The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism by Shannon Scott CluteThe Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism by Shannon Scott Clute

The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism

byShannon Scott Clute, Richard L. Edwards

Paperback | December 13, 2011

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Noir is among the most popular, acclaimed, and critically assessed film styles of all time. The unfortunate consequence is an ever-growing divergence between fans and scholars with regard to goals and methods for appreciating and studying noir. The Maltese Touch of Evil aims to bridge that gap. Based on a series of popular podcasts, this unique and inspired investigation of film noir sets out to examine the case of noir more closely, and in the process reconfigures the critical evidence on noir that has been presented to date.

The Maltese Touch of Evil reproduces and re-sequences nearly 150 still images from 31 great films, laying them out with the authors’ informed and entertaining insights into the significance of each shot. The result is a de facto meta–film noir, a celebration of the genre that shows how these films are themselves “constrained” texts whose carefully calculated visual forms simultaneously generate narrative and critical commentary on that narrative. You will never look at film noir the same way again.

About The Author

SHANNON SCOTT CLUTE is an independent scholar who works for Turner Classic Movies in Atlanta. RICHARD L. EDWARDS is Lead Instructional Designer in the Integrated Learning Institute at Ball State University.

Details & Specs

Title:The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential CriticismFormat:PaperbackDimensions:336 pages, 9 × 6.03 × 0.9 inPublished:December 13, 2011Publisher:Dartmouth College PressLanguage:English

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:

ISBN - 10:1611680476

ISBN - 13:9781611680478

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Extra Content

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
A Void in Film Noir Studies
One Hundred Thousand Billion Films Noir: Oulipian Works and Potential
Workshop of Potential Criticism: Anoulipism and Plagiarism by Anticipation
Build My Scaffolding High: Noir Films as Constrained Texts
Oufinopo: The Noiremes
Postscript: How We Wrote Our Noiremes
Postliminary 1: The Guilty Parties: Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir
Postliminary 2: Computers and Writers: The MTOE Project
Appendix 1: Selected Filmography
Appendix 2: Podcastography
Notes
Further Readings
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Noir is among the most popular, acclaimed, and critically assessed film styles of all time. The unfortunate consequence is an ever-growing divergence between fans and scholars with regard to goals and methods for appreciating and studying noir. The Maltese Touch of Evil aims to bridge that gap. Based on a series of popular podcasts, this unique and inspired investigation of film noir sets out to examine the case of noir more closely, and in the process reconfigures the critical evidence on noir that has been presented to date.The Maltese Touch of Evil reproduces and re-sequences nearly 150 still images from 31 great films, laying them out with the authors’ informed and entertaining insights into the significance of each shot. The result is a de facto meta–film noir, a celebration of the genre that shows how these films are themselves “constrained” texts whose carefully calculated visual forms simultaneously generate narrative and critical commentary on that narrative. You will never look at film noir the same way again.“A lucky combination of academic rigor and verbal playfulness, The Maltese Touch of Evil is provocatively open-ended. The authors, smooth writers both, are perceptive close readers, and their high-spirited commitment to unpacking selected noire moments is contagious: they make you want to join their conversation, whether in agreement or correction, defense or denial. Their intensive work reminds us yet again of the peculiar richness of the noir canon.” - Foster Hirsch, author of The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir and Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir