Jazz, Black Transnationalism, and Postcolonial Genres of Criminality
from II - Horizons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2021
This chapter situates noir soundtracks as a technology of blackness in Western modernity. With the formulation “black records,” it points up the deep transnational and technological entanglements of what we can call, following Tyler Stovall’s lead, “a new, postcolonial genre of criminality.” Tapping into contemporary research by black studies and sound studies scholars, it connects noir soundtracks with the history of technologies meant to facilitate the tracing, tracking, identification, and surveillance of people deemed marginal, criminal, or suspect in the West’s long twentieth century. The first of the chapter’s three sections, “Liner Notes,” builds from Peter Szendy’s conceptualization of the dynamics of surécoute – overhearing – in espionage films to suggest the importance of structures of listening and overhearing manifest in noir film. The “A-Side: Miles and Malle: Ascenseur pour l’échafaud” focuses on Davis’s signature performance and soundtrack composition for Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. “B-Side: Melville, Martial, and Solal: Deux hommes dans Manhattan” focuses on the sound and phonographies of blackness in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Deux hommes dans Manhattan. Built on scenes of sound recording within and without the narrative structures of the film, the chapter considers how the sonic tracing, tracking, and recording of dark or deviant bodies in noir fiction and film ushers in new modalities for thinking and feeling urban modernity, and provides an important entryway into the discussion about the “phonographic” as “a singular mode of (black) modernity” (Weheliye).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.