Paul Duncan

Taschen is a publisher of high quality art books, and several of their titles deal with cinema, including several in their "archives" series on selected directors (I have their edition on Stanley Kubrick, and it is superlative in all respects).

Being a fan of film noirs, be they American or French, classical period or neo-noir, I had to get this from my local library. It's an extremely heavy, oversized tome printed on thick, glossy paper. I don't think it was a good idea to go with black pages with white text, however. The black page shows any hint of oil from one's fingers, marring the looks.

There are three well-written essays to start things off, one by the filmmaker Paul Schrader. He points out that noir is not a genre, but a style. I get that, but to me there are certain thematic elements that also make up noir. Then the book does anywhere from 4 to 8 pages on each of the 100 selected films. The text is written by several different writers who provide insight into the elements that make that film special. But the main attraction here are the well-selected stills taken from the films themselves.

Perhaps my opinion is rather parochial, but some of these films I don't consider noir, or even noirish. For instance, Psycho. It's a great film, but it's not noir; it's a horror film, and one of the best. I would have picked some different neo-noir films, such as Night Moves. But all in all, this is a fantastic book; one of the best graphical coffee table books imaginable on the subject.… (mere)