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Carol (now Dr. Caryl) Flinn published "Sound, woman and the bomb" in 1986[1] while still a PhD candidate at the University of Iowa. Kiss me deadly (USA 1955) had provoked a good deal of critical response before 1986, of course, much of it cited in the articles in this section of Screening the past; but Flinn's article took a quantum leap and opened up large new areas for writing about this (and other) films. "Sound, woman and the bomb" is the beginning of the current level of work with Kiss me deadly and its paradigm (shortly followed by J. P. Telotte's entry, "The fantastic realism of film noir: Kiss me deadly".(2)). From the tradition of gender theory, Flinn crafted a supple feminist criticism of great specificity and flexibility, able not only to read the universals of theory into the film, but to read the specifics of the film back to the theoretical propositions. Using this and an innovative focus on sound, she was then able to re-read the classical literature of film noir. This is a virtuoso critical performance. It is (rightly)
a widely-cited and very influential piece; so it is
remarkable that it has never been anthologized or reprinted.
Screening the past is particularly pleased to correct
that oversight. |
(1) Carol Flinn, "Sound, woman and the bomb: dismembering the 'great whatsit' in Kiss me deadly". Wide angle 8, no. 3-4 (1986): 115-127.
(2) J. P. Telotte, "The fantastic realism of film noir: Kiss me deadly". Wide angle 14, no.1 (1992):4-18.
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