Neo-Noir and Its Contexts (VMS-0101)

Fall 2023 · VMS 0101 · Tufts University · 3 credits · Undergraduate

This course will introduce the student to a group of historic American films produced between 1941 and 1958 that are often identified as "film noir." We compare this historic group of films with later incarnations of film noir, examining how this original historic body of work profoundly influenced a wide range of neo-noir practices. We will contextualize these films through broad historical, aesthetic and critical frameworks and analyze a range of common underlying themes and preoccupations including: the creation of a dark and brooding pessimism; the representation of the noir woman as a "femme fatale;" modernity, postmodernity, urbanism, postwar paranoia and anxiety, the existential impulse of noir, issues of race, gender and more. The work of such directors as Billy Wilder, Jules Dassin, Roman Polanski, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, Bill Duke, Rian Johnson, Christopher Nolan, Chan-wook Park, the Coen Brothers and more will be considered.

Course codes: VMS-0101, VMS 0101, VMS0101, VMS-101, VMS 101, VMS101, FMS-0074, FMS 0074, FMS0074, FMS-74, FMS 74, FMS74

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