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    Origins of Film Noir
    Origins of Film Noir
    Origins of Film Noir
    Ebook30 pages23 minutes

    Origins of Film Noir

    By William Hare

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    About this ebook

    Origins of Film Noir takes readers on a journey exploring the early steps in the development of an exciting new genre. During the difficult days of the Great Depression of the thirties people found an escape from the realities of their own trials through reading detective fiction in popular magazines such as Black Mask. From there it was just a brief period before two famous detective authors, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, saw their work transported to the large and quickly popular world of film. Hammett's best selling novel The Maltese Falcon launched the new movement of film noir.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Hare
    Release dateMar 23, 2017
    ISBN9781370317455
    Origins of Film Noir
    Author

    William Hare

    Author William Hare was born and raised in Los Angeles. While in high school he worked at the Los Angeles Examiner as part of the Scholastic Sports Association, a program begun by the newspaper’s publisher William Randolph Hearst, Jr., in which high school students were trained to write and edit the Examiner’s prep sports section. Hare became the youngest journalist ever to cover a World Series game for a major metropolitan newspaper. After graduating from California State University at Northridge with a major in political science and minors in English and history, he became the youngest sports editor of a Los Angeles area daily newspaper at the Inglewood Daily News chain. In addition to covering the busy L.A. sports beat Hare also wrote feature articles on major personalities within the local movie scene. Eventually Hare would add a law degree to his educational portfolio at San Fernando Valley College of Law, where he served as editor of the law review. His varied educational studies and keen writing interest led to a career in writing within both fiction and non-fiction realms. Areas of current writing activity include international and U.S. history, film history with a film noir emphasis, and Hollywood detective noir fiction. A biographical profile of Author William Hare available both in extensive and bullet forms can be found at his blog site at www.booksbywilliam.com .

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    • 3/5
      The information presented herein is sound, but this small tract (I hesitate to call thirty pages a book) would have fared better with a good editor and more historical analysis. It almost feels as if the author, styling himself as an expert on film noir and its contexts, decided to write up this small tract to make money off of the many people who are either rediscovering this movement or experiencing it for the first time. While it is unfair to judge an author without knowing their full intent behind publishing, I am curious as to what else the author has to say about the art form, if anything.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Origins of Film Noir - William Hare

    Chapter One

    When it comes to compelling adventure and keeping audiences absorbed film noir has attracted attention both large and consistent. To comprehend what made this genre such a consistent winner it is productive to begin with its origins along with the factors that made it a good bet to succeed both artistically and commercially.

    The roots of film noir began amid the Great Depression. Two keys embodied the genre’s swift character interaction on screen. After all, the performers were caught in the throes of difficult times and circumstances. Amid this existence was the survival instinct. A lead performer appears in a script in which he is totally surrounded. How does one surmount this tough existence and live to tell about the events that could have so easily led to destruction?

    How easy it is to root for a tough leading man with the equivalent of a doctorate in philosophy in street smarts. See how easy it became for those struggling in the grips of the Great Depression to identify with the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum? Bogart delivered an unforgettable line in the 1947 noir thriller Dark Passage after getting the drop on a ruthless criminal intent on stripping not only him of his money, but also his love interest in the film, his real life wife Lauren Bacall. Bogart in that world weary, man of the world, survivalist low key tone told his tormentor that he was happy to be positioned to win because it sent a signal to the citizenry that the little guy has a chance.

    The essence of identifying with the reality of the Great Depression led to the second reason why film noir achieved immediate success. While on the one hand audiences could identify with the unfolding stories and dramatic renderings of the performers on screen, a paradox existed. There was human identification on the one hand and the element of escape on the other. There was

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