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Film noir

January 15, 2023

"Film Noir" redirects here. For the album, see Film Noir (album).

Film noir (/nwɑːr/; French: [film nwaʁ]) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.[1]

Film noir
Two silhouetted figures in The Big Combo (1955). The film's cinematographer, John Alton, was the creator of many of film noir's stylized images.
Years activeearly 1920s – late 1950s
CountryUnited States
Influences
Influenced

The term film noir, French for 'black film' (literal) or 'dark film' (closer meaning),[2] was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, but was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era.[3] Frank is believed to have been inspired by the French literary publishing imprint Série noire, founded in 1945.

Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noir[a] were referred to as "melodramas". Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it is more of a filmmaking style is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars.

Film noir encompasses a range of plots: the central figure may be a private investigator (The Big Sleep), a plainclothes police officer (The Big Heat), an aging boxer (The Set-Up), a hapless grifter (Night and the City), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime (Gun Crazy), or simply a victim of circumstance (D.O.A.). Although film noir was originally associated with American productions, the term has been used to describe films from around the world. Many films released from the 1960s onward share attributes with films noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially. Some refer to such latter-day works as neo-noir. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s.[4]

Definition

The Stranger, full film

The questions of what defines film noir, and what sort of category it is, provoke continuing debate.[5] "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel ..."—this set of attributes constitutes the first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 (A Panorama of American Film Noir), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject.[6] They emphasize that not every film noir embodies all five attributes in equal measure—one might be more dreamlike; another, particularly brutal.[7] The authors' caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship: in the more than five decades since, there have been innumerable further attempts at definition, yet in the words of cinema historian Mark Bould, film noir remains an "elusive phenomenon ... always just out of reach".[8]

Though film noir is often identified with a visual style, unconventional within a Hollywood context, that emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions,[9] films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches, including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream.[10] Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres, from the gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture—any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s, now seen as noir's classical era, was likely to be described as a melodrama at the time.[11]

It is night, always. The hero enters a labyrinth on a quest. He is alone and off-balance. He may be desperate, in flight, or coldly calculating, imagining he is the pursuer rather than the pursued.

A woman invariably joins him at a critical juncture, when he is most vulnerable. [Her] eventual betrayal of him (or herself) is as ambiguous as her feelings about him.

Nicholas Christopher, Somewhere in the Night (1997)[12]

While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing.[13] Foster Hirsch defines a genre as determined by "conventions of narrative structure, characterization, theme, and visual design". Hirsch, as one who has taken the position that film noir is a genre, argues that these elements are present "in abundance". Hirsch notes that there are unifying features of tone, visual style and narrative sufficient to classify noir as a distinct genre.[14]

Others argue that film noir is not a genre. Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, but many classic noirs take place in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road; setting, therefore, cannot be its genre determinant, as with the Western. Similarly, while the private eye and the femme fatale are stock character types conventionally identified with noir, the majority of films noir feature neither; so there is no character basis for genre designation as with the gangster film. Nor does film noir rely on anything as evident as the monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film, the speculative leaps of the science fiction film, or the song-and-dance routines of the musical.[15]

An analogous case is that of the screwball comedy, widely accepted by film historians as constituting a "genre": the screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute, but by a general disposition and a group of elements, some—but rarely and perhaps never all—of which are found in each of the genre's films.[16] Because of the diversity of noir (much greater than that of the screwball comedy), certain scholars in the field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a "style".[17] Alain Silver, the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies, refers to film noir as a "cycle"[18] and a "phenomenon",[19] even as he argues that it has—like certain genres—a consistent set of visual and thematic codes.[20] Screenwriter Eric R. Williams labels both film noir and screwball comedy a "pathway" in his screenwriters taxonomy; explaining that a pathway has two parts: 1) the way the audience connects with the protagonist and 2) the trajectory the audience expects the story to follow.[21] Other critics treat film noir as a "mood",[22] characterize it as a "series",[23] or simply address a chosen set of films they regard as belonging to the noir "canon".[24] There is no consensus on the matter.[25]

Background

Cinematic sources

 
Marlene Dietrich, an actress frequently called upon to play a femme fatale.

The aesthetics of film noir were influenced by German Expressionism, an artistic movement of the 1910s and 1920s that involved theater, music, photography, painting, sculpture and architecture, as well as cinema. The opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and then the threat of Nazism led to the emigration of many film artists working in Germany who had been involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners.[26] M (1931), shot only a few years before director Fritz Lang's departure from Germany, is among the first crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type plot, in which the protagonist is a criminal (as are his most successful pursuers). Directors such as Lang, Jacques Tourneur, Robert Siodmak and Michael Curtiz brought a dramatically shadowed lighting style and a psychologically expressive approach to visual composition (mise-en-scène) with them to Hollywood, where they made some of the most famous classic noirs.[27]

By 1931, Curtiz had already been in Hollywood for half a decade, making as many as six films a year. Movies of his such as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and Private Detective 62 (1933) are among the early Hollywood sound films arguably classifiable as noir—scholar Marc Vernet offers the latter as evidence that dating the initiation of film noir to 1940 or any other year is "arbitrary".[28] Expressionism-orientated filmmakers had free stylistic rein in Universal horror pictures such as Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932)—the former photographed and the latter directed by the Berlin-trained Karl Freund—and The Black Cat (1934), directed by Austrian émigré Edgar G. Ulmer.[29] The Universal horror film that comes closest to noir, in story and sensibility, is The Invisible Man (1933), directed by Englishman James Whale and photographed by American Arthur Edeson. Edeson later photographed The Maltese Falcon (1941), widely regarded as the first major film noir of the classic era.[30]

Josef von Sternberg was directing in Hollywood during the same period. Films of his such as Shanghai Express (1932) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935), with their hothouse eroticism and baroque visual style anticipated central elements of classic noir. The commercial and critical success of Sternberg's silent Underworld (1927) was largely responsible for spurring a trend of Hollywood gangster films.[31] Successful films in that genre such as Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932) demonstrated that there was an audience for crime dramas with morally reprehensible protagonists.[32] An important, possibly influential, cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism, with its romantic, fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes.[33] The movement's sensibility is mirrored in the Warner Bros. drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), a forerunner of noir.[34] Among films not considered noir, perhaps none had a greater effect on the development of the genre than Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles. Its visual intricacy and complex, voiceover narrative structure are echoed in dozens of classic films noir.[35]

Italian neorealism of the 1940s, with its emphasis on quasi-documentary authenticity, was an acknowledged influence on trends that emerged in American noir. The Lost Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder, another Vienna-born, Berlin-trained American auteur, tells the story of an alcoholic in a manner evocative of neorealism.[36] It also exemplifies the problem of classification: one of the first American films to be described as a film noir, it has largely disappeared from considerations of the field.[37] Director Jules Dassin of The Naked City (1948) pointed to the neorealists as inspiring his use of location photography with non-professional extras. This semidocumentary approach characterized a substantial number of noirs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Along with neorealism, the style had an American precedent cited by Dassin, in director Henry Hathaway's The House on 92nd Street (1945), which demonstrated the parallel influence of the cinematic newsreel.[38]

Literary sources

 
The October 1934 issue of Black Mask featured the first appearance of the detective character whom Raymond Chandler developed into the famous Philip Marlowe.[39]

The primary literary influence on film noir was the hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction, led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett (whose first novel, Red Harvest, was published in 1929) and James M. Cain (whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later), and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask. The classic film noirs The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Glass Key (1942) were based on novels by Hammett; Cain's novels provided the basis for Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and Slightly Scarlet (1956; adapted from Love's Lovely Counterfeit). A decade before the classic era, a story by Hammett was the source for the gangster melodrama City Streets (1931), directed by Rouben Mamoulian and photographed by Lee Garmes, who worked regularly with Sternberg. Released the month before Lang's M, City Streets has a claim to being the first major film noir; both its style and story had many noir characteristics.[40]

Raymond Chandler, who debuted as a novelist with The Big Sleep in 1939, soon became the most famous author of the hardboiled school. Not only were Chandler's novels turned into major noirs—Murder, My Sweet (1944; adapted from Farewell, My Lovely), The Big Sleep (1946), and Lady in the Lake (1947)—he was an important screenwriter in the genre as well, producing the scripts for Double Indemnity, The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Strangers on a Train (1951). Where Chandler, like Hammett, centered most of his novels and stories on the character of the private eye, Cain featured less heroic protagonists and focused more on psychological exposition than on crime solving;[41] the Cain approach has come to be identified with a subset of the hardboiled genre dubbed "noir fiction". For much of the 1940s, one of the most prolific and successful authors of this often downbeat brand of suspense tale was Cornell Woolrich (sometimes under the pseudonym George Hopley or William Irish). No writer's published work provided the basis for more films noir of the classic period than Woolrich's: thirteen in all, including Black Angel (1946), Deadline at Dawn (1946), and Fear in the Night (1947).[42]

