History of Film noir

Film noir is the name given to films which were often crime thrillers with similar plots of a seamy or criminal underworld and cynical characters. The films were best recognized in the early 1940s to late 1950s. The term film noir itself is French and was first introduced to these types of film by French film critic Nino Frank in 1946, when translated into English Film noir means black film/black cinema. Frank along with other French film critics had not seen the films due to the war and watched them following the end of World War 2 in 1946. The critics realised that many films they watched after the war possessed similar dark moods and feeling, crime thrillers set in underworlds usually in major American cities, upon viewing these films Frank named them film noir due to these similar characteristics.

  The German Expressionism of the 1920s influenced the mood of film noirs and was a factor in the dark feel to the movies. Noirs were produced as B movies for Hollywood films which had a-lists stars and were A movies so Film Noir would be the inferior films produced at the time. This meant however that the dark and visual interpretations of reality which film noir created would be less monitored by producers in Hollywood as they focus more on A movies which left directors able to make movies which reflected the mood at attitude of people around the time in which film noir’s were first released.

 Moreover this attitude of which the public had at the time was one of somewhat anger and frustration as the Second World War was at large. Film noir were very much influenced by European film makers who fled to Hollywood to escape the war and expressed their feelings in this type of film. However due to the war the early film noir movie were only available in America as much of Europe was under threat from the Nazis, so it was not until after the war that the Europeans were able to first see film noir’s, and it was at this time in the mid 1940s that Nino Frank defined the crime thriller from Hollywood as film noir’s. Filmakers such as Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger and Fritz Lang were part of the escape to America.

 The narrative of film noir’s were along with being crime thriller very much based around a gangster environment and had many cynical characters who were more seen as working class criminals rather than gangsters seen in previous movies. Many of the central connections or romances seen in noirs ended in disaster, lust motivated wrong decisions made by the characters would spiral downhill, characters were betrayed frequently with murder being a continual inclusion in the movies with bent police officers involved also. 

 Also film noir’s are known for introducing femme fatales who were feisty female characters both attractive as well as confident and predatory killers which different from the naturals view of this type of character being male. The creation of this type of character made it reflect society during the war where many women were working in the working as the men were at war and many women not wanting to give up the workplace jobs after the war either. At the time of the war women took on greater responsibility and this feel is shown by the fatales in the noirs as they are not seen as weak characters but quite the opposite.

 As well as the narrative film noir’s are well known for their use of stark, expressionistic lighting, special camerawork and was usually portrayed in the movies in an urban environment. Also for the very early films which were in black and white this lighting and camerawork combined together to create a dark feeling to the films. The use of the setting in the films backed this up further with rainy streets and alleys, long imposing shadows and tall buildings being used as the setting for noirs.

 Much of the idea behind film noir came from what are known as pulp fiction private eye crime books sometimes referred to as hard boiled books which where earlier than the film noir’s and had similar plots to them. Other sources where it is believed the mood for film noir’s revived from are gangster movies of the early 1900s which accounts who the violence in them.

 Lastly there has been great deliberation over whether film noir should be considered as I film genre or not. Some argue that it is simply the mood, style, point-of-view or tone of the film rather than it being in a separate category of its own but under the crime genre. However due to the differences of this type of film compared to other crime film it is maybe justified that film noir should have its own sub category in the film genre but it is certainly not the view of everyone towards film noir.

 Examples of film noir’s include: The Maltese Falcon (1941) Murder, My sweet (1944) Double Indemnity (1944) The Woman in the Window (1944) and Laura (1944).