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Publishers Weekly praises this deep dive into classic noir films, noting, "Cinephiles will be enthralled." Booklist calls it a "riveting history of the film noir genre" in a starred review, saying, "This is one of the best, best written, most insightful analyses of film noir, and it demands to be read by fans of film history."
List of contents
INTRODUCTION TO NOIR FILM
PART I. NOIR DETECTIVE FILMSCHAPTER 1. THE FILM NOIR DETECTIVE:
Maltese Falcon (1941)
CHAPTER 2. THE FILM NOIR DETECTIVE:
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
CHAPTER 3. THE NEO-NOIR DETECTIVE:
Chinatown (1974)
CHAPTER 4. THE NEO-NOIR DETECTIVE:
Blue Velvet (1986)
CHAPTER 5. THE REVISIONARY NOIR DETECTIVE:
Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
CHAPTER 6. THE REVISIONARY NOIR DETECTIVE:
Inherent Vice (2014)
CHAPTER 7. THE REVISIONARY NOIR DETECTIVE:
Under the Silver Lake (2018)
PART II. THE NOIR FILM LOST MANCHAPTER 8. THE FILM NOIR LOST MAN:
Detour (1945)
CHAPTER 9. THE FILM NOIR LOST MAN:
Out of the Past (1947)
CHAPTER 10. THE NEO-NOIR LOST MAN:
After Dark, My Sweet (1990)
CHAPTER 11. THE NEO-NOIR LOST MAN:
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
CHAPTER 12
. THE REVISIONARY NOIR LOST MAN:
The Killer Inside Me (2010)
CHAPTER 13. THE REVISIONARY NOIR LOST MAN:
You Were Never Really Here (2017)
CHAPTER 14. THE REVISIONARY NOIR LOST MAN:
Uncut Gems (2019)
PART III. WOMAN IN NOIR FILMCHAPTER 15.
WOMEN IN FILM NOIR:
Double Indemnity (1944)
CHAPTER 16. WOMEN IN FILM NOIR:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
CHAPTER 17. WOMEN IN NEO-NOIR:
Body Heat (1981)
CHAPTER 18. WOMEN IN NEO-NOIR:
The Last Seduction (1994)
CHAPTER 19. WOMEN IN REVISIONARY NOIR:
Basic Instinct (1992)
CHAPTER 20. WOMEN IN REVISIONARY NOIR:
Gone Girl (2014)
CHAPTER 21. WOMEN IN REVISIONARY NOIR:
Promising Young Woman (2020)
CONCLUSION
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About the author
M. Keith Booker is the author or editor of over sixty books including Mad Men
: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016),
Tony Soprano's America: Gangsters, Guns, and Money (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), Star Trek
: A Cultural History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and
The Coen Brothers' America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). He is professor of English at the University of Arkansas.
