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100 Film Noirs (BFI Screen Guides)

100 Film Noirs (BFI Screen Guides)
By Jim Hillier, Alastair Phillips

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Product Description

This BFI Screen Guide provides an accessible, richly-illustrated introduction to 100 key noir films, from Hollywood classics such as Double Indemnity to more recent titles such as Sin City, as well as examples from Europe, Japan, India and Mexico, together with an editorial overview of the genre and its key debates.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #309136 in Books
  • Published on: 2009-06-15
  • Released on: 2009-06-23
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 272 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

Review
'100 Film Noirs offers many insights into the history and visual grammar of the genre and provides the perfect excuse to revisit some classics and discover some forgotten masterpieces.' - PD Smith, The Guardian '100 Film Noirs has a strong international dimension and provides new and revealing insights into film noirs from France, Germany, Japan, India, Mexico and beyond' - Sight and Sound Both a treasure trove of facts and a taster for those keen to find out more about the seamier side of life...' PinkPaper.com

About the Author

Jim Hillier is Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Reading, UK. His publications include American Independent Cinema The Film Studies Dictionary and Howard Hawks: American Artist.  Alastair Phillips is Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, UK.  He is the author of Rififi and the co-editor of Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts and of Journeys of Desire: European Actors in Hollywood Cinema.

Customer Reviews

A Bright and Fresh Approach to Film Noir4
This recent guide provides an excellent introduction to film noir. It is readable and accessible, while presenting a fresh analysis of the material. One hundred films are selected that fit the criteria of the genre of film noir. The selection goes beyond the canon, of American film roughly between 1940 and 1958. There is included film from countries other than the United States, for example the UK, Brighton Rock (1947) and Spain, Death of a Cyclist (1955) and the book considers film well outside the aforementioned time boundaries, for example, Chinatown (USA) (1974), Get Carter (UK) (1971) and Collateral (USA) (2004). But the major examples are included, including films by the masters of the genre, Wilder, Lang, Siodmak, Ulmer, Preminger and Huston among many others. A very convincing case is made for the inclusion of the later and foreign material, a case that makes the reader appreciate the genre and think seriously about the themes and the methodology of film noirs. The films are described in sufficient detail for the reader to understand the plot, the studio background, the director and the major actors and fit the particular example into the genre. The selection and the understanding of the films is clearly influenced by the work of James NaremoreMore than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts.

If your own favorite example of a noir is not included in the list, the authors provide a second list of 100 films that can be considered and it is up to the reader to get hold of these and compare them. Most of this material is now readily available on DVD. This guide compares well with other recent analyses, for example Andrew Spicer's Film Noir and Ballinger and Graydon's The Rough Guide to Film Noir.

A worthwhile exposition and a very handy and accessible guide.