“I Like a Reasonable Amount of Trouble”: Self-Reflexivity and Spectator Affect in Neo-Noir Cinema

Abstract

Film genres, as seen from the traditionally structuralist perspective in film and genre studies, are necessarily defined by convention, and film noir is not an exception—in fact, it often exemplifies the rule. This paper examines the relationship between structure and affect in the evolution of the noir genre, and specifically the way that the neo-noir film engages in self-reflexive citation of its classic noir predecessors, thereby creating a space of uncanny spectatorship, the result of which is an evolution of the genre paradoxically both necessary for growth and problematic for the affective response of the noir viewer.