Another crucial literary source for film noir was W. R. Burnett, whose first novel to be published was Little Caesar, in 1929. It was turned into a hit for Warner Bros. in 1931; the following year, Burnett was hired to write dialogue for Scarface, while The Beast of the City (1932) was adapted from one of his stories. At least one important reference work identifies the latter as a film noir despite its early date.[43] Burnett's characteristic narrative approach fell somewhere between that of the quintessential hardboiled writers and their noir fiction compatriots—his protagonists were often heroic in their own way, which happened to be that of the gangster. During the classic era, his work, either as author or screenwriter, was the basis for seven films now widely regarded as films noir, including three of the most famous: High Sierra (1941), This Gun for Hire (1942), and The Asphalt Jungle (1950).[44]

Classic period

Overview

The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir. While City Streets and other pre-WWII crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), both directed by Fritz Lang, are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir' encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms.[45]

The film now most commonly cited as the first "true" film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), directed by Latvian-born, Soviet-trained Boris Ingster.[46] Hungarian émigré Peter Lorre—who had starred in Lang's M—was top-billed, although he did not play the primary lead. (He later played secondary roles in several other formative American noirs.) Although modestly budgeted, at the high end of the B movie scale, Stranger on the Third Floor still lost its studio, RKO, US$56,000 (equivalent to $1,083,154 in 2021), almost a third of its total cost.[47] Variety magazine found Ingster's work: "...too studied and when original, lacks the flare to hold attention. It's a film too arty for average audiences, and too humdrum for others."[48] Stranger on the Third Floor was not recognized as the beginning of a trend, let alone a new genre, for many decades.[46]

Whoever went to the movies with any regularity during 1946 was caught in the midst of Hollywood's profound postwar affection for morbid drama. From January through December deep shadows, clutching hands, exploding revolvers, sadistic villains and heroines tormented with deeply rooted diseases of the mind flashed across the screen in a panting display of psychoneurosis, unsublimated sex and murder most foul.

Donald Marshman, Life (August 25, 1947)[49]

Most film noirs of the classic period were similarly low- and modestly-budgeted features without major stars—B movies either literally or in spirit. In this production context, writers, directors, cinematographers, and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big-picture constraints. There was more visual experimentation than in Hollywood filmmaking as a whole: the Expressionism now closely associated with noir and the semi-documentary style that later emerged represent two very different tendencies. Narrative structures sometimes involved convoluted flashbacks uncommon in non-noir commercial productions. In terms of content, enforcement of the Production Code ensured that no film character could literally get away with murder or be seen sharing a bed with anyone but a spouse; within those bounds, however, many films now identified as noir feature plot elements and dialogue that were very risqué for the time.[50]

 
Out of the Past (1947) directed by Jacques Tourneur, features many of the genre's hallmarks: a cynical private detective as the protagonist, a femme fatale, multiple flashbacks with voiceover narration, dramatically shadowed photography, and a fatalistic mood leavened with provocative banter. Pictured are noir icons Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer.

Thematically, films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on portrayals of women of questionable virtue—a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder; setting the mold was Barbara Stanwyck's unforgettable femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson—an apparent nod to Marlene Dietrich, who had built her extraordinary career playing such characters for Sternberg. An A-level feature, the film's commercial success and seven Oscar nominations made it probably the most influential of the early noirs.[51] A slew of now-renowned noir "bad girls" followed, such as those played by Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946), and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947). The iconic noir counterpart to the femme fatale, the private eye, came to the fore in films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, and Murder, My Sweet (1944), with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe.

The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general.[52] A prime example is Kiss Me Deadly (1955); based on a novel by Mickey Spillane, the best-selling of all the hardboiled authors, here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer. As described by Paul Schrader, "Robert Aldrich's teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most perversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit' [which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb."[53] Orson Welles's baroquely styled Touch of Evil (1958) is frequently cited as the last noir of the classic period.[54] Some scholars believe film noir never really ended, but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir.[55] A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside the classic era to be something other than genuine film noir. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion.[56] These later films are often called neo-noir.

Directors and the business of noir

 
A scene from In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray and based on a novel by noir fiction writer Dorothy B. Hughes. Two of noir's defining actors, Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart, portray star-crossed lovers in the film.

While the inceptive noir, Stranger on the Third Floor, was a B picture directed by a virtual unknown, many of the films noir still remembered were A-list productions by well-known film makers. Debuting as a director with The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston followed with Key Largo (1948) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Opinion is divided on the noir status of several Alfred Hitchcock thrillers from the era; at least four qualify by consensus: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Wrong Man (1956),[57] Otto Preminger's success with Laura (1944) made his name and helped demonstrate noir's adaptability to a high-gloss 20th Century-Fox presentation.[58] Among Hollywood's most celebrated directors of the era, arguably none worked more often in a noir mode than Preminger; his other noirs include Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) (all for Fox) and Angel Face (1952). A half-decade after Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder made Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Ace in the Hole (1951), noirs that were not so much crime dramas as satires on Hollywood and the news media respectively. In a Lonely Place (1950) was Nicholas Ray's breakthrough; his other noirs include his debut, They Live by Night (1948) and On Dangerous Ground (1952), noted for their unusually sympathetic treatment of characters alienated from the social mainstream.[59]

 
Rita Hayworth in the trailer for The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Orson Welles had notorious problems with financing but his three film noirs were well-budgeted: The Lady from Shanghai (1947) received top-level, "prestige" backing, while The Stranger (1946), his most conventional film, and Touch of Evil (1958), an unmistakably personal work, were funded at levels lower but still commensurate with headlining releases.[60] Like The Stranger, Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window (1945) was a production of the independent International Pictures. Lang's follow-up, Scarlet Street (1945), was one of the few classic noirs to be officially censored: filled with erotic innuendo, it was temporarily banned in Milwaukee, Atlanta and New York State.[61] Scarlet Street was a semi-independent, cosponsored by Universal and Lang's Diana Productions, of which the film's co-star, Joan Bennett, was the second biggest shareholder. Lang, Bennett and her husband, the Universal veteran and Diana production head Walter Wanger, made Secret Beyond the Door (1948) in similar fashion.[62]

Before leaving the United States while subject to the Hollywood blacklist, Jules Dassin made two classic noirs that also straddled the major/independent line: Brute Force (1947) and the influential documentary-style The Naked City (1948) were developed by producer Mark Hellinger, who had an "inside/outside" contract with Universal similar to Wanger's.[63] Years earlier, working at Warner Bros., Hellinger had produced three films for Raoul Walsh, the proto-noirs They Drive by Night (1940), Manpower (1941) and High Sierra (1941), now regarded as a seminal work in noir's development.[64] Walsh had no great name during his half-century as a director but his noirs White Heat (1949) and The Enforcer (1951) had A-list stars and are seen as important examples of the cycle.[65] Other directors associated with top-of-the-bill Hollywood films noir include Edward Dmytryk (Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947))—the first important noir director to fall prey to the industry blacklist—as well as Henry Hathaway (The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss of Death (1947)) and John Farrow (The Big Clock (1948), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)).

Most of the Hollywood films considered to be classic noirs fall into the category of the B movie.[66] Some were Bs in the most precise sense, produced to run on the bottom of double bills by a low-budget unit of one of the major studios or by one of the smaller Poverty Row outfits, from the relatively well-off Monogram to shakier ventures such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). Jacques Tourneur had made over thirty Hollywood Bs (a few now highly regarded, most forgotten) before directing the A-level Out of the Past, described by scholar Robert Ottoson as "the ne plus ultra of forties film noir".[67] Movies with budgets a step up the ladder, known as "intermediates" by the industry, might be treated as A or B pictures depending on the circumstances. Monogram created Allied Artists in the late 1940s to focus on this sort of production. Robert Wise (Born to Kill [1947], The Set-Up [1949]) and Anthony Mann (T-Men [1947] and Raw Deal [1948]) each made a series of impressive intermediates, many of them noirs, before graduating to steady work on big-budget productions. Mann did some of his most celebrated work with cinematographer John Alton, a specialist in what James Naremore called "hypnotic moments of light-in-darkness".[68] He Walked by Night (1948), shot by Alton though credited solely to Alfred Werker, directed in large part by Mann, demonstrates their technical mastery and exemplifies the late 1940s trend of "police procedural" crime dramas. It was released, like other Mann-Alton noirs, by the small Eagle-Lion company; it was the inspiration for the Dragnet series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and television in 1951.[69]

 
Detour (1945) cost $117,000 to make when the biggest Hollywood studios spent around $600,000 on the average feature. Produced at small PRC, however, the film was 30 percent over budget.[70]

Several directors associated with noir built well-respected oeuvres largely at the B-movie/intermediate level. Samuel Fuller's brutal, visually energetic films such as Pickup on South Street (1953) and Underworld U.S.A. (1961) earned him a unique reputation; his advocates praise him as "primitive" and "barbarous".[71][72] Joseph H. Lewis directed noirs as diverse as Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955). The former—whose screenplay was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, disguised by a front—features a bank hold-up sequence shown in an unbroken take of over three minutes that was influential.[73] The Big Combo was shot by John Alton and took the shadowy noir style to its outer limits.[74] The most distinctive films of Phil Karlson (The Phenix City Story [1955] and The Brothers Rico [1957]) tell stories of vice organized on a monstrous scale.[75] The work of other directors in this tier of the industry, such as Felix E. Feist (The Devil Thumbs a Ride [1947], Tomorrow Is Another Day [1951]), has become obscure. Edgar G. Ulmer spent most of his Hollywood career working at B studios and once in a while on projects that achieved intermediate status; for the most part, on unmistakable Bs. In 1945, while at PRC, he directed a noir cult classic, Detour.[76] Ulmer's other noirs include Strange Illusion (1945), also for PRC; Ruthless (1948), for Eagle-Lion, which had acquired PRC the previous year and Murder Is My Beat (1955), for Allied Artists.

