Reluctant Sleuths, True Detectives

Reluctant Sleuths, True Detectives examines the detective figure in four noir and neo-noir films: Out of the Past (1947), Notorious (1946), Vertigo (1958), and Chinatown (1974). Exploring the way that these characters each move from an initial state of reluctant passivity to one of passionate engagement with the world around them, it questions the cinematic forces required to motivate and move them. In its close examinations of each film, the book meditates on the detectives’ hunts and how they interact with the cinematic apparatus that captures and presents them to an audience, and it tracks the receptive experience of these films in relation to these questions of motivation and movement.