AUTUMN 2005 VIDEO SERIES

AMERICAN FILM NOIR: 1945-1958

The following films will be shown in an optional video series for students in attendance in Dr. Erik Roraback’s seminars for the Autumn 2005 term. The objective is to have students engage with a cultural form (film) and a classical cycle of American cinema (American film noir, 1945-1958), which taps into strategies for engaging the Baroque in Literature and Theory (some critics see film noir as a baroque cultural form), US literature including the film novels of Thomas Pynchon, as well as international cinema. Film noir constitutes by far the most creative period in Hollywood history, benefiting as it did from low budgets--often the pictures were the second film of double bill screenings that gave director’s special creative freedom--and the contributions of the sensibilities of many central European directors to the movement. The series will enable us to outline some of the major stylistic features and thematic concerns of film noir.

TIME & PLACE: 18.20-20.20, ROOM 111, PHILOSOPHICAL FACULTY, CHARLES UNIVERSITY

6 October: Mildred Pierce (1945, 109 minutes, dir. James M. Cain)

13 October: Murder, My Sweet (1945, 95 minutes, dir. Edward Dmytryk).

20 October: The Stranger (1946, 95 minutes, dir. Orson Welles)

27 October: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946, 113 minutes, dir. Tay Garnett)

3 November: Out of the Past (1947, 97 minutes, dir. Jacques Tourneur)

10 November: Dark Passage (1947, 106 minutes, dir. Delmer Daves)

17 November: NO SCREENING

24 November: The Lady from Shanghai (1948, 87 minutes, dir. Orson Welles)

1 December: In a Lonely Place (1952, 94 minutes, dir. Nicholas Ray)

8 December: The Big Heat (1953, 89 minutes, dir. Fritz Lang)

15 December: The Night of the Hunter (1955, 93 minutes, dir. Charles Laughton)

12 January: Touch of Evil (1958, 105 minutes, dir. Orson Welles)