Introducing the main program section of the 11th edition

NEWSPAPER NOIR

Not only the characters of criminals and detectives, but also the characters of journalists have a stable place in films noir. As protagonists, whose journalistic work is an important part of the plot and moves the action forward, journalists were given the most prominent role at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s – a time when, under the influence of wartime newsreels, documentary stylization was implemented in film noir, and the gritty stories of private detectives, often based on fictional novels, were replaced by journalists (or policemen). The latter substituted the activities of private eyes in their investigations, adopting their character traits such as cynicism and workaholism, and not infrequently sex appeal and philandering.

The 11th edition’s main program section, aptly titled NEWSPAPER NOIR, will feature, among its central five titles, Chicago Deadline (1949, dir: Lewis Allen), in which Alan Ladd embodied a reporter in a narrative variation of Laura (1944) and Citizen Kane (1941). A sensationalist journalist-turned-opportunist gets his say in the noir Shakedown (1950, dir: Joseph Pevney), while the tabloid tactics and inner tensions in the newsroom are the subject of Scandal Sheet (1952, dir: Phil Karlson).

Jana Bébarová