A number of low- and modestly-budgeted noirs were made by independent, often actor-owned, companies contracting with larger studios for distribution. Serving as producer, writer, director and top-billed performer, Hugo Haas made films like Pickup (1951), The Other Woman (1954) and Jacques Tourneur, The Fearmakers (1958). It was in this way that accomplished noir actress Ida Lupino established herself as the sole female director in Hollywood during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s. She does not appear in the best-known film she directed, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), developed by her company, The Filmakers, with support and distribution by RKO.[77] It is one of the seven classic film noirs produced largely outside of the major studios that have been chosen for the United States National Film Registry. Of the others, one was a small-studio release: Detour. Four were independent productions distributed by United Artists, the "studio without a studio": Gun Crazy; Kiss Me Deadly; D.O.A. (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and Sweet Smell of Success (1957), directed by Alexander Mackendrick. One was an independent distributed by MGM, the industry leader: Force of Evil (1948), directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield, both of whom were blacklisted in the 1950s.[78] Independent production usually meant restricted circumstances but Sweet Smell of Success, despite the plans of the production team, was clearly not made on the cheap, though like many other cherished A-budget noirs, it might be said to have a B-movie soul.[79]

Perhaps no director better displayed that spirit than the German-born Robert Siodmak, who had already made a score of films before his 1940 arrival in Hollywood. Working mostly on A features, he made eight films now regarded as classic-era films noir (a figure matched only by Lang and Mann).[80] In addition to The Killers, Burt Lancaster's debut and a Hellinger/Universal co-production, Siodmak's other important contributions to the genre include 1944's Phantom Lady (a top-of-the-line B and Woolrich adaptation), the ironically titled Christmas Holiday (1944), and Cry of the City (1948). Criss Cross (1949), with Lancaster again the lead, exemplifies how Siodmak brought the virtues of the B-movie to the A noir. In addition to the relatively looser constraints on character and message at lower budgets, the nature of B production lent itself to the noir style for economic reasons: dim lighting saved on electricity and helped cloak cheap sets (mist and smoke also served the cause); night shooting was often compelled by hurried production schedules; plots with obscure motivations and intriguingly elliptical transitions were sometimes the consequence of hastily written scripts, of which there was not always enough time or money to shoot every scene. In Criss Cross, Siodmak achieved these effects with purpose, wrapping them around Yvonne De Carlo, playing the most understandable of femme fatales; Dan Duryea, in one of his many charismatic villain roles; and Lancaster as an ordinary laborer turned armed robber, doomed by a romantic obsession.[81]

Classic-era film noirs in the National Film Registry
1940–49
1950–58

Outside the United States

 
"Générique" ("Nuit sur les Champs-Élysées")
The moody, evocative music improvised by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis's quintet for Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958) is regarded as one of the definitive noir scores.[82]
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Some critics regard classic film noir as a cycle exclusive to the United States; Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, for example, argue, "With the Western, film noir shares the distinction of being an indigenous American form ... a wholly American film style."[83] However, although the term "film noir" was originally coined to describe Hollywood movies, it was an international phenomenon.[84] Even before the beginning of the generally accepted classic period, there were films made far from Hollywood that can be seen in retrospect as films noir, for example, the French productions Pépé le Moko (1937), directed by Julien Duvivier, and Le Jour se lève (1939), directed by Marcel Carné.[85] In addition, Mexico experienced a vibrant film noir period from roughly 1946 to 1952, which was around the same time film noir was blossoming in the United States.[86]

During the classic period, there were many films produced in Europe, particularly in France, that share elements of style, theme, and sensibility with American films noir and may themselves be included in the genre's canon. In certain cases, the interrelationship with Hollywood noir is obvious: American-born director Jules Dassin moved to France in the early 1950s as a result of the Hollywood blacklist, and made one of the most famous French film noirs, Rififi (1955). Other well-known French films often classified as noir include Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and Les Diaboliques (1955), both directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Casque d'Or (1952), Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), and Le Trou (1960) directed by Jacques Becker; and Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), directed by Louis Malle. French director Jean-Pierre Melville is widely recognized for his tragic, minimalist films noir—Bob le flambeur (1955), from the classic period, was followed by Le Doulos (1962), Le deuxième souffle 1966), Le Samouraï (1967), and Le Cercle rouge (1970).[87] In the 1960s, Greek films noir "The Secret of the Red Mantle"[88] and "The Fear"[89] allowed audience for an anti-ableist reading which challenged stereotypes of disability. .[90]

 
Stray Dog (1949), directed and cowritten by Akira Kurosawa, contains many cinematographic and narrative elements associated with classic American film noir.

Scholar Andrew Spicer argues that British film noir evidences a greater debt to French poetic realism than to the expressionistic American mode of noir.[91] Examples of British noir from the classic period include Brighton Rock (1947), directed by John Boulting; They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti; The Small Back Room (1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; The October Man (1950), directed by Roy Ward Baker; and Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), directed by Lewis Gilbert. Terence Fisher directed several low-budget thrillers in a noir mode for Hammer Film Productions, including The Last Page (a.k.a. Man Bait; 1952), Stolen Face (1952), and Murder by Proxy (a.k.a. Blackout; 1954). Before leaving for France, Jules Dassin had been obliged by political pressure to shoot his last English-language film of the classic noir period in Great Britain: Night and the City (1950). Though it was conceived in the United States and was not only directed by an American but also stars two American actors—Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney—it is technically a UK production, financed by 20th Century-Fox's British subsidiary. The most famous of classic British noirs is director Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949), from a screenplay by Graham Greene. Set in Vienna immediately after World War II, it also stars two American actors, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, who had appeared together in Citizen Kane.[92]

Elsewhere, Italian director Luchino Visconti adapted Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice as Ossessione (1943), regarded both as one of the great noirs and a seminal film in the development of neorealism.[93] (This was not even the first screen version of Cain's novel, having been preceded by the French Le Dernier Tournant in 1939.)[94] In Japan, the celebrated Akira Kurosawa directed several films recognizable as films noir, including Drunken Angel (1948), Stray Dog (1949), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), and High and Low (1963).[95] Spanish author Mercedes Formica's novel La ciudad perdida (The Lost City) was adapted into film in 1960.[96]

Among the first major neo-noir films—the term often applied to films that consciously refer back to the classic noir tradition—was the French Tirez sur le pianiste (1960), directed by François Truffaut from a novel by one of the gloomiest of American noir fiction writers, David Goodis.[97] Noir crime films and melodramas have been produced in many countries in the post-classic area. Some of these are quintessentially self-aware neo-noirs—for example, Il Conformista (1969; Italy), Der Amerikanische Freund (1977; Germany), The Element of Crime (1984; Denmark), and El Aura (2005; Argentina). Others simply share narrative elements and a version of the hardboiled sensibility associated with classic noir, such as Castle of Sand (1974; Japan), Insomnia (1997; Norway), Croupier (1998; UK), and Blind Shaft (2003; China).[98]

Neo-noir and echoes of the classic mode

See also: Neo-noir

The neo-noir film genre developed mid-way into the Cold War. This cinematological trend reflected much of the cynicism and the possibility of nuclear annihilation of the era. This new genre introduced innovations that were not available to earlier noir films. The violence was also more potent.[99]

1960s and 1970s

While it is hard to draw a line between some of the noir films of the early 1960s such as Blast of Silence (1961) and Cape Fear (1962) and the noirs of the late 1950s, new trends emerged in the post-classic era. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer, Shock Corridor (1963), directed by Samuel Fuller, and Brainstorm (1965), directed by experienced noir character actor William Conrad, all treat the theme of mental dispossession within stylistic and tonal frameworks derived from classic film noir.[100] The Manchurian Candidate examined the situation of American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War. Incidents that occurred during the war as well as those post-war functioned as an inspiration for a "Cold War Noir" subgenre.[101][102] The television series The Fugitive (1963–67) brought classic noir themes and mood to the small screen for an extended run.[100]

 
As car thief Michel Poiccard, a.k.a. Laszlo Kovacs, Jean-Paul Belmondo in À bout de souffle (Breathless; 1960). Poiccard reveres and styles himself after Humphrey Bogart's screen persona. Here he imitates a characteristic Bogart gesture, one of the film's motifs.[103]

