Film
Former Ventura County Sheriff Claude Mulvihill
I read Robert Towne’s script and watched Roman Polanski’s classic neo-noir Chinatown (1974) this week for noir106. This class is becoming an excuse for all kinds of fun things. We’re focusing on writing out of the gate this time around, and Paul Bond added the script of …
Read MoreMoral Endings in Cain’s Postman Always Rings Twice
Image from 1946 film Adaptation of Postman Always Rings Twice
Picking up on my last post about the broader crisis of existential meaning in Hemingway’s “The Killers” for noir 106, it might be be interesting to look at James M. Cain’s 1934 novella The Postman Always Rings Twice…
Read MoreIs there an idea to “The Killers”?
Noir is often characterized by pithy dialogue, rainswept city streets, the femme fatale, shadowy characters, tortuous plots, etc. These tropes certainly help one identify a style of noir, and you can find the tropes in all the literary examples of noir we shared for week two if Noir 106.But …
Read MoreFilthy Hippie Noir
Pay attention to the dirty feet, hippie!
I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice (2014) last night. I enjoyed it. I just ordered Thomas Pynchon’s novel it was based on because I’m interested in how he adapted the original. I haven’t really been interested in Pynchon since undergrad. …
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