I myself am using Janey Place and Lowell Peterson's "Some Visual Motifs of
Film Noir," available in Alain Silver and James Ursini's (eds.) Film Noir
Reader, for an undergrad class I'm teaching this November. Of course, I'm
not really teaching film noir but Alex Proyas's Dark City (the course is
one on reflexivity in the cinema), which may be better appreciated with a
background in noir conventions.

Speaking of Dark City, browsing through Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film
Noir" revealed the following bit of info: "There seems to be an almost
Freudian attachment to water." This may be something I can look into to
explain the aversion to water that the Strangers in Dark City have.

Andrew

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