In a different vein, films began to appear that self-consciously acknowledged the conventions of classic film noir as historical archetypes to be revived, rejected, or reimagined. These efforts typify what came to be known as neo-noir.[104] Though several late classic noirs, Kiss Me Deadly in particular, were deeply self-knowing and post-traditional in conception, none tipped its hand so evidently as to be remarked on by American critics at the time.[105] The first major film to overtly work this angle was French director Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle (Breathless; 1960), which pays its literal respects to Bogart and his crime films while brandishing a bold new style for a new day.[106] In the United States, Arthur Penn (1965's Mickey One, drawing inspiration from Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste and other French New Wave films), John Boorman (1967's Point Blank, similarly caught up, though in the Nouvelle vague's deeper waters), and Alan J. Pakula (1971's Klute) directed films that knowingly related themselves to the original films noir, inviting audiences in on the game.[107]

A manifest affiliation with noir traditions—which, by its nature, allows different sorts of commentary on them to be inferred—can also provide the basis for explicit critiques of those traditions. In 1973, director Robert Altman flipped off noir piety with The Long Goodbye. Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler, it features one of Bogart's most famous characters, but in iconoclastic fashion: Philip Marlowe, the prototypical hardboiled detective, is replayed as a hapless misfit, almost laughably out of touch with contemporary mores and morality.[108] Where Altman's subversion of the film noir mythos was so irreverent as to outrage some contemporary critics,[109] around the same time Woody Allen was paying affectionate, at points idolatrous homage to the classic mode with Play It Again, Sam (1972). The "blaxploitation" film Shaft (1971), wherein Richard Roundtree plays the titular African-American private eye, John Shaft, takes conventions from classic noir.

The most acclaimed of the neo-noirs of the era was director Roman Polanski's 1974 Chinatown.[110] Written by Robert Towne, it is set in 1930s Los Angeles, an accustomed noir locale nudged back some few years in a way that makes the pivotal loss of innocence in the story even crueler. Where Polanski and Towne raised noir to a black apogee by turning rearward, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the noir attitude crashing into the present day with Taxi Driver (1976), a crackling, bloody-minded gloss on bicentennial America.[111] In 1978, Walter Hill wrote and directed The Driver, a chase film as might have been imagined by Jean-Pierre Melville in an especially abstract mood.[112]

Hill was already a central figure in 1970s noir of a more straightforward manner, having written the script for director Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway (1972), adapting a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson, as well as for two tough private eye films: an original screenplay for Hickey & Boggs (1972) and an adaptation of a novel by Ross Macdonald, the leading literary descendant of Hammett and Chandler, for The Drowning Pool (1975). Some of the strongest 1970s noirs, in fact, were unwinking remakes of the classics, "neo" mostly by default: the heartbreaking Thieves Like Us (1974), directed by Altman from the same source as Ray's They Live by Night, and Farewell, My Lovely (1975), the Chandler tale made classically as Murder, My Sweet, remade here with Robert Mitchum in his last notable noir role.[113] Detective series, prevalent on American television during the period, updated the hardboiled tradition in different ways, but the show conjuring the most noir tone was a horror crossover touched with shaggy, Long Goodbye-style humor: Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), featuring a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating strange, usually supernatural occurrences.[114]

1980s and 1990s

 
Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell, archetypal modern femme fatale, in Basic Instinct (1992). Her diabolic nature is underscored by an "extra-lurid visual code", as in the notorious interrogation scene.[115]

The turn of the decade brought Scorsese's black-and-white Raging Bull (1980, cowritten by Schrader). An acknowledged masterpiece—in 2007 the American Film Institute ranked it as the greatest American film of the 1980s and the fourth greatest of all time—it tells the story of a boxer's moral self-destruction that recalls in both theme and visual ambiance noir dramas such as Body and Soul (1947) and Champion (1949).[116] From 1981, Body Heat, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, invokes a different set of classic noir elements, this time in a humid, erotically charged Florida setting. Its success confirmed the commercial viability of neo-noir at a time when the major Hollywood studios were becoming increasingly risk averse. The mainstreaming of neo-noir is evident in such films as Black Widow (1987), Shattered (1991), and Final Analysis (1992).[117] Few neo-noirs have made more money or more wittily updated the tradition of the noir double entendre than Basic Instinct (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas.[118] The film also demonstrates how neo-noir's polychrome palette can reproduce many of the expressionistic effects of classic black-and-white noir.[115]

Like Chinatown, its more complex predecessor, Curtis Hanson's Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential (1997), based on the James Ellroy novel, demonstrates the opposite tendency—the deliberately retro film noir; its tale of corrupt cops and femmes fatale is seemingly lifted straight from a film of 1953, the year in which it is set.[119] Director David Fincher followed the immensely successful neo-noir Seven (1995) with a film that developed into a cult favorite after its original, disappointing release: Fight Club (1999), a sui generis mix of noir aesthetic, perverse comedy, speculative content, and satiric intent.[120]

 
"Dub Driving"
Angelo Badalamenti has scored most of David Lynch's noir-related work. His work on this track typifies a "modern noir" style, which the director explicitly sought for Lost Highway (1997).[121]
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Working generally with much smaller budgets, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the most extensive oeuvres influenced by classic noir, with films such as Blood Simple (1984) and Fargo (1996), the latter considered by some a supreme work in the neo-noir mode.[122] The Coens cross noir with other generic traditions in the gangster drama Miller's Crossing (1990)—loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key—and the comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), a tribute to Chandler and an homage to Altman's version of The Long Goodbye.[123] The characteristic work of David Lynch combines film noir tropes with scenarios driven by disturbed characters such as the sociopathic criminal played by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (1986) and the delusionary protagonist of Lost Highway (1997). The Twin Peaks cycle, both the TV series (1990–91) and a film, Fire Walk with Me (1992), puts a detective plot through a succession of bizarre spasms. David Cronenberg also mixes surrealism and noir in Naked Lunch (1991), inspired by William S. Burroughs' novel.

Perhaps no American neo-noirs better reflect the classic noir B movie spirit than those of director-writer Quentin Tarantino.[124] Neo-noirs of his such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) display a relentlessly self-reflexive, sometimes tongue-in-cheek sensibility, similar to the work of the New Wave directors and the Coens. Other films from the era readily identifiable as neo-noir (some retro, some more au courant) include director John Dahl's Kill Me Again (1989), Red Rock West (1992), and The Last Seduction (1993); four adaptations of novels by Jim Thompson—The Kill-Off (1989), After Dark, My Sweet (1990), The Grifters (1990), and the remake of The Getaway (1994); and many more, including adaptations of the work of other major noir fiction writers: The Hot Spot (1990), from Hell Hath No Fury, by Charles Williams; Miami Blues (1990), from the novel by Charles Willeford; and Out of Sight (1998), from the novel by Elmore Leonard.[125] Several films by director-writer David Mamet involve noir elements: House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991),[126] The Spanish Prisoner (1997), and Heist (2001).[127] On television, Moonlighting (1985–89) paid homage to classic noir while demonstrating an unusual appreciation of the sense of humor often found in the original cycle.[125] Between 1983 and 1989, Mickey Spillane's hardboiled private eye Mike Hammer was played with wry gusto by Stacy Keach in a series and several stand-alone television films (an unsuccessful revival followed in 1997–98). The British miniseries The Singing Detective (1986), written by Dennis Potter, tells the story of a mystery writer named Philip Marlow; widely considered one of the finest neo-noirs in any medium, some critics rank it among the greatest television productions of all time.[128]

Neon noir

Among big-budget auteurs, Michael Mann has worked frequently in a neo-noir mode, with such films as Thief (1981)[126] and Heat (1995) and the TV series Miami Vice (1984–89) and Crime Story (1986–88). Mann's output exemplifies a primary strain of neo-noir, or as it is affectionately called, "neon noir",[129][130] in which classic themes and tropes are revisited in a contemporary setting with an up-to-date visual style and rock- or hip hop-based musical soundtrack.[131]

Neo-noir film borrows from and reflects many of the characteristics of the film noir: the presence of crime and violence, complex characters and plot-lines, mystery, and moral ambivalence, all of which come into play in the neon-noir sub-genre. But more than just exhibiting the superficial traits of the genre, neon-noir emphasizes the socio-critique of film noir, recalling the specific socio-cultural dimensions of the interwar years when noirs first became prominent; a time of global existential crisis, depression and the mass movement of the rural population to cities. Long shots or montages of cityscapes, often portrayed as dark and menacing, are suggestive of what Dueck referred to as a ‘bleak societal perspective’,[132] providing a critique on global capitalism and consumerism. Other characteristics include the use of highly stylized lighting techniques such chiaroscuro, and neon signs and brightly lit buildings that provide a sense of alienation and entrapment.

Accentuating the use of artificial and neon lighting in the films-noir of the '40s and '50s, neon-noir films accentuate this aesthetic with electrifying color and manipulated light in order to highlight their socio-cultural critiques and their references to contemporary and pop culture. In doing so, neon-noir films present the themes of urban decay, consumerist decadence and capitalism, existentialism, sexuality, and issues of race and violence in the contemporary culture, not only in America, but the globalized world at large.

