classic Noir's Urban Jungle.
"Somewhere in the Night" is a treatise on film noir focusing on the characteristics of the post-WWII urban environment which spawned and defined the style. Novelist and poet Nicholas Christopher draws on a wider variety of sources to explain film noir than most film theorists do, including social pundits, historians, artists, and film critics. The discussion of film noir's influences goes so far beyond the traditional expressionism and post-War conditions that the connection is sometimes dubious, but always interesting. "Somewhere in the Night" almost overlooks the first 5 or so years of film noir, picking it up as the style peaks, in the mid-1940s. Each of the book's 8 chapters discusses a characteristic of the Noir City, and most include in-depth analysis of a few films that exemplify that quality. Most discussion is of classic film noir until the last chapter, which is dedicated to neo-noir. Readers will benefit from having some knowledge of film noir theory and history before embarking on this book, since the author presents an elaborate and personal picture of the social circumstances into which film noir emerged but doesn't cover the basics. "Somewhere in the Night" is a thoughtful dissertation for film noir buffs, by a film noir buff. The films mentioned below are not by any means the only films discussed, but the ones which receive exhaustive treatment.

Chapter 1, "Into the Labyrinth", introduces the reader to the literal and figurative urban labyrinth, a man-made web of treachery, which the heroes of film noir are compelled to navigate. "Out of the Past" (1947) and "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) get in-depth analysis. Chapter 2, "Night and the City", discusses how the aftermath of WWII -the fears of the nuclear age, the paranoia of the Cold War, and the disillusionment of veterans- influenced film. Chapter 3, "Postcards from the Ruins", analyses 3 films that feature Americans in devastated European cities: "Berlin Express" (1948), "The Third Man" (1949), and "Night and the City" (1950). Chapter 4, "Office Buildings and Casinos", explores the increased sense of isolation produced by technologies and the corporate "rat race", reflected in characters' gravitation to omnipresent office buildings or casinos. 3 office work films are analyzed: "Forces of Evil" (1948), "The Big Clock" (1948), and "The Blue Gardenia" (1953), as well as 4 casino films: "Dead Reckoning" (1947), "Criss Cross" (1949), and "The Shanghai Gesture" (1941), and "Gilda" (1946). Chapter 5, "Grafters, Grifters, and Tycoons", discusses money as the foundation of the noir city, manifested as artwork, gangsters, or political corruption. Films analyzed are "The Street with No Name" (1948), "T-Men" (1947), "The Set-Up" (1949), and "Caught" (1949). Chapter 6, "The Dark Mirror: Sex, Dreams, and Psychoanalysis", talks about noir's sexual obsessions, previously not depicted in film, the femme fatale, and Freudian psychoanalysis in cinema. "Gun Crazy" (1950), "Nightmare Alley" (1947), "The Accused" (1949), and "Cat People" (1942) are analyzed. Chapter 7, "Black and White in Color", talks about the symbolic use of color in color film noir, going back to 1945's "Leave Her to Heaven". Chapter 8, "Paint It Black", is about neo-noir. The failure of re-made classic noirs and the success of original material and never-before-adapted pulp novels are discussed, with analysis of "The Usual Suspects" (1995). There are 2 Selected Filmographies in the back of the book, 1940-1959 and 1960-1997, both in alphabetical, not chronological, order.

Here it is, the simple version.
This is a straight forward and simple review. I feel it would be redundant going into the detail that the other reviews (who explained the book perfectly) already did. This book changed my life. I read it as a senior in high school in a film noir class. It opened my mind up to enjoying film beyond the crappy new-age Hollywood hit list.

If you enjoy a more realistic movie: a grittier, hard-edged, unapologetic look at urban drama, then I think this book will open your eyes. It changed the way I looked at film (for the better) and I think it will for anyone else who reads it.