Other notable film-noir movies include The Mal-
tese Falcon (1941; director: John Huston); Laura
(1944; director: Otto Preminger); Scarlet Street
(1945; director: Fritz Lang); Detour(1945; direc-
tor: Edgar G. Ulmer); The Big Sleep(1946; director:
Howard Hawks); The Postman Always Rings Twice
(1946; director: Tay Garnett); The Killers (1946;
director: Robert Siodmak); Out of the Past(1947;
director: Jacques Tourneur); The Naked City
(1948; director: Jules Dassin); Criss Cross(1949;
director: Robert Siodmak); Asphalt Jungle(1950;
director: John Huston); D.O.A. (1950; director:
Rudolph Maté); Panic in the Sreets(1950; director:
Elia Kazan); Ace in the Hole(1951; director: Billy
Wilder); Pickup on South Street(1953; director:
Samuel Fuller); The Hitch-Hiker(1953; director: Ida
Lupino); Kiss Me Deadly (1955; director: Robert
Aldrich); Sweet Smell of Success (1957; director:
Alexander Mackendrick); Touch of Evil(1958; director:
Orson Welles); Chinatown(1974; director: Roman
Polanski); After Dark, My Sweet(1990; director:
James Foley); The Last Seduction(1994; direc tor:
John Dahl); The Usual Suspects(1995; director: Bryan
Singer); Lost Highway(1997; director: David Lynch);
Memento(2000; director: Christoper Nolan); The
Man Who Wasn’t There(2001; director: Joel Coen);
Sin City(2005; directors: Frank Miller and Robert
Rodriguez); The Square(2008; director: Nash Edger-
ton); and Broken Embraces(2009; director: Pedro
Almodovar).
Science Fiction
It seems logical to think of science fiction as being
speculative fantasy about the potential wonders of
technological advances. But most science-fiction
films are not really about science. If we tried to
prove the “science” that most sci-fi films present,
much of it would be quickly exposed as ridiculous.
Instead, the genre’s focus is on humanity’s relation-
ship with science and the technology it generates.
Science fiction existed as a literary genre long
before movies were invented. The genre began in
the early nineteenth century as a reaction to the
radical societal and economic changes spurred by
the industrial revolution. At that time, the intro-
duction of new technologies such as the steam
engine dramatically changed the way Americans
and Europeans worked and lived. What were once
rural agrarian cultures were quickly transformed
into mechanized urban societies. Stories are one
way that our cultures process radical change, so it
didn’t take long for the anxiety unleashed by this
explosion of technology to manifest itself in the
form of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein; or,
The Modern Prometheus. The subtitle makes evident
the novel’s theme: in Greek mythology, Prometheus
is the Titan who stole fire from Zeus and bestowed
this forbidden and dangerous knowledge on mor-
tals not yet ready to deal with its power. Shelley’s
“monster” represents the consequences of men
using science and technology to play God.
Those of you familiar with twentieth-century
movie versions may think of Frankensteinas a hor-
ror story. The genres are indeed closely related
through their mutual exploitation of audience fears;
it is the source of the anxiety that is different. Hor-
ror films speak to our fears of the supernatural and
the unknown, whereas science-fiction movies
explore our dread of technology and change. Both
genres have their roots in folklore that articulates
the ongoing battle between human beings and every-
thing that is other than human. In ancient folklore,
this other was anthropomorphized into monsters
(trolls, ogres, etc.) that inhabited (and represented)
the wilderness that humans could not control. Iron-
ically, the same advances in science and technology
that allowed cultures to explain away—and, thus,
destroy—all of these old monsters have given voice
to the modern folklore of science fiction. For most of
us, science is beyond our control. Its rapid advance is
a phenomenon that we didn’t create, that we don’t
entirely comprehend, and that moves too fast for us to
keep up with. So when it comes to science fiction, the
other represents—directly or indirectly—this techno-
logical juggernaut that can help us but also has the
power to destroy us or at least make us obsolete.
All this is not to say that science is an inherently
negative force or even that anxiety dominates our
relationship with technology. We all love our com-
puters, appreciate modern medicine, and marvel at
the wonders of space exploration. But conflict is an
essential element of narrative. If everything is per-
fect, then there’s no story. And unspoken, even96 CHAPTER 3TYPES OF MOVIES