The course will deal with the topic from various angles; a representative selection of American films noirs from the United States and some films (as forerunners) from the Weimar Republic will be shown and discussed in terms of their visuals and narratives. There will also be literary texts and cultural documents (articles on crime in the United States; on the working conditions in Hollywood) pertaining to the topic. Films have English subtitles.

Taught in English. This course focuses on film noir, one of the most notable phenomena of mid-twentieth-century cinema. We examine the aesthetic and narrative features of classic noirs in tandem with primary and secondary texts that employ a wide range of approaches, treating film noir as a genre, movement, period, cycle, and/or style. Individual units are devoted to film-historical precursors; gender and sexual relations; concurrent aesthetic, sociopolitical, and philosophical developments; and film noir’s global legacy up to the present day. Not least, the class traces the emergence of film noir as a discourse and explores the ways in which it obfuscates established categories of Film and Media Studies, refusing easy definition, localization, and periodization.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills