William S. Allen - Noir and Blanchot: Deteriorations of the Event

Noir and Blanchot

Noir and Blanchot

Deteriorations of the Event

William S. Allen

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC

Bloomsbury Publishing Inc

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First published in the United States of America 2020

Copyright William S. Allen, 2020

For legal purposes the constitute an extension of this copyright page.

Cover design by Eleanor Rose | Untitled from Vertigo, 2014 Daisuke Yokota

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Allen, William S., 1971 author.

Title: Noir and Blanchot : deteriorations of the event / William S. Allen.

Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Summary: An examination of how art responds to dark times by way of the writings of Maurice Blanchot and film noir Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019039859 | ISBN 9781501358913 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501358920 (epub) | ISBN 9781501358937 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Blanchot, MauriceCriticism and interpretation. | Film noirHistory and criticism. | Arts and society.

Classification: LCC PQ2603.L3343 Z5285 2020 | DDC 843/.912dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019039859

ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-5891-3

ePDF: 978-1-5013-5893-7

eBook: 978-1-5013-5892-0

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Second Gentleman : Have you seen the new play? A tower of Babylon! A maze of arches, staircases, walkways, and all thrown so lightly and boldly into the air. One gets dizzy with every step. A strange conception. [ He stands still, embarrassed ]

First Gentleman : Whats the trouble?

Second Gentleman : Ah, nothing! Your hand, monsieur! Its that puddle. Thank you. I could scarcely get past it, it could be dangerous!

First Gentleman : You werent afraid?

Second Gentleman : Oh yes, the earth is a thin crust, I always think I could fall through where theres a hole like that Youve got to step carefully, you could break through. But go to the theatre, I urge you.

GEORG BCHNER, DANTONS TOD , 1835

CONTENTS

Two of these chapters have appeared elsewhere in earlier forms: Melancholy and Parapraxis: Rewriting History in Benjamin and Kafka, MLN 123.5 (2008); and The Cracks in the Surface of Things: On Bla Tarr, Rancire, and Adorno, Screening the Past 39 (2015). My thanks to the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Screening the Past Group for permission to reprint them here. I must also express my warmest appreciation to Haaris Naqvi and Amy Martin at Bloomsbury for all their work and support in turning these pages into a book. And my profoundest thanks to Daisuke Yokota, and Naoko Hatta at the G/P Gallery, Tokyo, for permission to use an image from his Vertigo series (2014) on the cover of this book.

Where double page references have been used they refer to the French or German text, and then the English versions, as translations have been modified throughout.