FILM 300I - Film Noir

Institution:

Westminster College (Salt Lake City)

Subject:

Film Studies

Description:

Emerging out of the anxious American popular culture of the forties and fifties, the cycle of films subsequently dubbed "film noir" represented a lurid mix of crime, sexuality, and urban nihilism. The (usually) male heroes of noir films struggle against an indifferent if not hostile universe, against their own borderline-pathological desires, and against femmes fatales whose allure is hard to separate from the threat they represent. Made, often on the cheap, by a ragtag collection of European expatriates and renegade American directors, the films are as compelling aesthetically as they are thematically. They mix elements of German Expressionism and Existentialism with home-grown American pulp fiction. We will discuss a representative sampling of noir films, attending both to cultural matters like gender and sexuality and to the aesthetic tendencies that make film noir distinct. Possible films include Ulmer's "Detour," Tourneur's "Out of the Past," Welles's "The Lady from Shanghai," and Wilder's "Double Indemnity."

Credits:

2.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.westminstercollege.edu

Phone Number:

(801) 484-7651

Regional Accreditation:

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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