Introduction -- Trapped by oneself in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the past -- "A deliberate, intentional fool" in Orson Welles's The lady from Shanghai -- Sexual agency in Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street -- "Why didn't you shoot again, baby?": concluding remarks
Summary
This book reveals the ways in which American film noir explore the declining credibility of individuals as causal centers of agency, and how we live with the acknowledgment of such limitations
