Film Noir

I

Introduction

Film Noir, American motion-picture style popular in the 1940s and 1950s, typically featuring shadowy lighting, fatalistic pessimism, incidents of treachery, and the sense of a corrupt and violent society. The name, pronounced film no-WHA and taken from the French for “black film,” was coined by French critics to describe movies of the period that shared such themes and techniques.

Although the style faded in popularity beginning in the 1960s, films noirs continued to be produced and appreciated in the ensuing decades. Well-known modern films in this style include The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973), Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981), Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992), and A Simple Plan (Sam Raimi, 1998).

II

Characteristics

Film noir has a number of specific cinematic attributes. These include low-key, chiaroscuro lighting (the dramatic use of light and shade); night scenes, sometimes in glistening wet streets; the use of shadow to comment on a character’s psychology (such as blocks of shadow on the face, hinting at an unrevealed “dark side”) or the film’s narrative (bars of shadow, conveying a sense of being trapped); and claustrophobic or unbalanced camera framing. Several of these effects are particularly striking in black and white, but they have also been used in color films noirs.

Another common aspect of film noir is the femme fatale, a seductive woman who lures the protagonist into actions that ultimately lead to his downfall. The emotional tension generated between these characters (sexual attraction pitted against ethical or practical considerations) often lies at the core of film noir and drives the action and plot.

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Despite these specific characteristics, film noir also borrows heavily from other film genres, such as detective movies and thrillers. Critics were initially divided over whether to regard film noir as a genre, a style, or a movement. This division has largely been erased over time, as the genre has become accepted both within the industry and outside it. Thus the purist view, that film noir essentially ended with Touch of Evil (directed by Orson Welles, 1958) is no longer widely held.

III

History

Film noir has its roots in a fusion of the 1930s horror style and the detective and gangster subgenres, without the aspects of the supernatural or concerns about the social origins of crime. Literary sources include the “hard-boiled” private-eye novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the novels of James M. Cain, and the stories of Cornell Woolrich. The genre was also influenced by German expressionism of the early 20th century and the poetic realist movement in France in the 1930s. For example, the Hollywood film noir They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949) is a passionate reworking of the themes of the French film Quai des Brumes (Marcel Carné, 1938).

Many film critics believe that the first true film noir was The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941). The movie, about a private detective who gets involved in the search for a priceless antique while investigating his partner’s murder, is based on a 1930 novel of the same name by Hammett. Although the hero of the film (Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart) survives at the end, there is a bleak sense of loss as he turns over the woman who fascinates him to the police. Other classic films noirs include Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944), Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945), The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946), The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949), Sunset Boulevard (Wilder, 1950), and Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955).

The rise and success of the genre during the 1940s and 1950s has been attributed to various factors, such as insecurity resulting from World War II (1939-1945) and then from the onset of the Cold War; uncertainty about the roles of men and women following World War II; and fear within the movie industry during and after the anti-Communism investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The genre also flourished due to some relaxation in the film censorship laws during this time.

Today, much greater lack of industry censorship, tensions deriving from sources such as terrorism and nuclear weapons, changing family dynamics and gender roles, and general disillusionment within American society are all factors that have spurred more recent film noir production. Directors such as the Coen brothers (Blood Simple, 1984; Fargo, 1996; The Man Who Wasn’t There, 2001) and David Lynch (Blue Velvet, 1986; Mulholland Drive, 2001) continue the noir tradition in their films by exploring the vivid contrasts between “normal” American society and its dark underside.

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