Film Noir: The Dark Side of Postwar American Cinema
Tuesdays, October 6 - November 17, 4-6pm ET
(No Class Tuesday, October 13)


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Waitlisted registrants will be contacted in the order they registered if space becomes available. *Please fill out a form for each person you want to add to the list.



COURSE DESCRIPTION

Nighttime cityscapes, brooding anti-heroes, tough-guy private eyes, and double-dealing femmes fatales: welcome to the shadow world of film noir. This post-World War II film movement, first identified by French critics struck by the darkness of Hollywood’s B-film output at the time, gave rise to some masterpieces of postwar American cinema. Join Professor Peter Conolly-Smith as we explore the stylistic origins, the thematic influences, and the narrative conventions of film noir as exemplified in Double Indemnity, The Killers, The Big Heat, Sunset Boulevard, and other classics of the cycle.

Course topics include the following: why such a dark filmic idiom in the wake of the United States’ triumphant victory in war, during the heyday of the technicolor craze? What accounts for the misogynistic gender politics of these films? What was the appeal of their fractured timelines, their labyrinthine plots, and their elliptical narration? And, taking a step back: is film noir a film movement or a genre? To what extent do its themes and style find expression in contemporary cinema?

Students will view films independently prior to class, on the platforms of their choice (two films each week); we will then discuss them in the context of the readings during our weekly meetings. All readings will be made available by the instructor, posted as PDFs to the course website.

COURSE FORMAT
This course is an interactive online seminar course that meets weekly over 6 weeks. Live online sessions will use the zoom platform. Weekly reading or other forms of materials may be assigned. Weekly sessions will be recorded and available for registered participants to access throughout the course.
There are no papers or grades. This course does not offer any credits or certificates. This course is intended for learning for the love of learning.

COURSE MATERIALS
Registrants are asked to watch 2 films a week:

Double Indemnity (d. Billy Wilder, 1944)

The Killers (d. Robert Siodmak, 1946)

The Woman in the Window (d. Fritz Lang, 1944)

The Big Sleep (d. Howard Hawks, 1946)

Mildred Pierce (d. Michael Curtiz, 1945)

Sunset Boulevard (d. Billy Wilder, 1950)

Strangers on a Train (d. Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)

Touch of Evil, Restored Version, 111 mins. (d. Orson Welles, 1958)

The Big Heat (d. Fritz Lang, 1953)

Sweet Smell of Success (d. Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)

Taxi Driver (d. Scorsese, 1976)

Chinatown (d. Roman Polanski, 1974)

All readings will be made available by the instructor, posted as PDFs to the course website. Registrants will receive access to the course website about two weeks before the course starts.Registrants are responsible for sourcing/watching the videos on their own.

COURSE CANCELLATION POLICY
Registrants can cancel and receive a full refund up to September 21. After September 21, there will be no refunds issued. Yale Alumni College courses are subject to schedule changes as well as cancellations. If Yale Alumni College must cancel any course prior to its start due to low enrollment, you will be notified of this by the cancellation date. Upon cancellation of a course, registrants may transfer their registration to another available course or have the registration fee fully refunded.

In the event of a disruption to the original course schedule, including but not limited to; Professor absence, hazardous weather conditions, or local travel restrictions, Yale Alumni College will do its best to reschedule the missed class for the week immediately following the original end date at the same course time and day.