Disease, Disaster Noir, and Cinematic Panic

Abstract

In 2020, as the rapidly spreading coronavirus devastates communities worldwide and closes theaters, workplaces, schools, universities, shutters film and television production, cancels cinema conferences and film festivals—and even contributes to the Film Society of Lincoln Center indefinitely suspending the publication of Film Comment amid the serious outbreak in New York City—in an era of social distancing, cineastes in quarantined isolation have been increasingly streaming cinema and media digitally online in surging numbers [ ]streaming services such as Netflix have seen a huge spike in viewership, with a particularly high ‘viral’ demand for disease-oriented disaster films such as Outbreak (1995) and long-form documentary Pandemic (2020), both in the Top Ten most viewed Netflix titles in March 2020 Author Biography Dr Sheri Chinen Biesen is Professor of Film History at Rowan University and author of Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), and Film Censorship: Regulating America’s Screen (Wallflower/Columbia University Press, 2018)