Film Noir Reader - Limelight

Publisher Marketing: An anthology on film noir, this book contains early writings on the genre as well as more recent literature, some published here for the first time. The book includes eight essays which classify and analyze the period and its product, case studies of individual films and filmakers, and new material which considers such issues as narrative structure, the femme fatale, the influence of film noir on early television, and the rebirth of the genre in the neo-noir films of more recent times. Contributor Bio:  Silver, Alain Alain Silver is the author of The Samurai Film and Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles (with Elizabeth Ward). Among his other books, co-authored with James Ursini, are The Noir Style, The Vampire Film, Film Noir (Taschen), More Things than are Dreamt Of, L. A. Noir, and director studies of David Lean, Robert Aldrich and Roger Corman. He is co-editor of Film Noir: The Encyclopedia, four Film Noir Readers, Horror Film Reader, Gangster Film Reader and a contributor to Film Noir and Philosophy. Forthcoming are Where Danger Lives: Film Noir Graphics and Film Noir: the Directors. His produced screenplays include Kiss Daddy Goodbye, the Showtime feature Time at the Top, and an adaptation of Dostoevsky's White Nights, which he also directed. Selected feature credits as a producer include Crashing, Beat, Cyborg2, 10th & Wolf, Night Visitor, and Palmer's Pick-up. He has been a guest lecturer at film noir retrospectives in Palm Springs, Detroit, and Santa Fe, New Mexico and served as a moderator and panelist for numerous presentations sponsored by the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, the American Film Market, and at the Torino, Cinequest, Pacific Northwest, Slamdance and Los Angeles Film Festivals. He has been interviewed as an expert on Raymond Chandler, film noir, the samurai film and vampire films for documentary programming produced by the BBC; TV-Ontario; E! Entertainment Television; Channel Four, UK; ZDF/Germany; Starz/Encore channel; the Sci-Fi Channel; the American Movie Channel and KCET Los Angeles. His DVD work includes audio or video commentaries for over two dozen titles from Warner Bros., 20th-Century Fox and Criterion including David Lean's Hobson's Choice and numerous classic period film noir such as Murder, My Sweet, Out of the Past, Thieves' Highway, Call Northside 777, Panic in the Streets, The Dark Corner, Laura, Double Indemnity, Kiss of Death, The Street with No Name, Crossfire, Lady in the Lake, Nightmare Alley, Brute Force, Tension, Mystery Street and Where Danger Lives. His essays accompany the Criterion releases of Samurai Spy and The Seven Samurai. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America west and Directors Guild of America and holds degrees in Theater Arts/Motion Pictures from U. C. L. A. Contributor Bio:  Ursini, James Alain Silver is the author of The Samurai Film and the coauthor of fifteen other books, including Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, and two screenplays. He has written numerous articles for the Los Angeles Times, DGA Magazine, Film Comment, and Photon. He has also produced nine independent features and over fifty soundtrack albums, and is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America. James Ursini has contributed to various publications including Cinema, Femme Fatales, Mediascene, and Photon. Together, they are the coauthors of eleven books, among them the Film Noir Reader series, Film Noir: An Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style, and The Noir Style. They both live in Santa Monica.