Neon-noirs seek to bring the contemporary noir, somewhat diluted under the umbrella of neo-noir, back to the exploration of culture: class, race, gender, patriarchy, and capitalism. Neon-noirs present an existential exploration of society in a hyper-technological and globalized world. Illustrating society as decadent and consumerist, and identity as confused and anxious, neon-noirs reposition the contemporary noir in the setting of urban decay, often featuring scenes set in underground city haunts: brothels, nightclubs, casinos, strip bars, pawnshops, laundromats.

Neon-noirs were popularized in the '70s and '80s by films such as Taxi Driver (1976), Blade Runner (1982),[133] and films from David Lynch, such as Blue Velvet (1986) and later, Lost Highway (1997). Other titles from this era included Brian De Palma's Blow Out (1981) and the Coen Brothers' debut Blood Simple (1984).[134][135] More currently, films such as Harmony Korine’s highly provocative Spring Breakers (2012),[136] and Danny Boyle’s Trance (2013) have been especially noted for their neon-infused rendering of film noir; while Trance was celebrated for ‘shak(ing) the ingredients (of the noir) like colored sand in a jar’, Spring Breakers notoriously produced a slew of criticism[137] referring to its ‘fever-dream’ aesthetic and ‘neon-caked explosion of excess’ (Kohn).[138] Another neon-noir endowed with the 'fever-dream' aesthetic is The Persian Connection, expressly linked to Lynchian aesthetics as a neon-drenched contemporary noir.[139]

Neon-noir can be seen as a response to the over-use of the term neo-noir. While the term neo-noir functions to bring noir into the contemporary landscape, it has often been criticized for its dilution of the noir genre. Author Robert Arnett commented on its "amorphous" reach: "any film featuring a detective or crime qualifies".[140] The neon-noir, more specifically, seeks to revive noir sensibilities in a more targeted manner of reference, focalizing socio-cultural commentary and a hyper-stylized aesthetic.

2000s and 2010s

The Coen brothers make reference to the noir tradition again with The Man Who Wasn't There (2001); a black-and-white crime melodrama set in 1949; it features a scene apparently staged to mirror one from Out of the Past. Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) continued in his characteristic vein, making the classic noir setting of Los Angeles the venue for a noir-inflected psychological jigsaw puzzle. British-born director Christopher Nolan's black-and-white debut, Following (1998), was an overt homage to classic noir. During the new century's first decade, he was one of the leading Hollywood directors of neo-noir with the acclaimed Memento (2000) and the remake of Insomnia (2002).[141]

Director Sean Penn's The Pledge (2001), though adapted from a very self-reflexive novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, plays noir comparatively straight, to devastating effect.[142] Screenwriter David Ayer updated the classic noir bad-cop tale, typified by Shield for Murder (1954) and Rogue Cop (1954), with his scripts for Training Day (2001) and, adapting a story by James Ellroy, Dark Blue (2002); he later wrote and directed the even darker Harsh Times (2006). Michael Mann's Collateral (2004) features a performance by Tom Cruise as an assassin in the lineage of Le Samouraï. The torments of The Machinist (2004), directed by Brad Anderson, evoke both Fight Club and Memento.[143] In 2005, Shane Black directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, basing his screenplay in part on a crime novel by Brett Halliday, who published his first stories back in the 1920s. The film plays with an awareness not only of classic noir but also of neo-noir reflexivity itself.[144]

With ultra-violent films such as Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and Thirst (2009), Park Chan-wook of South Korea has been the most prominent director outside of the United States to work regularly in a noir mode in the new millennium.[145] The most commercially successful neo-noir of this period has been Sin City (2005), directed by Robert Rodriguez in extravagantly stylized black and white with splashes of color.[146] The film is based on a series of comic books created by Frank Miller (credited as the film's codirector), which are in turn openly indebted to the works of Spillane and other pulp mystery authors.[147][148] Similarly, graphic novels provide the basis for Road to Perdition (2002), directed by Sam Mendes, and A History of Violence (2005), directed by David Cronenberg; the latter was voted best film of the year in the annual Village Voice poll.[149] Writer-director Rian Johnson's Brick (2005), featuring present-day high schoolers speaking a version of 1930s hardboiled argot, won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the Sundance Film Festival. The television series Veronica Mars (2004–07) and the movie Veronica Mars (2014) also brought a youth-oriented twist to film noir. Examples of this sort of generic crossover have been dubbed "teen noir".[150][151]

Neo-noir films released in the 2010s include Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil (2010), Fred Cavaye’s Point Blank (2010), Na Hong-jin’s The Yellow Sea (2010), Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011),[152] Claire Denis' Bastards (2013)[153][154] and Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler (2014).

2020s

The Science Channel broadcast the 2021 science documentary series Killers of the Cosmos in a format it describes as "space noir." In the series, actor Aidan Gillen in animated form serves as the host of the series while portraying a private investigator who takes on "cases" in which he "hunts down" lethal threats to humanity posed by the cosmos. The animated sequences combine the characteristics of film noir with those of a pulp fiction graphic novel set in the mid-20th century, and they link conventional live-action documentary segments in which experts describe the potentially deadly phenomena.[155][156][157][158]

Science fiction noir

See also: Tech noir
 
Harrison Ford as detective Rick Deckard in Blade Runner (1982). Like many classic noirs, the film is set in a version of Los Angeles where it constantly rains.[159] The steam in the foreground is a familiar noir trope, while the "bluish-smoky exterior" updates the black-and-white mode.[160]

In the post-classic era, a significant trend in noir crossovers has involved science fiction. In Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965), Lemmy Caution is the name of the old-school private eye in the city of tomorrow. The Groundstar Conspiracy (1972) centers on another implacable investigator and an amnesiac named Welles. Soylent Green (1973), the first major American example, portrays a dystopian, near-future world via a noir detection plot; starring Charlton Heston (the lead in Touch of Evil), it also features classic noir standbys Joseph Cotten, Edward G. Robinson, and Whit Bissell. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer, who two decades before had directed several strong B noirs, including Armored Car Robbery (1950) and The Narrow Margin (1952).[161]

The cynical and stylish perspective of classic film noir had a formative effect on the cyberpunk genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1980s; the film most directly influential on cyberpunk was Blade Runner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott, which pays evocative homage to the classic noir mode[162] (Scott subsequently directed the poignant 1987 noir crime melodrama Someone to Watch Over Me). Scholar Jamaluddin Bin Aziz has observed how "the shadow of Philip Marlowe lingers on" in such other "future noir" films as 12 Monkeys (1995), Dark City (1998) and Minority Report (2002).[163] Fincher's feature debut was Alien 3 (1992), which evoked the classic noir jail film Brute Force.

David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), an adaptation of the speculative novel by J. G. Ballard, has been described as a "film noir in bruise tones".[164] The hero is the target of investigation in Gattaca (1997), which fuses film noir motifs with a scenario indebted to Brave New World. The Thirteenth Floor (1999), like Blade Runner, is an explicit homage to classic noir, in this case involving speculations about virtual reality. Science fiction, noir, and anime are brought together in the Japanese films of 90s Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), both directed by Mamoru Oshii.[165] The Animatrix (2003), based on and set within the world of The Matrix film trilogy, contains an anime short film in classic noir style titled "A Detective Story".[166] Anime television series with science fiction noir themes include Noir (2001)[165] and Cowboy Bebop (1998).[167]

The 2015 film Ex Machina puts an understated film noir spin on the Frankenstein mythos, with the sentient android Ava as a potential femme fatale, her creator Nathan embodying the abusive husband or father trope, and her would-be rescuer Caleb as a "clueless drifter" enthralled by Ava.[168]

Parodies

Film noir has been parodied many times in many manners. In 1945, Danny Kaye starred in what appears to be the first intentional film noir parody, Wonder Man.[169] That same year, Deanna Durbin was the singing lead in the comedic noir Lady on a Train, which makes fun of Woolrich-brand wistful miserablism. Bob Hope inaugurated the private-eye noir parody with My Favorite Brunette (1947), playing a baby-photographer who is mistaken for an ironfisted detective.[169] In 1947 as well, The Bowery Boys appeared in Hard Boiled Mahoney, which had a similar mistaken-identity plot; they spoofed the genre once more in Private Eyes (1953). Two RKO productions starring Robert Mitchum take film noir over the border into self-parody: The Big Steal (1949), directed by Don Siegel, and His Kind of Woman (1951).[b] The "Girl Hunt" ballet in Vincente Minnelli's The Band Wagon (1953) is a ten-minute distillation of—and play on—noir in dance.[170] The Cheap Detective (1978), starring Peter Falk, is a broad spoof of several films, including the Bogart classics The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Carl Reiner's black-and-white Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) appropriates clips of classic noirs for a farcical pastiche, while his Fatal Instinct (1993) sends up noir classic (Double Indemnity) and neo-noir (Basic Instinct). Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) develops a noir plot set in 1940s L.A. around a host of cartoon characters.[171]

 
"Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man." Robert De Niro as neo-noir antihero Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)

