Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir

by Sheri Chinen Biesen

Overview

Challenging conventional scholarship placing the origins of film noir in postwar Hollywood, Sheri Chinen Biesen finds the genre's roots firmly planted in the political, social, and material conditions of Hollywood during the war. After Pearl Harbor, America and Hollywood experienced a sharp cultural transformation that made horror, shock, and violence not only palatable but preferable. Hard times necessitated cheaper sets, fewer lights, and fresh talent; censors as well as the movie-going public showed a new tolerance for sex and violence; and female producers experienced newfound prominence in the industry.

Biesen brings prodigious archival research, accessible prose, and imaginative insights to both well-known films noir of the wartime period--The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Double Indemnity--and others often overlooked or underrated--Scarlet Street, Ministry of Fear, Phantom Lady, and Stranger on the Third Floor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801882180
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	11/11/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Sheri Chinen Biesen is an associate professor of radio, television, and film studies at Rowan University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. The Elements of Noir Come Together
Chapter 3. Hollywood in the Aftermath of Pearl Harbor
Chapter 4. Censorship, Hard-Boiled Fiction, and Hollywood's "Red Meat" Crime Cycle
Chapter 5. Rosie the Riveter Goes to Hollywood
Chapter 6. Hyphenates and Hard-Boiled Crime
Chapter 7. Black Film, Red Meat
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

This volume stands out as one of the best and perhaps the single most essential book in English on film noir. Biesen reveals an untold part of the movement with originality, sophistication, and vitality. Her work will become a foundation for subsequent interpretation of film noir, as well as an ideal text in film, history, and cultural studies courses.
—Brian Taves, film historian, author of The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies

Brian Taves

This volume stands out as one of the best and perhaps the single most essential book in English on film noir. Biesen reveals an untold part of the movement with originality, sophistication, and vitality. Her work will become a foundation for subsequent interpretation of film noir, as well as an ideal text in film, history, and cultural studies courses.

Editorial Reviews

Biesen adds a new perspective that enhances scholarship on the subject and makes this book a must.
--Choice

Biesen's book is readable, informative and jargon free. . . Biesen uses her research into studio archives, the films' attendant publicity and the contemporary press to bring alive the wartime period of film noir and its transformation into a post-war genre for dealing with troubled veterans returning home, the coming of the Cold War, nuclear angst and the effects of McCarthyism on Hollywood and the nation at large.
--Times Literary Supplement

This text offers a compelling history of wartime Hollywood and a provocative challenge to current noir scholarship.
--Southern California Quarterly

A film noir aficionado, Biesen provides the most detailed and thoroughly researched interpretation of this era's American film noir.
--Clayton Koppes, American Historical Review

An important contribution to the history of film noir.
--Jan-Christopher Horak, Screening the Past

Ms Biesen describes too how film noir drew on societal anxieties as Americans faced fear, loss and shortages during the war and viewed ever-more-harrowing newsreel footage. 'As life on the homefront became increasingly hard-boiled, ' she writes, 'so too did American film.'
--Nina Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education

Readers will come away from Blackout with a fuller understanding of the industrial and historical contexts of wartime film noir.
--Charles Maland, Cineaste

The author is to be congratulated on producing an exemplary study in empirical film history.
--Brian Neve, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television

From the Publisher

"Biesen adds a new perspective that enhances scholarship on the subject and makes this book a must."

Choice

A film noir aficionado, Biesen provides the most detailed and thoroughly researched interpretation of this era's American film noir.

— Clayton Koppes

American Historical Review

An important contribution to the history of film noir.

— Jan-Christopher Horak

Screening the Past

Readers will come away from Blackout with a fuller understanding of the industrial and historical contexts of wartime film noir.

— Charles Maland

Cineaste

Ms Biesen describes too how film noir drew on societal anxieties as Americans faced fear, loss and shortages during the war and viewed ever-more-harrowing newsreel footage. 'As life on the homefront became increasingly hard-boiled,' she writes, 'so too did American film.'

— Nina Ayoub

Chronicle of Higher Education

This text offers a compelling history of wartime Hollywood and a provocative challenge to current noir scholarship.

Southern California Quarterly

Ms Biesen describes too how film noir drew on societal anxieties as Americans faced fear, loss and shortages during the war and viewed ever-more-harrowing newsreel footage. 'As life on the homefront became increasingly hard-boiled,' she writes, 'so too did American film.'

Chronicle of Higher Education - Nina Ayoub

Readers will come away from Blackout with a fuller understanding of the industrial and historical contexts of wartime film noir.

Cineaste - Charles Maland

A film noir aficionado, Biesen provides the most detailed and thoroughly researched interpretation of this era's American film noir.

American Historical Review - Clayton Koppes

Biesen's book is readable, informative and jargon free. . . Biesen uses her research into studio archives, the films' attendant publicity and the contemporary press to bring alive the wartime period of film noir and its transformation into a post-war genre for dealing with troubled veterans returning home, the coming of the Cold War, nuclear angst and the effects of McCarthyism on Hollywood and the nation at large.

Times Literary Supplement

The author is to be congratulated on producing an exemplary study in empirical film history.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television - Brian Neve

An important contribution to the history of film noir.

Screening the Past - Jan-Christopher Horak