Whether it's 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 Jurgen Muller 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. About the series Bibliotheca Universalis - Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!

Noted film noir authority James Ursini (The Film Noir Reader series, L.A. Noir, and numerous DVD commentaries) analyzes the work of five underrated independent directors--Hugo Haas, Reginald LeBorg, Ida Lupino, Gerd Oswald, and Edgar G. Ulmer. This lavishly illustrated study examines their films as works of art and their careers as outsiders who directed films on the edge of Hollywood and paved the way for the modern American independent film movement.

Cinema of Obsession traces the history of obsessive love and erotic fixation. Seminal works of obsession, The Blue Angel, Peter Ibbetson, and Phantom of the Opera are seen as setting the groundwork for films that follow. The book defines and surveys examples of the explosive nature of amour fou, issues of male control (no matter how tenuous), and the fugitive couple - love on the run - in such films as Romeo and Juliet, Last Tango in Paris, Vertigo, Basic Instinct, and Wild at Heart. Male masochism is explored through film noirs, including Criss Cross, The Killers, Gilda, and The Postman Always Rings Twice. The book shifts gears in its finale and concentrates on the female gaze, films of female obsession: Jane Eyre, The Piano, The Lover, Fatal Attraction, and Vanilla Sky.

The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women on Screen documents the public's seemingly insatiable fascination with the warrior woman archetype in film and on television. The book examines the cautious beginnings of new roles for women in the late fifties, the rapid development of female action leads during the burgeoning second-wave feminist movement in the late sixties and seventies, and the present-day onslaught of female action characters now leaping from page to screen. The book itself is organized into chapters that group women warriors into sub-genres, e.g., classic Amazons like Xena Warrior Princess and the women of the Conan films; superheroes and their archenemies such as Wonder Woman, Batgirl, and Catwoman; revenge films such as the Kill Bill movies; Sexploitation and Blaxploitation films such as Coffy and the Ilsa trilogy; Hong Kong cinema and warriors like Angela Mao, Cynthia Rothrock, and Zhang Ziyi; sci-fi warriors from Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Star Wars; supersleuths and spies like the Avengers and Charlie's Angels; and gothic warriors such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Kate Beckinsale in Underworld and Van Helsing. In addition, the book is lavishly illustrated with over 400 photos of these popular-culture icons in action, interesting articles and sidebars about themes, trends, weapons, style, and trivia, as well as a complete filmography of more than 150 titles.

The earlier Film Noir Readers, which now boast a combined sale of well over 30,000 copies, have all quite deliberately conveyed a sweeping overview of the classic period, demonstrating how broad and inclusive noir movies are. Film Noir Reader 4 moves in a different direction. Its purpose is to identify the key films and motifs of noir and to analyze in depth the prototypical pictures that, while vivid examples of certain cinematic themes, bend and break their molds to find new ways to enthrall and frighten us. Like its predecessors, Film Noir Reader 4 is generously illustrated and features essays by such respected film critics and scholars as Robin Wood, J.P. Telotte, R. Barton Palmer, and Robert Porfirio. All have as their purpose to explain why and how these classic films work; the way screenplay, direction, acting, cinematography, editing and all the other filmmaking crafts blended together to produce work that exemplifies both a particular movement in film history and the innovations that keep the noir style fresh and compelling.

Film buffs explore the world of noir cinema in a Los Angeles context with this guide to noir films and their California settings. This book illustrates how these films use L.A.'s diverse cityscape and architecture to convey a unique vision of urban corruption and existential fatalism, in both the gritty downtown area and the outlying affluent communities like Malibu and Beverly Hills. Dozens of noir and neo-noir films are featured including classics such as "Double Indemnity," "Kiss Me Deadly," "Sunset Boulevard," and "Touch of Evil "and more recent films such as "Mulholland Drive" and "Pulp Fiction." More than 150 photographs--many never before published--further illustrate the rich and constantly changing backdrop of these movies.

Film noir is one of the most enduring and popular genres in cinema. But it did not spring up spontaneously fully formed. Rather its origins can be traced to sources as varied as Victorian literature German Expressionism and American art and photography. In this comprehensive collection of essays that's packed with illustrations and artwork a team of eminent scholars and film writers present thorough analyses of the influence of prototypes on the classic period of film noir.THSome essays focus on particularly influential genres such as the rogue cop film and gothic thrillers; while others discuss the choices of individual filmmakers including John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock in their most well-loved films.THThe editors and all of the featured contributors a Sheri Chinen Biesen Todd Erickson Richard Edwards Julie Grossman Robert Miklitsch Homer Pettey Robert Porfirio Tom Ryall Marlisa Santos Jesse Schlotterbeck and Tony Williams a are noted scholars in the field of film noir most of whom have written book-length studies of their own.THFrom the gangster and horror genres to social realism and Hitchcock's spy films of the 1930s EFilm Noir PrototypesE offers compelling accounts of the genre's influences. As befits the topic over 300 illustrations keyed to the text capture the richness and breadth of the classic period's imagery.

The Third and most recent edition of The Vampire Film featuring a new chapter, "The Vampire at the Millennium," was released in October 1996 to coincide with the centennial of Stoker's novel Dracula. More vampire films have been produced since the First Edition of The Vampire Film appeared in 1974 than in the entire history of motion pictures prior to that year. The first completely revised and updated edition was published in 1993. The Third Edition, at over 340 pages in length and with well over 200 illustrations, insures that what began as the first book-length study of the subject in 1974 remains the most comprehensive available. The authors, Alain Silver and James Ursini, are continuing their research for future revisions and invite comments from their readers.

This bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. Part one reprints eight seminal essays that classify and analyse the period and its product and also offers the initial extensive discussion of film noir in English. In Part Two there are 'case studies' of individual film and film makers. Part Three probes deeper into the question 'What Is This Thing Called Noir?' -- the title of one of the new essays. Other original pieces consider such issues as narrative structure, the femme fatale, the influence of film noir on early television and, finally the rebirth of the genre in the neo-noir films of our own day.