Fatalism in American Film Noir: Some Cinematic Philosophy (Page-Barbour Lectures)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.96 (624 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0813934028 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 152 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-12-18 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Robert Pippin has done it again. (Gilberto Perez, Sarah Lawrence College author of The Material Ghost: Films and Their Medium)Like tragic figures, the heroes of noir are, or seem, doomed from the start. (Joshua Landy, Stanford University, coeditor of The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age)In Fatalism in American Film Noir, Robert Pippin examines popular movies from a philosophical perspective and does not treat them merely as an illustration of ideas but as a way of putting the ideas to the test of concrete cinematic experience. Hot on the heels of his award-winning book about Westerns, this study of film noir tells the other side of the story, the bleaker, more pessimistic side of the great age of American cinema. An original and illuminating contribution to both philosophy and film studies. Radical uncertainty is where these
In this book Robert Pippin argues that many of these films also raise distinctly philosophical questions. Where most Hollywood films of that era featured reflective individuals living with purpose, taking action and effecting desired consequences, the typical noir protagonist deliberates and plans, only to be confronted by the irrelevance of such deliberation and by results that contrast sharply, often tragically, with his or her intentions or true commitments. How do we distinguish what people do from what merely happens to them? Looking at several film noirs--including close readings of three classics of the genre, F
Robert B. Pippin is Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the John U. He is the author, most recently, of Hollywood Westerns and American Myth: The Importance of Howard Hawks and John Ford for Political Philosophy.. Nef Committee on Social Thought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College, at the University of Chicago
Film Noir Lives, but the F-Word is Fatal DENNIS ROHATYN If an intellectual is someone who can sit through Rossini's opera "William Tell" in its entirety without once thinking of the Lone Ranger,then Robert Pippin is surely an intellectual. He can talk about the archetypal femme fatale or the barely submerged homoerotic bondbetween male protagonists all noir long, but when it's right there on screen, he can't see or sense it. Nor does he notice pain, anguishand human suffering, much less death, except as a plot-point. His reduction of "Double Indemnity" to a single trope (forgiveness--or amixture . Greg Hill said Philosophy as Good as it Gets. One of America's best philosophers writing in plain English (wonderful style too) about a fascinating topic. Couldn't put it down. Looking forward to reading other books by Robert Pippin.. "New perspective on an important part of film noir" according to Tony King. I'm still reading, but it provides a really nice consideration of fatalism in film noir with a general discussion then a film by film discussion. That fatalism is an element of film noir is not new, but this goes into much more rich detail than just the statement that fatalism is part of what makes film noir film noir. I've been re-watching the films discussed after the reading about that film and it does bring a new appreciation to aspects of fatalism that might be missed on earlier watchings.