Generic Hybridity, Style and Film Noir in Michael Mann’s Heat (1995)

The essay attempts to prove that one of the critical advantages of the crime film macrogenre is its capacity to reveal the intrinsic hybridity of its texts, which is argued to be articulated through emphasis on visual and aural style. Film noir is then chosen as a case study for its formal complexity, whose roots are to be found in its aesthetic and ideological ambiguity towards modernity. Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) is analysed as an example of a contemporary crime film that updates the stylistic and thematic concerns of classic noir. The result is a generic combination that channels ambivalence towards postmodern social change regarding masculinity.