Bit of a film buff are we? Know your nouvelle vague from your vérité do you? Well what about Noir? American, 1930s/40s, B&W private detectives and femme fatales right? Wrong!
Though the genre of Noir does feature a hell of lot of blokes in trilbies hiding in the shadows with smoking guns as beautiful yet worried looking leading ladies clutching phone receivers to their hearts Noir is a concept that is still going strong today and despite the dark name embraced coloured celluloid to great effect. But for further enlightenment I strongly suggest that you get hold of Taschen’s Film Noir… which handily provides a wealth of information on the genesis of this moody movie milieu as well as listing 100 of it’s finest films. Starting with 1920’s dreamlike The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari right up to modern masterpiece Drive this definitely isn’t your cheap compilation cash-in. Well of course it isn’t, it’s a Taschen book innit? Within this weighty tome you’ll find detailed sysnopsis and analyses of some of the greatest films ever put to celluloid, including personal favourites; Rebecca, White Heat, Get Carter, Taxi Driver, (Brian De Palma’s criminally underrated) Blow Out, Blue Velvet, Bad Lieutenant (the Harv Keitel one) & No Country For Old Men to name but eight. You’re not a proper film buff without this on your book shelf. Buy it HERE.
