More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts

bourgeois and, 18, 51; satire of, 81

Middle-class audiences. See Audiences Milland, Ray, 14 (fig.)

Miller, Frank, 256, 266

Minnelli, Vincente, 198-99, 223, 301n18

Minority groups. See 'Others'; names of specific ethnic and minority groups

Miramax, 267, 270, 273

Mise-en-scene:

hard-boiled cliche, 145, 149; stylized minimalist, 118-19, 148, 249; wasteland, 75, 127, 148, 150.

See also Settings and locales, film-noir Misogyny, themes of, 152, 158, 204, 221, 226, 245, 305n14 Mitchum, Robert, 121, 189, 212, 231;

in Out of the Past, 1, 175, 176 (figs.), 178, 180 (figs.), 181 (fig.), 183 (figs.), 184- 85 (figs.), 202

Modernism: the term, 42 Modernism, literary, 64, 286n3; absorption and normalization of, 47-58, 287n16; affinity between noir and, 45, 153-54; and ambivalence toward Los Angeles, 82, 83-84, 85-86, 92; generalizations about, 41-45; and high modernism, 35-36; and mass culture, 47-48, 86; melodrama links with, 45-46, 53-54, 81; and the new woman, 43, 89, 91 (fig.); and New York, 171-72, 191; themes of cinematic, 45, 148-49, 153-54; transmission to America, 52.

See also Narrative themes, noir Modernity:

criticism of American, 35, 42, 67, 82, 86, 286n3; criticism of industrial, 88, 92-93; soulless women representing, 89, 91 (fig.), 149; of Vienna, 77 'Momism,' fear of, 133 Monroe, Marilyn, 101-2

Moore, Susanna, 255 Morality:

censorship and, 97; conventional, 264; and glamour, 74;

mass culture violations of, 101, 258; outlaw, 20;

and social class, 120-21.

See also Censorship, motion-picture; Values Morgan, Harry, 260 Morley, Karen, 107 Morton, Rocky, 299n25 Mosley, Walter, 246, 252 Motifs, film noir. See Narrative themes, noir Motion film journal, 29-30 Motion Picture Alliance, 106

Motion picture industry. See Distribution systems; Hollywood movies; Studios Moviegoing, a personal history of, 2-3.

See also Audiences Movies about movies, 267-75

MPPDA (Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America), 97, 100, 106 Ms. Tree comics, 256 MTV videos, 193 Muir, Florabel, 198

Multiple-perspective views, 24, 25, 71, 135 Mulvey, Laura, 197, 221, 264, 280n7 Murder, 18, 20, 74, 127, 152, 188-89, 191-92, 235, 272; censored scenes of, 100;

and racism, 234.

See also Killers; Violence Murnau, F. W., 47, 88, 144, 148 Music, 193;

African-American, 153, 154, 246, 253;

Deja Vu song, 194;

film scores, 1, 36, 76, 77, 147, 154, 252-53, 255;

Latin American, 231; and soundtrack, 249; theme, 1, 80, 201-2, 204, 206 Musicalization: of emotions, 83, 147, 265; of light, 173 Musicals, 277;

about the underworld, 198-200, 199 (fig.), 303n33 Musuraca, Nicholas, 190;

Out of the Past lighting by, 175-86, 176-77 (figs.), 179 (figs.), 180 (figs.), 181 (figs.), 183 (figs.), 184-85 (figs.)

'Mystery lighting.' See Lighting

'Mystery man' characters, 119, 295n24

N

The Naked City (Debord), 256 Narration:

and cost-cutting, 158;

flashback, 17, 87, 92, 116;

offscreen voice-over, 35, 144, 250, 299n3;

radio script, 259;

visual, 269.

See also Dialogue

Narrative conventions. See Conventions, film-noir Narrative themes, noir: absurdity, 52, 54, 148, 206, 210; alcoholism, 18, 54, 97, 107-14, 117; antisocial behavior, 18, 20, 21; cruelty, 21-22;

existentialist, 22-26, 34, 37, 148, 236, 305n15;

Freudian, 9, 31, 133, 148, 206, 287n16; hitchhiking, 145, 149; nostalgia and gloom, 34, 216-17, 275-76; sadism, 19, 20, 29, 102, 103, 190, 226; surrealist, 17-18, 19-22, 26, 274, 275; topicality of, 277; as transhistorical, 31, 33, 284n43; urban crime, 28, 214, 244-46; wastelands, 75, 127, 148, 150.

See also Stories and plot structures, noir Nationalism, black, 243, 246 Native Son (Wright), 12, 235, 237, 305n17 Nazi villains, 73, 99, 102, 231 Neal, Tom, 145 -49, 146 (figs.)

Negative Space (Farber), 32 Nelligan, Kate, 197 Nemec, Joseph, III, 257 Neo- noirs:

compared to art films, 270-72, 271 (fig.); compared to noirs, 262-63;

European, 203;

recent Hollywood, 10, 192-93, 200, 215-19, 233, 241, 244, 262-63 Neorealist pictures, 21

Neue Sachlichkeit, 44 NewWave:

French and German, 136, 190-91, 203; a kind of American, 32-33.

See also French film culture New York City:

affinity with darkness, 191, 244, 302n26; as the center of modernism, 171-72, 191; skylines, 171-72, 188

The New Yorker magazine, 83, 165, 255, 256, 298n14 The New York Times, 150, 155, 267, 268 New Deal populism, 103, 104, 106, 120 Newsreels, black-and-white, 102, 191 Nicholson, Jack, 206-10 passim, 209 (fig.)

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 9, 43 Night and Day j ournal, 66

Nightclub and bar scenes, 197, 218-19, 223-24, 231, 237; black, 240 (fig.), 242 (fig.);

Latin, 230, 233

Noir sensibility, 11-27, 22, 195 Noir, the term, 281n13 'Noir-lite' sets, 257

'Noon Street Nemesis' (Chandler), 233-34 Nostalgia:

contemporary uses of, 216-17, 275-76;

for films noirs, 36, 136, 169, 194-96, 206, 210-11, 216, 257;

noir theme of, 34.

See also Allusions; Fashion

'Notes on Film Noir' (Schrader), 33-34, 103, 280n2 Novelists and their films. See specific authors Novels, American: black social-protest, 235-36; contemporary, 255- 56; and crime fiction, 46, 139-40, 145; detective stories, 46, 48-63; existential themes in, 23-24, 25, 26; multiple- perspective narratives in, 25, 71;

World War I, 65.

See also Modernism, literary; Pulp fiction, American Nuclear apocalypse, 22, 153, 298n23 Nudity, themes of, 152, 158, 162, 264, 274

O

O'Brien, Charles, 15 O'Brien, Edmond, 3, 299n25 O'Brien, Geoffrey, 168 Odets, Clifford, 132 Office of War Information, 105 O'Keefe, Dennis, 142, 174 Olin, Lena, 266 Olmos, Edward James, 232 Omission, uses of, 99 O'Morrison, Kevin, 259 Organizations: censorship by, 105, 106;

writers', 105

Orientalism, 225, 227, 228.