Difficult Development of Unused Potential

Alicja Helman

Abstract

Book review of Kamila Żyto’s Film noir i kino braci Coen [Film noir and Coen brothers’ cinema] (2017). According to Helman, the author devoted the first, relatively large part of the work to theoretical considerations on the concepts of noir and neo-noir, going far beyond the presentation of the literature on the subject. In her view, noir is primarily a matter of philosophical-ideological (also aesthetic) world-view, which is proved by referring to such sources of inspiration as existentialism (also in its American version) and psychoanalysis, to which she attaches great importance. The book consists of two parts preceded by an introduction. The first one is devoted to theoretical considerations around the noir phenomenon, the second - to the selected films of the Coen brothers. After reading the first part, the reader is already perfectly familiar with the research methods and concepts that will be used by Kamila Żyto in the second part. Although the Coen brothers’ cinema is the second part of the title, it is in fact the main subject of interest of the author, clearly fascinated by the noir cinema. Having presented the design of the book and its main assumptions, Helman discusses some theses of Kamila Żyto. In addition, she introduces the reader to the analysis of films carried out by the author, and also signals that the ending of the book is an attempt to locate the neo-noir cinema and the creativity of the Coen brothers in the context of the modernist paradigm.