Noir parodies come in darker tones as well. Murder by Contract (1958), directed by Irving Lerner, is a deadpan joke on noir, with a denouement as bleak as any of the films it kids. An ultra-low-budget Columbia Pictures production, it may qualify as the first intentional example of what is now called a neo-noir film; it was likely a source of inspiration for both Melville's Le Samouraï and Scorsese's Taxi Driver.[172] Belying its parodic strain, The Long Goodbye's final act is seriously grave. Taxi Driver caustically deconstructs the "dark" crime film, taking it to an absurd extreme and then offering a conclusion that manages to mock every possible anticipated ending—triumphant, tragic, artfully ambivalent—while being each, all at once.[173] Flirting with splatter status even more brazenly, the Coens' Blood Simple is both an exacting pastiche and a gross exaggeration of classic noir.[174] Adapted by director Robinson Devor from a novel by Charles Willeford, The Woman Chaser (1999) sends up not just the noir mode but the entire Hollywood filmmaking process, with each shot seemingly staged as the visual equivalent of an acerbic Marlowe wisecrack.[175]

In other media, the television series Sledge Hammer! (1986–88) lampoons noir, along with such topics as capital punishment, gun fetishism, and Dirty Harry. Sesame Street (1969–curr.) occasionally casts Kermit the Frog as a private eye; the sketches refer to some of the typical motifs of noir films, in particular the voiceover. Garrison Keillor's radio program A Prairie Home Companion features the recurring character Guy Noir, a hardboiled detective whose adventures always wander into farce (Guy also appears in the Altman-directed film based on Keillor's show). Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger has trodden the same not-so-mean streets, both on radio and in comedy albums. Cartoons such as Garfield's Babes and Bullets (1989) and comic strip characters such as Tracer Bullet of Calvin and Hobbes have parodied both film noir and the kindred hardboiled tradition—one of the sources from which film noir sprang and which it now overshadows.[176]

Identifying characteristics

 
Some consider Vertigo (1958) a noir on the basis of plot and tone and various motifs, but it has a modernist graphic design typical of the 1950s and a more modern set design,[177] which would remove it from the category of film noir. Others say the combination of color and the specificity of director Alfred Hitchcock's vision exclude it from the category.[178]

In their original 1955 canon of film noir, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton identified twenty-two Hollywood films released between 1941 and 1952 as core examples; they listed another fifty-nine American films from the period as significantly related to the field of noir.[179] A half-century later, film historians and critics had come to agree on a canon of approximately three hundred films from 1940 to 1958.[180] There remain, however, many differences of opinion over whether other films of the era, among them a number of well-known ones, qualify as films noir or not. For instance, The Night of the Hunter (1955), starring Robert Mitchum in an acclaimed performance, is treated as a film noir by some critics, but not by others.[181] Some critics include Suspicion (1941), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, in their catalogues of noir; others ignore it.[182] Concerning films made either before or after the classic period, or outside of the United States at any time, consensus is even rarer.

To support their categorization of certain films as noirs and their rejection of others, many critics refer to a set of elements they see as marking examples of the mode. The question of what constitutes the set of noir's identifying characteristics is a fundamental source of controversy. For instance, critics tend to define the model film noir as having a tragic or bleak conclusion,[183] but many acknowledged classics of the genre have clearly happy endings (e.g., Stranger on the Third Floor, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and The Dark Corner), while the tone of many other noir denouements is ambivalent.[184] Some critics perceive classic noir's hallmark as a distinctive visual style. Others, observing that there is actually considerable stylistic variety among noirs, instead emphasize plot and character type. Still others focus on mood and attitude. No survey of classic noir's identifying characteristics can therefore be considered definitive. In the 1990s and 2000s, critics have increasingly turned their attention to that diverse field of films called neo-noir; once again, there is even less consensus about the defining attributes of such films made outside the classic period.[185]

Visual style

The low-key lighting schemes of many classic films noir are associated with stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning—a style known as chiaroscuro (a term adopted from Renaissance painting).[c] The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods, cast upon an actor, a wall, or an entire set, are an iconic visual in noir and had already become a cliché well before the neo-noir era. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness—a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood filmmaking. While black-and-white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir, the color films Leave Her to Heaven (1945) and Niagara (1953) are routinely included in noir filmographies, while Slightly Scarlet (1956), Party Girl (1958), and Vertigo (1958) are classified as noir by varying numbers of critics.[186]

Film noir is also known for its use of low-angle, wide-angle, and skewed, or Dutch angle shots. Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects (such as during the strangulation scene in Strangers on a Train), and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature. Night-for-night shooting, as opposed to the Hollywood norm of day-for-night, was often employed.[187] From the mid-1940s forward, location shooting became increasingly frequent in noir.[188]

In an analysis of the visual approach of Kiss Me Deadly, a late and self-consciously stylized example of classic noir, critic Alain Silver describes how cinematographic choices emphasize the story's themes and mood. In one scene, the characters, seen through a "confusion of angular shapes", thus appear "caught in a tangible vortex or enclosed in a trap." Silver makes a case for how "side light is used ... to reflect character ambivalence", while shots of characters in which they are lit from below "conform to a convention of visual expression which associates shadows cast upward of the face with the unnatural and ominous".[189]

Structure and narrational devices

 
Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster were two of the most prolific stars of classic noir. The complex structure of Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) involves a real-time framing story, multiple narrators, and flashbacks within flashbacks.[190]

Films noir tend to have unusually convoluted story lines, frequently involving flashbacks and other editing techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence. Framing the entire primary narrative as a flashback is also a standard device. Voiceover narration, sometimes used as a structuring device, came to be seen as a noir hallmark; while classic noir is generally associated with first-person narration (i.e., by the protagonist), Stephen Neale notes that third-person narration is common among noirs of the semidocumentary style.[191] Neo-noirs as varied as The Element of Crime (surrealist), After Dark, My Sweet (retro), and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (meta) have employed the flashback/voiceover combination.

Bold experiments in cinematic storytelling were sometimes attempted during the classic era: Lady in the Lake, for example, is shot entirely from the point of view of protagonist Philip Marlowe; the face of star (and director) Robert Montgomery is seen only in mirrors.[192] The Chase (1946) takes oneirism and fatalism as the basis for its fantastical narrative system, redolent of certain horror stories, but with little precedent in the context of a putatively realistic genre. In their different ways, both Sunset Boulevard and D.O.A. are tales told by dead men. Latter-day noir has been in the forefront of structural experimentation in popular cinema, as exemplified by such films as Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, and Memento.[193]

Plots, characters, and settings

Crime, usually murder, is an element of almost all films noir; in addition to standard-issue greed, jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation—by a private eye, a police detective (sometimes acting alone), or a concerned amateur—is the most prevalent, but far from dominant, basic plot. In other common plots the protagonists are implicated in heists or con games, or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs. False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements, as are betrayals and double-crosses. According to J. David Slocum, "protagonists assume the literal identities of dead men in nearly fifteen percent of all noir."[194] Amnesia is fairly epidemic—"noir's version of the common cold", in the words of film historian Lee Server.[195]

 
By the late 1940s, the noir trend was leaving its mark on other genres. A prime example is the Western Pursued (1947), filled with psychosexual tensions and behavioral explanations derived from Freudian theory.[196]

Films noir tend to revolve around heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm, often fall guys of one sort or another. The characteristic protagonists of noir are described by many critics as "alienated";[197] in the words of Silver and Ward, "filled with existential bitterness".[198] Certain archetypal characters appear in many film noirs—hardboiled detectives, femme fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, intrepid claims adjusters, and down-and-out writers. Among characters of every stripe, cigarette smoking is rampant.[199] From historical commentators to neo-noir pictures to pop culture ephemera, the private eye and the femme fatale have been adopted as the quintessential film noir figures, though they do not appear in most films now regarded as classic noir. Of the twenty-six National Film Registry noirs, in only four does the star play a private eye: The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Out of the Past, and Kiss Me Deadly. Just four others readily qualify as detective stories: Laura, The Killers, The Naked City, and Touch of Evil. There is usually an element of drug or alcohol use, particularly as part of the detective's method to solving the crime, as an example the character of Mike Hammer in the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly who walks into a bar saying "Give me a double bourbon, and leave the bottle". Chaumeton and Borde have argued that film noir grew out of the "literature of drugs and alcohol".[200]

Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular—are the location of many of the classic films. In the eyes of many critics, the city is presented in noir as a "labyrinth" or "maze".[201] Bars, lounges, nightclubs, and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action. The climaxes of a substantial number of film noirs take place in visually complex, often industrial settings, such as refineries, factories, trainyards, power plants—most famously the explosive conclusion of White Heat, set at a chemical plant.[202] In the popular (and, frequently enough, critical) imagination, in noir it is always night and it always raining.[203]

A substantial trend within latter-day noir—dubbed "film soleil" by critic D. K. Holm—heads in precisely the opposite direction, with tales of deception, seduction, and corruption exploiting bright, sun-baked settings, stereotypically the desert or open water, to searing effect. Significant predecessors from the classic and early post-classic eras include The Lady from Shanghai; the Robert Ryan vehicle Inferno (1953); the French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, Plein soleil (Purple Noon in the United States, more accurately rendered elsewhere as Blazing Sun or Full Sun; 1960); and director Don Siegel's version of The Killers (1964). The tendency was at its peak during the late 1980s and 1990s, with films such as Dead Calm (1989), After Dark, My Sweet (1990), The Hot Spot (1990), Delusion (1991), Red Rock West (1993) and the television series Miami Vice.[204]

Worldview, morality, and tone

 
"You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how far you can go."
"A lot depends on who's in the saddle."
Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep.

