Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-noir (Limelight) - Softcover

Hirsch, Foster

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879102888 ISBN 13: 9780879102883

Publisher: LIMELIGHT, 1999

Synopsis

"Detours and Lost Highways begins with the Orson Welles film, Touch of Evil (1958), which featured Welles both behind and in front of the camera. That movie is often cited as the end of the line, noir's rococo tombstone...the film after which noir could no longer be made, or at least could no longer be made in the same way... It is my belief, Hirsch writes, that neo-noir does exist and that noir is entitled to full generic status. Over the past forty years, since noir's often-claimed expiration, it has flourished under various labels. Among the movies he discusses as evidence: Chinatown (1974), Body Heat (1981), John Woo's Hong Kong blood-ballets (e.g., The Killer, 1989) and the pulpy oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino." - Washington Post Book World

About this title

Synopsis:

Noir 'lives', but like any genre that endures, it has had to continually reinvent itself. While its defining subjects -- violence, sex, greed, loss of innocence -- remain as do its dominant character types -- the femme fatale, her vulnerable male victim and the private eye burdened with his own code of honour -- these ingredients have been blended in strikingly new ways. Charting these ways is what Foster Hirsch accomplishes so brilliantly in this enlightening and entertaining book. He demonstrates how neo-noir has reflected changes in contemporary life from film technology to social values. Restlessly mobile camerawork, multi-layered soundtracks and lush colours now work to create dark stories that tell of growing cynicism about government, distrust of the press, tensions in gender politics and race relations. The text is illustrated with over 100 seductive, visually exciting stills. In words and pictures he enrichingly explores a landscape that now seems an indestructible part of the American cultural scene.

About this edition

• Publisher: LIMELIGHT
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0879102888
• ISBN 13: 9780879102883
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 404