Film Noir And Automotive Isolation In Los Angeles  

Oleh:

Fotsch, Paul Mason

Jenis: Article from Journal - e-Journal
Dalam koleksi: Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies vol. 5 no. 1 (Feb. 2005), page 103-125.
Topik: film noir; automobile; Los Angeles
Fulltext: 103.pdf (200.42KB)

Isi artikel

This essay examines the emergence of a now dominant transportation system through the critical perspective of film noir. In the 1940s, Los Angeles began redesigning itself to better accommodate the automobile. At the same time, two films by Billy Wilder provided a subtle critique of this accommodation. The criminality of Double Indemnity (1944) depends on the same fantasy in technical rationality that legitimized highway planning. Sunset Boulevard (1950) mocks the planned obsolescence inspired by the automobile industry. Both films depict the landscape created by cars as deeply isolating. The analysis of T.W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who also lived in Los Angeles at this time, is used to draw out the theoretical implications ofWilder’s films and to further locate a pessimism toward the automobile lifestyle at the time and place of its rise to power.

Opini Anda

Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini!

Kembali