Liminal Noir in Classical World Cinema
Edited by Elyce Rae Helford and Christopher Weedman
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Book Presentation:
While few can deny its incalculable influence on popular filmmaking during and after World War II, film noir has been and remains one of the most contentious categories of cinema, involving more debates than consensus about what constitutes a noir. This collection explores the amorphous parameters of this dark cinematic phenomenon by utilising an expanded, nuanced definition of film noir, which reaches beyond traditional conceptions of genre, style, and cycle to examine its complex international origins and emphasis on issues of liminality. Through illuminating case studies of single films from nations including Argentina, the former Czechoslovakia, France, Great Britain, Poland, Spain, and the US, authors consider elements of genre hybridity, border crossing, boundary breaching, and other signifiers of liminality to reassess classical-era films that defy conventional generic and stylistic categorisation.
About the authors:
Elyce Rae Helford is Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University.Dr Christopher Weedman is Assistant Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. He is co-editor of Adult Themes: British Cinema and the X Certificate in the Long 1960s (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Liminal Noir in Classical World Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).
Press Reviews:
Paves the way for renewed and enriching interpretations of noir, marking a significant stride toward more globalized interpretations of this genre. -- Dávid Szőke ― Film International
What if noir is not just a category and corpus, but a sensibility, an attitude, a resonance? How might that change our understanding of Varda and Wajda? Of films made in exile or under dictatorship? Of transnational stories? Of minor works? Helford and Weedman have gathered some startling answers to their remarkable proposition.
-- Mark Bould, University of the West of England
The anthology is a welcome addition to the ongoing discourse on the liminal variations on noir and its myriad incarnations.
-- Sheri Chinen Biesen, author, Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films
> From the same authors:
Adult Themes (2025)
British Cinema and the X Certificate in the Long 1960s
Dir. Anne Etienne, Benjamin Halligan and Christopher Weedman
Subject: Countries > Great Britain
What Price Hollywood? (2024)
Gender and Sex in the Films of George Cukor
Subject: Director > George Cukor
> On a related topic:
Red and the Black (2016)
American Film Noir in the 1950s
Film Noir Guide (2011)
745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-1959
Thrillers, Chillers, and Killers (2025)
Radio and Film Noir
Three Faces Of Noir Curse Crime Cringe (2025)
Film Noir In The Public Domain Vol IV
Through a Noir Lens (2024)
Adapting Film Noir Visual Style
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