Thesis (M.A.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 182-187). Also available via the Internet.

This thesis delves into three categories of femmes fatales: the ones of hard-boiled fiction/classic noir and contemporary noir. Moreover, it generates several comparisons among those aforementioned categories, and extrapolates on them. Third wave feminism and how it draws relevance/is significant to the Bound and The Last Seduction films is additionally explored in this thesis. This thesis will discuss the similarities of the femmes fatales of the '30s/1940s-50s and contemporary noir (1980s-90s), while delving into differences between them.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, The School of Art History,Cinema,Classics and Archaeology, 2004. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-316).

In this paper, I trace the theme of revenge across Drive (Refn, 2011) and John Wick (Leitch and Stahelski, 2014). Professor von Hallberg helped me understand these films as vehicles for understanding certain ideas. Throughout the semester I consulted the work of several literary critics to arrive at a better sense of what neo-noir is and to better understand the world of these films. Through close analysis of specific scenes, I hoped to determine what I would learn about vengeance if I lived in the world that these characters inhabit. After watching and re-watching both films several times, I went through scene by scene and observed the details that stood out to me the most. I related these to the literature I had read and suggested what each detail might mean before drawing any conclusions. Once I had completed the core analysis, I reviewed these observations and synthesized them into general claims. I affirmed that revenge was closely related to von Hallberg’s notion of “trust” as a “horizon of hope” (von Hallberg 2). In the end, it was apparent that in punishing those responsible, the protagonists of these films committed to destroying any and all “obstacles to the [re]construction of trust” (von Hallberg 5). Both protagonists are portrayed as avengers who are driven toward the destruction of “the fakery and greed of those around them” (von Hallberg 36). In these films, to extract revenge is to punish the “corrupt[t] [and] [re]buil[d] [in] a world governed by self-interest” (von Hallberg 36).

Thesis--Auburn University, 2009. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-51).

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2005. / "May 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

The central goal of this thesis is to resituate the development of film noir within the context of the Hollywood studio system that created it. I argue that under the ‘factory’ conditions of the studio’s working environment, a distaste fermented from the screenwriter class that burrowed in the pulp fiction, particularly hard-boiled mystery fiction, of the era. This strain of literature was eventually coupled with the panache of Hollywood style to form a filmic style which was noteworthy for its ability to use Hollywood stylistics to screen a vision of life that was antithetical to that which the studio system wanted to offer to the mass public. I have also attempted to situate the original and most crystallized noir moment in the mid-1940s as part of the continuum of American cinema where the stylistic traces of noir were present prior to that period, and certainly after, but never more coherently than at that moment in the 1940s. I have assembled sources ranging from published interview collections, memoirs, biographies, film criticism and archival collections to develop my argument about the literary, filmic and cultural evolution of film noir in Hollywood.

American film parody can be characterized as a distorted, comical and yet affectionate imitation of a given genre or specific work. Film noir as a genre with its distinct visual styles has been an easy target for such "creative criticism." Mel Brooks, famous for his series of successful parody films, has exhorted that the situation alone must be absurd while the actors must be serious, not funny to make a comedy funnier. He also said that funny is in the writing and not in the performance itself. Film noir through its unconventional visual styles and convoluted story lines engenders feelings of anxiety and paranoia in the audience, providing rich fodder for parody. The animated theatrical series Looney Tunes with its trademark slapstick style is well suited for making serious situations look absurd, affording "creative criticism". In this thesis I first analyze canonical examples to distill the distinct visual characteristics of these two different genres. I then employ the use of parody to bring together a few salient visual elements from each of these genres, thus enabling computer-generated visual parody. Finally, still image examples of such parody are produced by systematically combining visual elements from the two distinct genres, film noir for its expressionistic lighting and elliptical compositional elements, and Looney Tunes for its mischievous mise-en-scene and ingenuous characters.

No description available.