L.A. Noir: The City as Character [Paperback]

Alain Silver (Author), James Ursini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Film noir continues to generate a remarkable outpouring of pedantic prose, but the would-be scholars may have expended the most effort while achieving the least on the topic of how the genre uses the urban landscape. Only Nicholas Christopher, in Somewhere in the Night (1997), managed to say something truly memorable about how, in the best noir films, the labyrinth of the postwar city came to reflect the psychic wounds of its inhabitants. This extensively illustrated guide to Los Angeles as a noir setting makes a useful adjunct to the Christopher book. Moving throughout the city, from downtown to the Westside, the Pacific Coast, and on to the suburbs, the authors show how specific streets and buildings helped set the mood and convey the dark messages in such classic noirs as Criss Cross and Kiss Me Deadly as well as in neo-noirs, including Chinatown and Blade Runner. The black-and-white illustrations of cityscapes prove every bit as evocative as the actual film stills, eloquently making the point that place is every bit as capable of driving meaning as action. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"No one is better qualified to explore the L.A. noir connection than [the authors] who cover [it] with style and savvy." —Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Santa Monica Press (October 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595800069
• ISBN-13: 978-1595800060
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #780,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Locations, locations, locations, November 3, 2005

By 

Daniel Quinn (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: L.A. Noir: The City as Character (Paperback)

The book doesn't quite live up to its subtitle: "The City as Character," though the authors do a whole lot of talking about L.A. You have to admire the effort that went into tracking down all these film locations, though many of them ("Present-day tunnel through Bunker Hill where Steve Thomson is dropped of in Criss Cross") are of the "so what" variety. Lots of film stills, but on the whole the book didn't seem worth the price. If you absolutely must have every book connected with noir films, then you might feel differently.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Film Noir in Los Angeles, and Vice Versa, 1942-2004., March 8, 2007

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mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: L.A. Noir: The City as Character (Paperback)

In "L.A. Noir: The City as Character", film noir historians Alain Silver and James Ursini take a different approach to the films that they have written so much about in other books. This book looks at film noir, both classic and neo-noir, for which "Los Angeles and its environs serve as essential elements in the invocation of the noir mood." Silver and Ursini discuss over 40 films, noting their themes and characters, with an emphasis on the role location plays in the movies. The book is organized into four chapters: "Hollywood", "The West Side and the Coast", "Downtown Los Angeles", and "The 'Burbs". A brief history of the area introduces each chapter, and some films are included in more than one section.

Locations don't mean much if we can't see them, so "L.A. Noir" is packed with pictures. There are about 150 black-and-white photos, including production stills, behind-the-scenes photos, and 64 location photos. The location photos are also indexed in the back of the book with thumbnails and precise locations, so you could find the places yourself. Reproduction quality is good. To accommodate the photos, the book is much wider than it is tall. That would be fine in a hardback, but it's a minor annoyance in softcover, as the book flops awkwardly when open. I can't say that "L.A. Noir" is essential for film noir enthusiasts, but it goes over old territory with a different emphasis. Film noir aficionados living in the Los Angeles area may find it particularly interesting.