Film noir is often described as essentially pessimistic.[205] The noir stories that are regarded as most characteristic tell of people trapped in unwanted situations (which, in general, they did not cause but are responsible for exacerbating), striving against random, uncaring fate, and are frequently doomed. The films are seen as depicting a world that is inherently corrupt.[206] Classic film noir has been associated by many critics with the American social landscape of the era—in particular, with a sense of heightened anxiety and alienation that is said to have followed World War II. In author Nicholas Christopher's opinion, "it is as if the war, and the social eruptions in its aftermath, unleashed demons that had been bottled up in the national psyche."[207] Films noir, especially those of the 1950s and the height of the Red Scare, are often said to reflect cultural paranoia; Kiss Me Deadly is the noir most frequently marshaled as evidence for this claim.[208]

Film noir is often said to be defined by "moral ambiguity",[209] yet the Production Code obliged almost all classic noirs to see that steadfast virtue was ultimately rewarded and vice, in the absence of shame and redemption, severely punished (however dramatically incredible the final rendering of mandatory justice might be). A substantial number of latter-day noirs flout such conventions: vice emerges triumphant in films as varied as the grim Chinatown and the ribald Hot Spot.[210]

The tone of film noir is generally regarded as downbeat; some critics experience it as darker still—"overwhelmingly black", according to Robert Ottoson.[211] Influential critic (and filmmaker) Paul Schrader wrote in a seminal 1972 essay that "film noir is defined by tone", a tone he seems to perceive as "hopeless".[212] In describing the adaptation of Double Indemnity, noir analyst Foster Hirsch describes the "requisite hopeless tone" achieved by the filmmakers, which appears to characterize his view of noir as a whole.[213] On the other hand, definitive film noirs such as The Big Sleep, The Lady from Shanghai, Scarlet Street and Double Indemnity itself are famed for their hardboiled repartee, often imbued with sexual innuendo and self-reflexive humor.[214]

Music

The music of film noir was typically orchestral, per the Hollywood norm, but often with added dissonance. Many of the prime composers, like the directors and cameramen, were European émigrés, e.g., Max Steiner (The Big Sleep, Mildred Pierce), Miklós Rózsa (Double Indemnity, The Killers, Criss Cross), and Franz Waxman (Fury, Dark City, Night and the City). Double Indemnity is a seminal score, initially disliked by Paramount's music director for its harshness but strongly endorsed by director Billy Wilder and studio chief Buddy DeSylva.[215] There is a widespread popular impression that "sleazy" jazz saxophone and pizzicato bass constitute the sound of noir, but those characteristics arose much later, as in the late-1950s music of Henry Mancini for Touch of Evil and television's Peter Gunn.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The plural forms of film noir in English include films noirs (derived from the French), films noir, and film noirs. Merriam-Webster, which acknowledges all three styles as acceptable, favors film noirs,[216] while the Oxford English Dictionary lists only films noirs.[217]
  2. ^ His Kind of Woman was originally directed by John Farrow, then largely reshot under Richard Fleischer after studio owner Howard Hughes demanded rewrites. Only Farrow was credited.[218]
  3. ^ In Academic Dictionary of Arts (2005), Rakesh Chopra notes that the high-contrast film lighting schemes commonly referred to as "chiaroscuro" are more specifically representative of tenebrism, whose first great exponent was the Italian painter Caravaggio (p. 73). See also Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 16.

