French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker
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Crime Files Series General Editor: Clive Bloom Since its invention in the nineteenth century, detective fiction has never been more popular. In novels, short stories, films, radio, television and now in com- puter games, private detectives and psychopaths, prim poisoners and overworked cops, tommy-gun gangsters and cocaine criminals are the very stuff of mod- ern imagination, and their creators one mainstay of popular consciousness. Crime Files is a ground-breaking series offering scholars, students and discerning readers a comprehensive set of guides to the world of crime and detective fic- tion. Every aspect of crime writing, detective fiction, gangster movie, true-crime exposé, police procedural and post-colonial investigation is explored through clear and informative texts offering comprehensive coverage and theoretical sophistication. Published titles include: Maurizio Ascari A COUNTER-HISTORY OF CRIME FICTION Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational Hans Bertens and Theo D’haen CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN CRIME FICTION Anita Biressi CRIME, FEAR AND THE LAW IN TRUE CRIME STORIES Ed Christian (editor) THE POST-COLONIAL DETECTIVE Paul Cobley THE AMERICAN THRILLER Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s Christiana Gregoriou DEVIANCE IN CONTEMPORARY CRIME FICTION Lee Horsley THE NOIR THRILLER Merja Makinen AGATHA CHRISTIE Investigating Femininity Fran Mason AMERICAN GANGSTER CINEMA From Little Caesar to Pulp Fiction - 2011-03-14 - PalgraveConnect Tromso i - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright Linden Peach MASQUERADE, CRIME AND FICTION Criminal Deceptions 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker June 24, 2009 12:58 MAC/FAAN Page-i 9780230_536906_01_prex Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker FRENCH AND AMERICAN NOIR Dark Crossings Susan Rowland CRIMINAL DECEPTIONS Adrian Schober POSSESSED CHILD NARRATIVES IN LITERATURE AND FILM Contrary States Heather Worthington THE RISE OF THE DETECTIVE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY POPULAR FICTION R. 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Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker June 24, 2009 12:58 MAC/FAAN Page-ii 9780230_536906_01_prex French and American Noir Dark Crossings Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14 - PalgraveConnect Tromso i - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker June 24, 2009 12:58 MAC/FAAN Page-iii 9780230_536906_01_prex © Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker 2009 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. 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A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10987654321 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14 - PalgraveConnect Tromso i - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker June 24, 2009 12:58 MAC/FAAN Page-iv 9780230_536906_01_prex To Our Parents Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14 - PalgraveConnect Tromso i - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker June 24, 2009 12:58 MAC/FAAN Page-v 9780230_536906_01_prex This page intentionally left blank Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14 - PalgraveConnect Tromso i - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 Fetishistic Noir: Charles Baudelaire and Léo Malet 6 2 Liberation Noir: Boris Vian and the Série Noire (1) 30 3 Allegorical Noir: Boris Vian and the Série Noire (2) 50 4 Noir Strangulation (1): Terry Stewart and Vernon Sullivan 72 5 Noir Strangulation (2): Amélie Nothomb and Intertextuality 94 6 Jazz: Classic French Film Noir as Transatlantic Exchange 115 7 Fatal(e) Crossings: Figures of the Feminine in French and American Film Noir 132 8 Americans in Paris 149 9 From Honest Thief to Media Sociopath 168 10 Double-Crossings: Reversing the Remake 184 Notes 200 Bibliography 215 Index 222 Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14 - PalgraveConnect Tromso i - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket www.palgraveconnect.com material from Copyright vii 10.1057/9780230244825 - French and American Noir, Alistair Rolls and Deborah Walker June 24, 2009 12:58 MAC/FAAN Page-vii 9780230_536906_01_prex Acknowledgements We would like to thank the many individual people and institutions that helped to make this book possible. Our respective institutions, the University of Newcastle (NSW, Australia) and the University of Auckland (Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand), supported the project in a number of ways, through research grants and sabbatical leaves that enabled us to work together, or collaboratively at a distance, and at other times indi- vidually, on our respective sections of the book. The initial idea behind the project came when we met in Sydney, in 2002, at a bi-annual con- ference of the Sydney Society of Literature and Aesthetics. We thank the society for bringing us together and providing a platform for researchers like us, working out of quite different theoretical frameworks, and for encouraging the kind of open dialogue that fosters the development of new knowledge. Early, abridged versions of several chapters in the book were first published in academic journals, and we should like to thank the fol- lowing editors for kindly granting us their permission to reproduce in this book ideas previously published in the following articles: Professor Peter Goodall (Rolls, A. “Silk or Nylon: Boris Vian, Leg Fetishism and the American Way”, AUMLA Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association, 103, 2005, 93–108); Professor Brian Nelson (Rolls, A. “Throwing Caution to the French Wind: Peter Cheyney’s Success Overseas in 1945”, Australian Journal of French Studies, 43.1, 2006, 35–47); Associate Professor Hélène Jaccomard (Rolls, A. and Vuaille- Barcan, M.-L. “ ‘Merde à la fin! L’écrivain, c’est vous ou c’est moi?’: Jeux de roles dans Hygiène de l’assassin d’Amélie Nothomb”, Essays in French Literature, 43, 2006, 255–273); Alexandre Trudel (Walker, D. “From Hon- est Thief to Media Psychopath: American Culture through French Film Noir”, Post-Scriptum 4, 2004, http://www.post-scriptum.org/sin.pag.); Professor Peter Goodall (Walker, D. “Reversing the Remake: Jacques Audiard’s De battre mon cœur s’est arrêté”, AUMLA-Journal of The Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect -