American Film Noir

Harvard FAS

This seminar offers a critical survey of American film noir, the cycle of dark, fatalistic crime films that flourished in Hollywood during the period between 1940 and 1960 and remains deeply influential today. Focusing on the close study of key films, the seminar will explore the dominant iconography, tropes and patterns within them in the specific socio-cultural contexts of post-war America and deeper changes at work within the Hollywood studio system and American popular culture.