Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City
Nicholas Christopher
Henry Holt Press, 1997
The most common setting of film noir, is of course, the city. The urban jungle in some cases becomes a character itself in the films, with its enticing neon, rain-slicked streets, and pockets of danger. Nicholas Christopher’s unique book, Somewhere in the Night, is a history of urbanism as it has grown from the Industrial Revolution, and replaced the farm as the major centres of North America, and for that matter, how urbanism figures into the plots of film noir. Indirectly, the book maps out the postwar cynicism in the genre better than anything else I’ve read. As Christopher’s writing correlates the common settings of casinos and offices within various films noir, it also points to how these settings play a part in the general temper of the day. Under his pen, the office is an empirical place (as exemplified in his insightful reading of The Big Clock, with the CEO Charles Laughton not coincidentally reminiscent of a Gestapo leader), the casino is thusly representative of the societal outcasts, who have returned home after the War, and have not rightly integrated back into society.
Crooked politicians, corrupt officials, and the persecuted lead men all figure into the labyrinthine urban worlds that Christopher has connected. Classics such as Gilda, Night and the City, Dead Reckoning and The Third Man are given a fresh new look under these contexts; their characters become figures in an overpowering landscape. This book implodes the notion that the city suggests a land of opportunity: it is seen as a claustrophobic environment from which its characters seemingly can’t escape. Somewhere in the Night is an entertaining and thoughtful read, making the best of an unusual thesis.
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #13 (“Noir”).
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.