Origins of Film Noir
By William Hare
3/5
()
About this ebook
Origins of Film Noir takes readers on a journey exploring the early steps in the development of an exciting new genre. During the difficult days of the Great Depression of the thirties people found an escape from the realities of their own trials through reading detective fiction in popular magazines such as Black Mask. From there it was just a brief period before two famous detective authors, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, saw their work transported to the large and quickly popular world of film. Hammett's best selling novel The Maltese Falcon launched the new movement of film noir.
William Hare
Author William Hare was born and raised in Los Angeles. While in high school he worked at the Los Angeles Examiner as part of the Scholastic Sports Association, a program begun by the newspaper’s publisher William Randolph Hearst, Jr., in which high school students were trained to write and edit the Examiner’s prep sports section. Hare became the youngest journalist ever to cover a World Series game for a major metropolitan newspaper. After graduating from California State University at Northridge with a major in political science and minors in English and history, he became the youngest sports editor of a Los Angeles area daily newspaper at the Inglewood Daily News chain. In addition to covering the busy L.A. sports beat Hare also wrote feature articles on major personalities within the local movie scene. Eventually Hare would add a law degree to his educational portfolio at San Fernando Valley College of Law, where he served as editor of the law review. His varied educational studies and keen writing interest led to a career in writing within both fiction and non-fiction realms. Areas of current writing activity include international and U.S. history, film history with a film noir emphasis, and Hollywood detective noir fiction. A biographical profile of Author William Hare available both in extensive and bullet forms can be found at his blog site at www.booksbywilliam.com .
Related to Origins of Film Noir
Related ebooks
Early Film Noir: Greed, Lust and Murder Hollywood Style Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Film Noir FAQ: All That's Left to Know About Hollywood's Golden Age of Dames, Detectives and Danger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neo-noir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Film That Changed My Life: 30 Directors on Their Epiphanies in the Dark Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrian De Palma's Split-Screen: A Life in Film Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sunset Boulevard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eyes Wide Open 2014: The Year's 25 Greatest Movies (and the 5 Worst) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings100 Best Movies You've Never Seen, The Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Monster Cinema Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of the Cinematographer Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Cult Filmmakers: 50 Movie Mavericks You Need to Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American '70s Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Story of Film Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFinal Cuts: The Last Films of 50 Great Directors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Decline of Sentiment: American Film in the 1920s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSomewhere in the Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Extraordinary Image: Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and the Reimagining of Cinema Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Philosophy of Film Noir Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings27 Movies from the Dark Side: Ebert's Essentials Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitchcock's Partner in Suspense: The Life of Screenwriter Charles Bennett Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Only as Good as Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orson Welles in Focus: Texts and Contexts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Volume 2: Selected Writings and Interviews Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Film Noir: From Berlin to Sin City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Thrillers For You
The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfect Marriage: A Completely Gripping Psychological Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Only Good Indians Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Razorblade Tears: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Flight: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rock Paper Scissors: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pretty Girls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Family Upstairs: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Huntress: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sometimes I Lie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Maidens: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Whisper Man: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Housemaid Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Terminal List: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End Of Alice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Needful Things Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Turn of the Key Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The It Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Origins of Film Noir
1 rating1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The information presented herein is sound, but this small tract (I hesitate to call thirty pages a book) would have fared better with a good editor and more historical analysis. It almost feels as if the author, styling himself as an expert on film noir and its contexts, decided to write up this small tract to make money off of the many people who are either rediscovering this movement or experiencing it for the first time. While it is unfair to judge an author without knowing their full intent behind publishing, I am curious as to what else the author has to say about the art form, if anything.
1 person found this helpful
Book preview
Origins of Film Noir - William Hare
Chapter One
When it comes to compelling adventure and keeping audiences absorbed film noir has attracted attention both large and consistent. To comprehend what made this genre such a consistent winner it is productive to begin with its origins along with the factors that made it a good bet to succeed both artistically and commercially.
The roots of film noir began amid the Great Depression. Two keys embodied the genre’s swift character interaction on screen. After all, the performers were caught in the throes of difficult times and circumstances. Amid this existence was the survival instinct. A lead performer appears in a script in which he is totally surrounded. How does one surmount this tough existence and live to tell about the events that could have so easily led to destruction?
How easy it is to root for a tough leading man with the equivalent of a doctorate in philosophy in street smarts. See how easy it became for those struggling in the grips of the Great Depression to identify with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum? Bogart delivered an unforgettable line in the 1947 noir thriller Dark Passage after getting the drop on a ruthless criminal intent on stripping not only him of his money, but also his love interest in the film, his real life wife Lauren Bacall. Bogart in that world weary, man of the world, survivalist low key tone told his tormentor that he was happy to be positioned to win because it sent a signal to the citizenry that the little guy has a chance.
The essence of identifying with the reality of the Great Depression led to the second reason why film noir achieved immediate success. While on the one hand audiences could identify with the unfolding stories and dramatic renderings of the performers on screen, a paradox existed. There was human identification on the one hand and the element of escape on the other. There was