Summary

Whether its Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly, or The Big Sleep, roam a screen world of dark and brooding elegance with this essential handbook to Film Noir. From private eyes and perfect crimes to corrupt cops and doomed affairs, editors Paul Duncan and Jürgen Müller examine noir’s key themes and their most representative movies from 1940 to 1960.

Copiously illustrated with film stills as well as original posters, this book offers page after page of noir’s masterful visual compositions while exploring the narrative paradigms of this cryptic, compelling, and evolving genre. If that weren’t enough to tickle your cinematic appetite, the volume concludes with TASCHEN’s top 50 pick of noir classics.

Brimming with the enigmatic dames, desperate gangsters, and psycho killers that continue to cast a long and captivating shadow over cinema, this is a must-have handbook for noir aficionados and amateurs alike.

The iconic images are organized chronologically and by key noir themes, including Love on the Run, Private Eye, the Heist, and the Psycho-Killer. Captivating in their graphic distillation of noir’s sinister beauty, the posters simmer with the same tension, paranoia, and eroticism as their movie equivalents. Along the way, we find the directorial tours de force of Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, and more, and such stars of the genre as Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Lauren Bacall, and Joan Crawford, resplendent in all their tough guy or femme fatale glory.

About the Author

Film producer, critic and historian Alain Silver is the author of 20 books on cinematic topics, including The Noir Style, LA Noir, the Film Noir Reader series, and Steve McQueen, Frank Sinatra, and Katharine Hepburn for TASCHEN's Icon Series. His audio commentaries on classic film noir DVDs include Call Northside 777 and Double Indemnity. A member of the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, he graduated from UCLA with degrees in film production and critical studies.

Paul Duncan is a film historian who has edited 50 film books for TASCHEN, including The James Bond Archives, The Charlie Chaplin Archives, and The Godfather Family Album.

Jürgen Müller has worked as an art critic, a curator, a visiting professor at various universities, and has published extensively on cinema and art history. Currently he holds the chair for art history at the University of Dresden. Müller is the series editor for TASCHEN’s Movies by Decade titles.

James Ursini has co-written eleven books with Alain Silver, including their Film Noir Reader series, which established them as two of the foremost authorities on film noir. Ursini has also written for various film magazines and supplied the commentary for numerous classic film noir DVDs. He has a doctorate in motion pictures studies and lectures on filmmaking in the Los Angeles area.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 500 pages
• Publisher: Taschen
• Arts & Photography / Performing Arts