More than any other set of films from the classical era, the Hollywood film noir is known for its lighting: the cast shadows, the blinking street signs, the eyes sparkling in the darkness. Each effect is rich in symbolism, evoking a world of danger and doppelgangers. But what happens if we set aside the symbolism? This book offers a new account of film noir lighting, grounded in a larger theory of Hollywood cinematography as emotionally engaging storytelling. Above all, noir lighting is dynamic, switching from darkness to brightness and back again as characters change, locations shift, and fates unfold. Richly illustrated, Film Noir and the Arts of Lighting features in-depth analyses of eleven classic movies: The Asphalt Jungle, Sorry, Wrong Number, Odds against Tomorrow, The Letter, I Wake Up Screaming, Phantom Lady, Strangers on a Train, Sweet Smell of Success, Gaslight, Secret beyond the Door, and Touch of Evil.

PATRICK KEATING is a professor in the Department of Communication at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of The Dynamic Frame: Camera Movement in Classical Hollywood and the editor of Cinematography (Rutgers University Press).
 

“What a glamorous book! By glamorous, I mean sophisticated, dramatic, and mysterious, using Patrick Keating’s own definition of the term. That is, with his refined textual analysis and emotionally engaging writing style, Keating sheds lights on film noir’s inexplicable seductiveness.” — Daisuke Miyao, author of The Aesthetics of Shadow: Lighting and Japanese Cinema

“Patrick Keating is our ablest commentator on the power of cinematography in American film's history. In this newest volume, Keating stunningly demonstrates how our overall grasp of Hollywood studio-era filmmaking is enriched when we take film noir not as a subversion of the system but its enrichment — an expressive extension of its visual means to some of their most innovative ends. There are rich insights in every turn of the page of this consequential study."
 — Dana Polan, Martin Scorsese Professor of Cinema Studies, NYU

"Like a great cinematographer, Keating sheds light on both the form and function of lighting within film noir, substantially recasting our understanding of much of classical Hollywood cinema in the process.  A must-read work for noir aficionados and scholars alike."
 — Donna Kornhaber, author of Nightmares in the Dream Sanctuary: War and the Animated Film