Film Noir
The 1945 film "Mildred Pierce" is the epitome of film noir, complete with the femme fatale, theme of betrayal and hopelessness and use of flashbacks. While the 1954 "On the Waterfront" also uses the theme of betrayal and hopelessness, it b Continue Reading...
In this area, meanings with their endless referrals evolve. These include meanings form discourses, as well as cultural systems of knowledge which structure beliefs, feelings, and values, i.e., ideologies. Language, in turn, produces these temporal Continue Reading...
Film Noir / Cinema Architecture
Perhaps one of the most fruitful ways in which to trace the evolution of Film Noir as a genre is to examine, from the genre's heyday to the present moment, the metamorphoses of one of film noir's most reliable tropes: Continue Reading...
Joan Crawford's life appeared to mirror the characters that she portrayed on film in several ways. By analyzing the 1945 film Mildred Pierce, in which Crawford plays the titular character, one can see how Mildred's character is designed to reflect Am Continue Reading...
Chinatown and Film Noir
The influence of classic film noir on Chinatown
Rising to prominence in the late 1940s and initially described as "murder with a psychological twist," film noir helped to introduce audiences to a new genre that could be dist Continue Reading...
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Homer in Hollywood: The Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Could a Hollywood filmmaker adapt Homer's Odyssey for the screen in the same way that James Joyce did for the Modernist novel? The idea of a high-art film Continue Reading...