• “The Urban and the Domestic: Spaces of American Film Noir”

    Author(s):
    Sérgio Dias Branco (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    Film Studies
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Film studies
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/meqn-sm02
    Abstract:
    Urban and domestic spaces are at the core of the American film noir developed in the 1940s and 50s. The connection between such spaces and noir cannot be considered only as motivational (an association between city and crime) or protective (a separation between home and violence). The context of this genre must be considered more largely as the real as well as the imaginary universe in which its characters live. Studying films such as Double Indemnity (1944) and Gilda (1946) reveals an archaeology of film noir as an account of American spatial culture and simultaneously an imagination of it. This paper analyses the urban and domestic dimensions of these movies by briefly addressing four major topics and their connections: territory, city, habitat, and home. What emerges is a sociology of this cinema through the linking of various times and places with the darkness and restlessness of a nightmare. American noir was produced in a period of US history governed by fear. The wounds left by the Great Depression were fresh and communism was seen as a permanent menace.
    Metadata:
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    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Routledge
    Pub. Date:
    2018
    Book Title:
    New Approaches to Cinematic Spaces
    Author/Editor:
    Filipa Rosário and Iván Villarmea Álvarez
    Page Range:
    85 - 96
    ISBN:
    978-113-860-444-5
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    2 years ago
    License:
    Attribution
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