Detective Fiction Film

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Looking for a genre that is simultaneously and fantastically intellectual, fun, and important to current human rights discussions? The solution is elementary, dear Watson - Detective Fiction! On the one hand, all readers of literature and visual media are detectives, training our sights and minds on the evidence we find in characters’ minds and behaviors, details of time and place, and the ideas brought forth by our discoveries in all of these. On the other hand, detective fiction (tv series and film) raises the knowledge stakes in making us aware of how important a keen perception is to active looking, finding, and adding it all up as the Truth or as close to the Truth as we can get. San Francisco detective novelist, Dashiell Hammett wryly observes in The Thin Man, “The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.” Not all detectives perform quite as Bogartian a wit as Hammett’s Sam Spade, but detectives of any time and place are a rather singular breed, empowered by a second sight often blind to their own natures, ranging from theatrical performers to cynical smart alecks to brainy wizards to awkward outsiders to knights errant. Some wield a gun, others yield to the girl (or guy), while still others fascinate with their “little gray cells” or exude a mystique almost as alluring as following the track of their gum shoes in pursuit of evil. Our own game’s afoot as from beneath the fedora, we enjoy clandestine encounters with several detectives, such as the famous Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, and contemporary lesser known sleuths, such as the British Ellie Miller and the Swedish Saga Norén. The range of investigation this genre provokes is quite amazing, noted here in just a sampling of those questions awaiting your responses in this summer’s crime scenes: To what effect does the genre provoke awareness of borders between or crossing genders, insiders and outsiders, international perspectives and trust? Since many contemporary fictional detectives are police, how does this genre expose the complexity of serving justice, including carefully respecting the suspect’s rights? Why do detective stories stand in for popular culture and political wars as well as brain exercise, historical re-enactment, and ethical catharsis? At least one of the episodes of Sherlock reveals the detective at work in a terrorist attack, and a Norwegian tv series prompts us to study detectives’ responses to the immigrant’s story, even as one of the Truth Terrorist’s attacks is his outrage on behalf of the immigrants. As detectives have become glamorized (as well as “realized”) in fiction and film, what is the significance of drawing attention to the detective as both hero and human? What are the uncanny effects of the Janus-faced relationship between detective and villain? As the home (the familiar, safe, and secure) is often invaded/threatened in this genre, what is the significance of perceiving the detective as an exile, a tourist, or traveler? How are human rights and the detective story comrades in arms? What are the intersections between historical violence and despair and detective fiction? How does the detective story provide a site for indignation, rage, and solace against reality (of injustice and prejudice especially) even as it re-enacts reality? Why is detective fiction FUN? ----- Novels will include Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Tana French’s Broken Harbor, and Philip Kerr’s The Lady from Zagreb. Films and TV series include Sherlock, L.A. Confidential, True Detective, Broadchurch, and the Danish original, The Bridge.