Film Noir Research Paper

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (n.d) defines noir as “crime fiction featuring hard-boiled[,] cynical characters and bleak[,] sleazy settings.” However, it could be suggested that “claustrophobic” would be a better descriptor, in place of “sleazy.” The term noir, as it relates to fiction, comes from “film noir,” which means “black cinema,” and was a term coined in France by French critic Nino Frank (Schurr, A., Crump, A., Rozeman, M., & Paste staff, 2015). The dark term was coined partially in reference to a particular subset of Hollywood films that were permeated with previously unseen levels of cynicism or disillusionment, this cynicism is generally attributed to the 1940s post-war dynamics (Hoerneman, n.d.). Film

Between 1940 and 1959, Hollywood produced many crime films characterized by low key lighting, night time urban streets and shadowy images. This genre is known noir film which later evolved to neo-noir. The production of noir films was influenced by low budgeting and German Expressionism. Bound and The stranger are both noir film. Bound is a neo-noir film produced in 1996. Neo-noir is a noir film updated in content, style and visual element. Bound is centered on Violet played by Jenifer Tilly who is a lesbian, prostitutes and a gangster. Violet meets Corky (Gina Gorshon) fall in love with her and wants to leave her boyfriend Caesar ( Joe Pantoliano) also a gangster and money-launderer. But before

The setting of film noir is usually quite cheap. This is used effectively to actually show the dark tacky parts of society where film-noir usually takes place. There is not a lot of light in these films and they are often set on location. A seedy underworld is often present in film-noir movies, where all the bad or undesirable parts of society are exposed. Things like drugs, alcohol, murder and corruption.

Noir is a genre of hard-boiled crime dramas, which originated in America in the 1930s and 1940s, during and post WWII. The films and novels that were associated with this genre reflected how the world was viewed during and after the war⎯cold, heartless and cruel. A noir anti-hero is the main character of a story that lacks the characteristics of a typical hero, but is relatable to the audience. He usually functions outside social norms and challenges the system. Hardboiled detective is a tough, cynical style of writing that brought an aspect of realism to the genre of detective fiction. It is often a gritty detective story set in a world overrun with violence and corruption. The way that Cain describes depression-era Los Angeles is a reflection of society during that time period. The anti-hero is morally compelling

Film noir is a famous era of filmmaking that defined the cinematic experience in Hollywood for a whole decade. No film can correctly represent such a influential cinematic era like Gun Crazy directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Gun Crazy is a unique expression of film noir of the 1950s that utilizes many cinematic elements in unparalleled ways to tell its story in a distinct fashion. Lewis uses cinematic techniques such as lighting, composition, editing, music, and mise-en-scene of the opening sequence to establish the tone and character motivations of the story.

Film noir was originally the ideologies of Europeans throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s and this genre was based around how Non-American people perceived American culture. The graphic novel Blacksad is unique compared to other graphic novels because it utilizes film noir into it such as adding a melancholy tone to the illustrations and adding outside perspective. Film noir is used to portray to audience what the real story behind the patriotism of these American citizens proudly show because there is more than what meets the eye. It depicts to the audience “the truth” about American culture. One thing that film noir illustrated was the amount of crime being committed throughout the United States due to the major differences between the social classes. Throughout these times, the people who held the most power were rich, white families, and they also had the most influence over government too. The authors of Blacksad, Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, decided that film noir would be the best way to portray their message.

audience) that he will wait in a café until he finds her. The café he

Borde and Chaumeton, two French film scholars who coined the name “film noir”, also offered ideas on what a “classical noir” is. The two write that “the presence of constant crime” is a characteristic of classical noir that is present in and throughout noir films (Borde and Chaumeton 19). Like Schrader, Borde and Chaumeton agree that authority

After World War II, the American motion picture studios began releasing films shot in black and white, with a high contrast style known as Film Noir. Though the roots of this style of film was greatly influenced by the German Expressionist movement in film during the late 1910-early 1920’s, and films that resembled this style were made prior to the war, including the early films by Fritz Lang, a German director who fled Germany prior to the war to work in America, this film style would become prevalent during the post WWII era. Besides the shadowed lighting style and the psychologically expressive mise-en-scène, the film noir plot-lines often surrounded crime dramas and were greatly influenced by the pulp fiction novels of the period by authors like Dashiell Hammett and

Film Noir was extremely trendy during the 1940’s. People were captivated by the way it expresses a mood of disillusionment and indistinctness between good and evil. Film Noir have key elements; crime, mystery, an anti-hero, femme fatale, and chiaroscuro lighting and camera angles. The Maltese Falcon is an example of film noir because of the usage of camera angles, lighting and ominous settings, as well as sinister characters as Samuel Spade, the anti-hero on a quest for meaning, who encounters the death of his partner but does not show any signs of remorse but instead for his greed for riches.

Film Noir, a term coined by the French to describe a style of film characterized by dark themes, storylines, and visuals, has been influencing cinematic industries since the 1940’s. With roots in German expressionistic films and Italian postwar documentaries, film noir has made its way into American film as well, particularly identified in mob and crime pictures. However, such settings are not exclusive to American film noir. One noteworthy example is Billy Wilder’s film Sunset Boulevard, which follows the foreboding tale of Joe Gillis, the desperate-for-success protagonist, who finds himself in the fatal grips of the disillusioned femme fatale Norma Desmond. Not only does the storyline’s heavy subject matter and typical character

     Films that are classified as being in the film noir genre all share some basic characteristics. There is generally a voice-over throughout the film in order to guide the audience's perceptions. These movies also involve a crime and a detective who is trying to figure out the truth in the situation. This detective usually encounters a femme fatale who seduces him. However, the most distinctive feature of the film noir genre is the abundance of darkness.

The film is about a group of 5 people fighting to find and keep the

One of the main characteristics of film noir is the femme fatale. Within noir, the femme fatale “largely abjures traditional romance and passive domesticity, choosing instead to apply her sexuality to homicidal plots in the service of greed” (Boozer 20). Phyllis is the ultimate femme fatale and is one of the main reasons that Double Indemnity is classified as a film noir. Phyllis “threatens the moral and legal codes of marriage” by cheating on and

Film Noir was a result of it's time - The war had just ended and It was time where prohibition had influenced an abundance in crime and corruption. Film noir serves to highlight the darkest aspects of human beings. ‘Society is making the machinery of it's own destruction.