Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir

On January 20, 2011 Clute introduced the film Mildred Pierce at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, as part of their Noir Series. His talk was preceded by a question and answer session with Jared Case (Head of Cataloguing and Research Center) on several noir topics: the origins of the Out of the Past podcast series; certain underappreciated aspects of noir; how scholarly approaches to noir have limited what we see; a new film studies paradigm he and Richard Edwards worked out in their forthcoming book The Maltese Touch of Evil: Film Noir and Potential Criticism, which allows them unleash and understand other narrative potentials lurking in noir. For more information, visit www.noircast.net, or like us on Facebook under Noircast.

Shannon Clute, Seth Harwood, and Richard Edwards presented this Cybernoir panel on April 5th, 2008, as part of the Noircon Conference in Philadelphia. Clute and Edwards kick things off with a discussion of how noir style and pulp publishing models seem to provide the fundamental structuring logics of emerging digital media—from blogs to podcasts, mashups to video games. Seth Harwood then relates his own experience of podcasting his first novel, JACK WAKES UP—from producing the initial audio, to embracing various new media in order to cultivate an audience and tap their enthusiasm and skills to promote his work. Finally, all three panelists consider how pulp-logic productions in these various media are likely to change the ways books are published and marketed. This special edition podcast includes all Power Point slides from the panel, synchronized with the audio, for your viewing pleasure. Moreover, there are embedded links at the bottom of the images, which allow you to surf related links while listening. The podcast is optimized for iTunes, and will run on any machine that has iTunes installed. It is brought to you by Clute and Edwards of www.noircast.net, and Seth Harwood of www.sethharwood.com.

Wise guys and femmes fatale form the central focus of these next panel discussions from Noircon 2008. In the first half of the podcast, Clute and Edwards talk with authors George Anastasia and Anthony Bruno. Anastasia and Bruno are two seasoned mob-watchers who uncover life on the mean streets-Philly style. Based on their Noircon panel, Wise Guy Noir, they give us an inside look into the Godfathers and Goodfellas of Philadelphia. In the second half, Clute and Edwards lead a lively roundtable discussion on the femme fatale with four authors who have strong female characters at the center of their novels: Megan Abbott, Christa Faust, Vicki Hendricks, and Jonathan Santlofer. The discussion touches on many different aspects of the femme fatale and the homme fatale (fatal man). For more information about Noircon, visit the official conference website at www.noircon.com. For more information about the hard-boiled podcasts of Clute and Edwards, visit www.noircast.net