CoursesFN

American Noir: Novels and Films of the Mid 20th Century

Course tutor:

Dr. Arthur M. Fried

Course discipline:

English

Course description:

A study of important trends and works of American crime fiction and film noir in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and beyond. We will read a series of novels from that period, and then view films adaptations of the same work.

Course date:

Monday, January 31, 2005 through Friday, May 20, 2005

Course goals:

1. To read a sampling of the best American crime novels of the mid-20th century. 2. To view outstanding examples of film noir from the same period and beyond. 3. To learn about the major creators of crime fiction and film noir. 4. To examine what is lost and what is gained when crime novels are adapted into film. 5. To examine how social, political and economic conditions of the day shape the outlooks and content of artists working in the various media of film narrative.

Reading:

Andrew Spicer, Film Noir (Longmans/Pearson, 2002); and Hammett's "Nightmare Town", Hemingway's "The Killers", Gresham's Nightmare Alley, Anderson's Thieves Like Us, McCoy's They Shoot Horse, Don't They?, James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock, Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, Jim Thomson's The Killer Inside Me and David Goodis's Down There (most of these in Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 1940s, Robert Polito, editor, (Library of America, 1997) and Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s, Robert Polito, editor, (Library of America, 1997)

Films:

The Set-Up, Gun Crazy, The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Thieves Like Us, The Big Clock, Nightmare Alley, Detour, The Killer Inside Me, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley's Game, Shoot the Piano Player, The Third Man, The Killers

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY ~ The Noir Thriller from 1930 to 'the Near Future'

Course tutor: Lee Horsley

Additional Course Material for students taking 'The Noir Thriller' as a CLS Module

Course description: This course is part of Lancaster's MA in Contemporary Literaray Studies. The module will cover both British and American thrillers, focusing on the politics and poetics of noir. Novels and films will be discussed in relation to their historical contexts (Britain’s entry into World War II, Cold War America, &c.) and in relation to the shared characteristics (motifs, moods, protagonists, narrative techniques) of ‘hard-boiled’ crime fiction and film noir. Background reading will range from the French criticism which first labelled films noirs to -e.g. - more recent theorisations of the subversive, transgressive nature of noir, studies of the ideological function of crime fiction, feminist and psychoanalytic readings, and analyses of the cross-fertilisation of ‘tough’ thrillers and science fiction.

Schedule and syllabus: Each seminar will combine the showing of a film with discussion of both the set text and the film:

1.   Origins: Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1930); Stranger on the Third
Floor (d. Ingster, 1940)

2.   Fatal Women, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (1940); Double Indemnity (d. Wilder, 1944)

3.   British Noir, 30s-40s: Graham Greene, Confidential Agent (1939); The Third Man (d. Reed, 1949)

4.   Masculinity in Crisis: David Goodis, Shoot the Piano Player (1956); Out of the Past (d. Tourneur, 1947)

5. Psychoanalysis and Noir: Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me (1952); Dark Mirror (d. Siodmak, 1946)

6.   Friendly Psychopaths: Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley (1955); Strangers on a Train (d. Hitchcock, 1951)

7.   Devouring Ambition: Iain Banks, Complicity (1993); American Psycho (d. Harron, 2000)

8.   Black Noir: Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem (1957); Devil in a Blue Dress (d. Franklin, 1995)

9.   Female Noir: Susanna Moore, In the Cut (1995); Blue Steel (d. Bigelow, 1990)

10. The Near Future: William Gibson, Virtual Light (1993); Twelve Monkeys (d. Gilliam, 1996)

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