2. The modernist crime novel and Hollywood noir

Abstract

‘The modernist crime novel and Hollywood noir’ considers how an atmosphere of ‘modernism’ in 1940s American film noir is largely due to the ‘thriller genre’ in literature. Many aspects of modernity—the interest in subjectivity and multiple points of view, the unorthodox handling of time, the stripping away of genteel rhetoric, the critique of modernity, explicit sex, and fears of women—came together in film noir, but were a potential threat to the entertainment industry. The tension was evident in Hollywood adaptations of four influential crime writers and major contributors to film noir—Samuel Dashiell Hammett, Graham Greene, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler—whose work needed to be lightened or ameliorated.