Film Noir Reader

Rating:
Summary: An Essential Film Noir Reference
Review: Barring an English translation of Borde and Chaumeton's seminal Panorama du Film Noir Américain, this collection may well be the most valuable Film Noir reference available. It gathers nearly all the most important essays and articles of the last 40 years, including the introduction to the above-mentioned work by Borde and Chaumeton, Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir", Raymond Durgnat's "Family Tree of Film Noir" and Higham and Greenberg's "Black Cinema" chapter from Hollywood in The Forties. The collection is exceptionally valuable, if rather poorly edited; I wouldn't suggest throwing out one's original, dog-eared copies of the items mentioned above. The book also suffers from a difficult-to-read sans serif typeface. Still, you're unlikely to find all these valuable articles together in any other book. That alone makes it a valuable buy.

Rating:
Summary: Lightning Strikes Twice
Review: Film Noir Reader 2 is as interesting as its forerunner. Not every article is great, but there is a lot of interest here.

The book opens with film writings from the Forties that show that while Americans did not coin the term film noir, some writers did notice a trend developing.

There are interesting articles on Cornell Woolrich, Sam Fuller and noir and painting. The article on British Film Noir is quite fascinating.

At the end of the book is a piece by a professor who discusses how he teaches a course on film noir. So this book traces film noir from a barely discerned trend to an academic course of study. Neat.

Rating:
Summary: Lightning Strikes Twice
Review: Film Noir Reader 2 is as interesting as its forerunner. Not every article is great, but there is a lot of interest here.

The book opens with film writings from the Forties that show that while Americans did not coin the term film noir, some writers did notice a trend developing.

There are interesting articles on Cornell Woolrich, Sam Fuller and noir and painting. The article on British Film Noir is quite fascinating.

At the end of the book is a piece by a professor who discusses how he teaches a course on film noir. So this book traces film noir from a barely discerned trend to an academic course of study. Neat.

Rating:
Summary: There is a Bible for the noir religion
Review: I wasn't really expecting too much out of this book when I ordered it, and perhaps that's what made me enjoy it so much, but more likely is the fact that Silver and Ursini have put together a book that noir fans like myself can refer to as their Bible.

The book contains essays on every noir-related topic, opening with a lengthy discussion on the very definition of "film noir" (and, having argued over this point with friends many times in the past, I was glad to have some resources at my disposal). The essays are rich with geekish goodness - I have Robert Porfiro's "Existential Motifs", Todd Erickson's "Kill Me Again", Elizabeth Ward's "The Post-Noir P.I."... all bookmarked and I refer to them often.

A must-read for fans of the film noir movement.

Rating:
Summary: Not as great as I had hoped
Review: Perhaps I expected something more. The essays in this book are often repetitive and non-progressional in subject matter. The softcover version of the book has stills that are more brown and white than black and white... For my money, I am a bigger fan of Hirsch's "The dark side of the screen". It is a well thought, well researched look at noir with a cohesive structure. This all is not to say that a majority of the essays in the Reader are not helpful. Of course it is great to read Schrader's piece and some others which deal with nice specifics (how economics affected growth of B genre, lighting, etc.) but at the end of the day I feel too many of the essays are only about defining the genre (or not genre) rather than delving into other things. Also, I probably will buy more books by these authors simply because their care for noir is so true and strong...

Rating:
Summary: This is not the film noir reader vol 1
Review: The review Amazon has attached to this book refers to articles in vol 1, not volume 2.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Anthology
Review: This is a very good anthology of noir criticism. It contains three of the first assessments of noir in English, by Higham, Durgnat and Schrader right next to each other - boom, boom, boom - so one can see the criticism of noir developing before one's eyes.

The rest of the essays/arcticles are mostly very interesting. There is one on John Farrow, who is usually overlooked, so it is good to see his films grouped together and examined. The essay on Anthony Mann's noirs is quite strong, and Ursini's article on noir TV, shows such as "Peter Gunn" and "The Fugitive" is very interesting and makes one wish that there were more written on this part of TV history.

I think this would be an essential part of any noir fan's library.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Anthology
Review: This is a very good anthology of noir criticism. It contains three of the first assessments of noir in English, by Higham, Durgnat and Schrader right next to each other - boom, boom, boom - so one can see the criticism of noir developing before one's eyes.

The rest of the essays/arcticles are mostly very interesting. There is one on John Farrow, who is usually overlooked, so it is good to see his films grouped together and examined. The essay on Anthony Mann's noirs is quite strong, and Ursini's article on noir TV, shows such as "Peter Gunn" and "The Fugitive" is very interesting and makes one wish that there were more written on this part of TV history.

I think this would be an essential part of any noir fan's library.