Turning The Page: Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema by Carl Freedman

For those seeking to have some butter with their popcorn, Carl Freedman studies the political and social underpinnings which can be explored in the crime genre with his sequel to The Incomplete Projects: Marxism, Modernity and the Politics of Culturepublished in 2002.   The crime genre is broken into three categories: Western, Mob, and Film Noir with the reason for doing so explained in the introduction for Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema.  “The Western takes for its setting an entire society in which crime flourishes, yet is fought against [frequently by the protagonists of these films], while the mob movie tends to concentrate on a subculture of organized crime that is represented as embedded within a larger and mainly law-abiding society – though the legitimacy of this society is something rigorously questioned by most of the greatest mob movies.  Film noir most often [though certainly not always] deals with crimes committed by individuals who are not regarded as habitual or ‘natural’ criminals.’”

A James F. Cassidy Professor of English at Louisiana State University, Carl Freedman explores in detail the collaborations the two Johns, Ford and Wayne, in particular The Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), The Godfather Trilogy helmed by Francis Ford Coppola, Goodfellas(1990) directed by Martin Scorsese, and Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944).  The small screen is not ignored as The Sopranos created by David Chase is included as part of the conversation.  The Intellect Books publication is broken into three sections: Gangsterism and Capitalism: The Mob Movie and After, Noir and Its Discontents, and Empire and Gender in the John Wayne Western.   It is great to see Freedman write a study of a cult classic by Alex Proyas.  “Yet Dark City [1998] as a science fiction film not only raises film noir to a higher power but also – again as Blade Runner [1982], though again with greater emphasis and rigor – dialectically produces a powerfully inflationary and utopian theme that is the very antithesis of noir.”

Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema is a dense academic reading affair written by an author who is obviously deeply fascinated by the social insights provided by watching cinema through the eyes of Marxism.