Transnational Desires and Codes of Neo-Noir: - A Comparative Analysis of John Dahl’s <Red Rock West (1993)> and Kim Jee-woon’s <A Bittersweet Life (2005)>

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Film critics continually debate whether film noir is a genre, a mode of filmmaking, or a theoretical discourse. The rapid spread of this international film practice throughout global cinema, beginning in the 1950s and its continuing popularity to this day in the form of neo-noir, reveal the transnational nature of its codes and desires. This writing examines, through a comparative analysis, John Dahl’s <Red Rock West (1993)> and Kim Jee-woon’s <A Bittersweet Life (2005)> as two neo-noir films from different time periods, cultures and sensibilities. By analyzing their different approaches to noir’s tropes of the male protagonist, the role of the femme fatale, and their visual iconography of color palette and setting, this essay deconstructs noir’s dialectical pleasures of familiarity and novelty. Drawing upon the theoretical writings of Cowie, Kim, Park, and Venet, among others, this essay also seeks to reveal noir’s international origins and explores how these two films embody indigenous cultural traits yet, through their aesthetic approaches to noir’s conventions and international reception, reveal both national and transnational aspects of neo-noir.

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