Black & White & Noir

"Noir, Paula Rabinowitz argues, is not merely a film genre but also a form of historical sensibility, constituted as it is in the blurry boundaries between 'trashy' pulp fiction and 'serious' political events. Coming to terms with noir is thus coming to terms with perhaps the predominant mode of knowledge production of our time. No one interested in the cultural politics of twentieth-century America can afford to ignore the vast implications of this erudite and visionary book." -- Rey Chow, Brown University