Crime Film

Crime Film

• Archetypes – Typically materialistic, immoral, self-destructive, lack empathy

• Subgenres/Hybrids – Heist, mob, hood, neo-noir, hardboiled

• Closely related to crime fiction• Stories typically chronicle the rise and fall of

the protagonist

Silent Era

• Louis Feuillade - Les Vampires (1915-1916)• Fritz Lang – Dr. Mabuse (1922)

Hays Code Era

• William Wellman – Public Enemy (1931)• Mervyn LeRoy- Little Caeser (1931)

Film Noir

• Billy Wilder – Double Indemnity (1944)• John Huston – The Maltese Flacon (1941)• Distinctly American genre

New Hollywood

• Martin Scorsese – Mean Streets (1973)• Francis Ford Coppola – The Godfather (1972)

France in the 50s & 60s

• Jean Piere Melville – Le Samourai (1967)• Jules Dasin – Rififi (1955)

Yakuza Films

• Seijun Suzuki – Tokyo Drifter (1966)• Takeshi Kitano – Sonatine (1993)• Nikkatsu Studios

Triads Movies

• John Woo - The Killer (1989)• Johnny To – Election (2005)

Contemporary America

• Michael Mann – Miami Vice (2005)• David Simon – The Wire (2002-2008)