Citations

  1. ^ "Film Noir". American Cinema. Annenberg Learner.
  2. ^ See, e.g., Biesen (2005), p. 1; Hirsch (2001), p. 9; Lyons (2001), p. 2; Silver and Ward (1992), p. 1; Schatz (1981), p. 112. Outside the field of film noir scholarship, "dark film" is also offered on occasion; see, e.g., Block, Bruce A., The Visual Story: Seeing the Structure of Film, TV, and New Media (2001), p. 94; Klarer, Mario, An Introduction to Literary Studies (1999), p. 59.
  3. ^ Naremore (2008), pp. 4, 15–16, 18, 41; Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 4–5, 22, 255.
  4. ^ Foteini Vlachou, Nandia (6 September 2016). "Parody and the noir". I Know Where I'm Going.
  5. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 3.
  6. ^ Borde and Chaumeton (2002), p. 2.
  7. ^ Borde and Chaumeton (2002), pp. 2–3.
  8. ^ Bould (2005), p. 13.
  9. ^ See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 4; Bould (2005), p. 12; Place and Peterson (1974).
  10. ^ See, e.g., Naremore (2008), p. 167–68; Irwin (2006), p. 210.
  11. ^ Neale (2000), p. 166; Vernet (1993), p. 2; Naremore (2008), pp. 17, 122, 124, 140; Bould (2005), p. 19.
  12. ^ Christopher, Nicholas (1997). Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City. New York, NY. p. 7. ISBN 0-684-82803-0. OCLC 36330881.
  13. ^ For overview of debate, see, e.g., Bould (2005), pp. 13–23; Telotte (1989), pp. 9–10. For description of noir as a genre, see, e.g., Bould (2005), p. 2; Hirsch (2001), pp. 71–72; Tuska (1984), p. xxiii. For the opposing viewpoint, see, e.g., Neale (2000), p. 164; Ottoson (1981), p. 2; Schrader (1972); Durgnat (1970).
  14. ^ Conrad, Mark T. (2006). The Philosophy of Film Noir. University Press of Kentucky.
  15. ^ Ottoson (1981), pp. 2–3.
  16. ^ See Dancyger and Rush (2002), p. 68, for a detailed comparison of screwball comedy and film noir.
  17. ^ Schatz (1981), pp. 111–15.
  18. ^ Silver (1996), pp. 4, 6 passim. See also Bould (2005), pp. 3, 4; Hirsch (2001), p. 11.
  19. ^ Silver (1996), pp. 3, 6 passim. See also Place and Peterson (1974).
  20. ^ Silver (1996), pp. 7–10.
  21. ^ Williams, Eric R. (2017). The screenwriters taxonomy : a roadmap to collaborative storytelling. New York, NY: Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice. ISBN 978-1-315-10864-3. OCLC 993983488.
  22. ^ See, e.g., Jones (2009).
  23. ^ See, e.g., Borde and Chaumeton (2002), pp. 1–7 passim.
  24. ^ See, e.g., Telotte (1989), pp. 10–11, 15 passim.
  25. ^ For survey of the lexical variety, see Naremore (2008), pp. 9, 311–12 n. 1.
  26. ^ Bould (2005), pp. 24–33.
  27. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 9–11.
  28. ^ Vernet (1993), p. 15.
  29. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 11–13.
  30. ^ Davis (2004), p. 194. See also Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 133; Ottoson (1981), pp. 110–111. Vernet (1993) notes that the techniques now associated with Expressionism were evident in the American cinema from the mid-1910s (pp. 9–12).
  31. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 6.
  32. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 6–9; Silver and Ward (1992), pp. 323–24.
  33. ^ Spicer (2007), pp. 26, 28; Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 13–15; Bould (2005), pp. 33–40.
  34. ^ McGarry (1980), p. 139.
  35. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 20; Schatz (1981), pp. 116–22; Ottoson (1981), p. 2.
  36. ^ Biesen (2005), p. 207.
  37. ^ Naremore (2008), pp. 13–14.
  38. ^ Krutnik, Neale, and Neve (2008), pp. 147–148; Macek and Silver (1980), p. 135.
  39. ^ Widdicombe (2001), pp. 37–39, 59–60, 118–19; Doherty, Jim. "Carmady". Thrilling Detective Web Site. Retrieved 2010-02-25.
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  41. ^ Irwin (2006), pp. 71, 95–96.
  42. ^ Irwin (2006), pp. 123–24, 129–30.
  43. ^ White (1980), p. 17.
  44. ^ Irwin (2006), pp. 97–98, 188–89.
  45. ^ Silver and Ward (1992), p. 333, as well as entries on individual films, pp. 59–60, 109–10, 320–21. For description of City Streets as "proto-noir", see Turan (2008). For description of Fury as "proto-noir", see Machura, Stefan, and Peter Robson, Law and Film (2001), p. 13. For description of You Only Live Once as "pre-noir", see Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 9.
  46. ^ a b See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 19; Irwin (2006), p. 210; Lyons (2000), p. 36; Porfirio (1980), p. 269.
  47. ^ Biesen (2005), p. 33.
  48. ^ Variety (1940).
  49. ^ Marshman (1947), pp. 100–1.
  50. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 4, 19–26, 28–33; Hirsch (2001), pp. 1–21; Schatz (1981), pp. 111–16.
  51. ^ See, e.g., Naremore (2008), pp. 81, 319 n. 13; Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 86–88.
  52. ^ See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 30; Hirsch (2001), pp. 12, 202; Schrader (1972), pp. 59–61 [in Silver and Ursini].
  53. ^ Schrader (1972), p. 61.
  54. ^ See, e.g., Silver (1996), p. 11; Ottoson (1981), pp. 182–183; Schrader (1972), p. 61.
  55. ^ See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 19–53.
  56. ^ See, e.g., Hirsch (2001), pp. 10, 202–7; Silver and Ward (1992), p. 6 (though they phrase their position more ambiguously on p. 398); Ottoson (1981), p. 1.
  57. ^ See, e.g., entries on individual films in Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 34, 190–92; Silver and Ward (1992), pp. 214–15; 253–54, 269–70, 318–19.
  58. ^ Biesen (2005), p. 162.
  59. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 188, 202–3.
  60. ^ For overview of Welles's noirs, see, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 210–11. For specific production circumstances, see Brady, Frank, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles (1989), pp. 395–404, 378–81, 496–512.
  61. ^ Bernstein (1995).
  62. ^ McGilligan (1997), pp. 314–17.
  63. ^ Schatz (1998), pp. 354–58.
  64. ^ See, e.g., Schatz (1981), pp. 103, 112.
  65. ^ See, e.g., entries on individual films in Silver and Ward (1992), pp. 97–98, 125–26, 311–12.
  66. ^ See Naremore (2008), pp. 140–55, on "B Pictures versus Intermediates".
  67. ^ Ottoson (1981), p. 132.
  68. ^ Naremore (2008), p. 173.
  69. ^ Hayde (2001), pp. 3–4, 15–21, 37.
  70. ^ Erickson (2004), p. 26.
  71. ^ Sarris (1985), p. 93.
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  93. ^ Spicer (2007), pp. 13, 28, 241; Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 264, 266.
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  95. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 266–68.
  96. ^ García López (2015), pp. 46-53.
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  175. ^ Holden (1999).
  176. ^ Irwin (2006), p. xii.
  177. ^ Rennie, Paul (2008-09-29). "Vertigo: Disorientation in orange". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-04-25.
  178. ^ Bould (2005), p. 18.
  179. ^ Borde and Chaumeton (2002), pp. 161–63.
  180. ^ Silver and Ward (1992) list 315 classic films noir (passim), and Tuska (1984) lists 320 (passim). Later works are much more inclusive: Paul Duncan, The Pocket Essential Film Noir (2003), lists 647 (pp. 46–84). The title of Michael F. Keaney's Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940–1959 (2003) is self-explanatory.
  181. ^ Treated as noir: Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 34; Hirsch (2001), pp. 59, 163–64, 168. Excluded from canon: Silver and Ward (1992), p. 330. Ignored: Bould (2005); Christopher (1998); Ottoson (1981).
  182. ^ Included: Bould (2005), p. 126; Ottoson (1981), p. 174. Ignored: Ballinger and Graydon (2007); Hirsch (2001); Christopher (1998). Also see Silver and Ward (1992): ignored in 1980; included in 1988 (pp. 392, 396).
  183. ^ See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 4; Christopher (1998), p. 8.
  184. ^ See, e.g., Ray (1985), p. 159.
  185. ^ Williams (2005), pp. 34–37.
  186. ^ See Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 31, on general issue. Christopher (1998) and Silver and Ward (1992), for instance, include Slightly Scarlet and Party Girl, but not Vertigo, in their filmographies. By contrast, Hirsch (2001) describes Vertigo as among those Hitchcock films that are "richly, demonstrably noir" (p. 139) and ignores both Slightly Scarlet and Party Girl; Bould (2005) similarly includes Vertigo in his filmography, but not the other two. Ottoson (1981) includes none of the three in his canon.
  187. ^ Place and Peterson (1974), p. 67.
  188. ^ Hirsch (2001), p. 67.
  189. ^ Silver (1995), pp. 219, 222.
  190. ^ Telotte (1989), pp. 74–87.
  191. ^ Neale (2000), pp. 166–67 n. 5.
  192. ^ Telotte (1989), p. 106.
  193. ^ Rombes, Nicholas, New Punk Cinema (2005), pp. 131–36.
  194. ^ Slocum (2001), p. 160.
  195. ^ Server (2006), p. 149.
  196. ^ Ottoson (1981), p. 143.
  197. ^ See, e.g., Naremore (2008), p. 25; Lyons (2000), p. 10.
  198. ^ Silver and Ward (1992), p. 6.
  199. ^ See, e.g., Hirsch (2001), pp. 128, 150, 160, 213; Christopher (1998), pp. 4, 32, 75, 83, 116, 118, 128, 155.
  200. ^ Abrams, Jerold J. (2006). The Philosophy of Film Noir. University Press of Kentucky.
  201. ^ See, e.g., Hirsch (2001), p. 17; Christopher (1998), p. 17; Telotte (1989), p. 148.
  202. ^ Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 217–18; Hirsch (2001), p. 64.
  203. ^ See, e.g., Bould (2005), p. 18, on the critical establishment of this iconography, as well as p. 35; Hirsch (2001), p. 213; Christopher (1998), p. 7.
  204. ^ Holm (2005), pp. 13–25 passim.
  205. ^ See, e.g., Naremore (2008), p. 37, on the development of this viewpoint, and p. 103, on contributors to Silver and Ward encyclopedia; Ottoson (1981), p. 1.
  206. ^ See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 4; Christopher (1998), pp. 7–8.
  207. ^ Christopher (1998), p. 37.
  208. ^ See, e.g., Muller (1998), p. 81, on analyses of the film; Silver and Ward (1992), p. 2.
  209. ^ See, e.g., Naremore (2008), p. 163, on critical claims of moral ambiguity; Lyons (2000), pp. 14, 32.
  210. ^ See Skoble (2006), pp. 41–48, for a survey of noir morality.
  211. ^ Ottoson (1981), p. 1.
  212. ^ Schrader (1972), p. 54 [in Silver and Ursini]. For characterization of definitive tone as "hopeless", see pp. 53 ("the tone more hopeless") and 57 ("a fatalistic, hopeless mood").
  213. ^ Hirsch (2001), p. 7. Hirsch subsequently states, "In character types, mood [emphasis added], themes, and visual composition, Double Indemnity offer[s] a lexicon of noir stylistics" (p. 8).
  214. ^ Sanders (2006), p. 100.
  215. ^ Rózsa, Miklós (1982). Double Life. London: The Baton Press. pp. 121–122. ISBN 0-85936-209-4.
  216. ^ "film noir". Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster Online. Retrieved 2009-02-10. Inflected Form(s): plural film noirs \-'nwär(z)\ or films noir or films noirs \-'nwär\
  217. ^ OED Third Edition, September 2016
  218. ^ Server (2002), pp. 182–98, 209–16; Downs (2002), p. 171; Ottoson (1981), pp. 82–83.

Sources

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  • Lyons, Arthur (2000). Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir. New York: Da Capo. ISBN 978-0-306-80996-5
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  • Naremore, James (2008). More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts, 2d ed. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25402-2
  • Neale, Steve (2000). Genre and Hollywood. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-02606-2
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  • Sanders, Steven M. (2006). "Film Noir and the Meaning of Life", in The Philosophy of Film Noir, ed. Mark T. Conard, pp. 91–106. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-9181-2
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  • Server, Lee (2002). Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care". New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-28543-2
  • Server, Lee (2006). Ava Gardner: "Love Is Nothing". New York: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-31209-1
  • Silver, Alain (1996 [1975]). "Kiss Me Deadly: Evidence of a Style", rev. versions in Silver and Ursini, Film Noir Reader [1], pp. 209–35 and Film Noir Compendium (newest with remastered frame captures, 2016), pp. 302–325.
  • Silver, Alain (1996). "Introduction", in Silver and Ursini, Film Noir Reader [1], pp. 3–15, rev. ver. in Silver and Ursini, Film Noir Compendium (2016), pp. 10–25.
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  • Slocum, J. David (2001). Violence and American Cinema. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-92810-6
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  • Telotte, J. P. (1989). Voices in the Dark: The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06056-4
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  • Williams, Linda Ruth (2005). The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34713-8

Suggested reading

  • Auerbach, Jonathan (2011). Film Noir and American Citizenship. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-4993-8
  • Chopra-Gant, Mike (2005). Hollywood Genres and Postwar America: Masculinity, Family and Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir. London: IB Tauris. ISBN 978-1-85043-838-0
  • Cochran, David (2000). America Noir: Underground Writers and Filmmakers of the Postwar Era. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 978-1-56098-813-7
  • Dickos, Andrew (2002). Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2243-4
  • Dimendberg, Edward (2004). Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01314-8
  • Dixon, Wheeler Winston (2009). Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-4521-9
  • Grossman, Julie (2009). Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for Her Close-Up. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-23328-7
  • Hannsberry, Karen Burroughs (1998). Femme Noir: Bad Girls of Film. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0429-2
  • Hannsberry, Karen Burroughs (2003). Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1484-0
  • Hare, William (2003). Early Film Noir: Greed, Lust, and Murder Hollywood Style. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1629-5
  • Hogan, David J. (2013). Film Noir FAQ. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard. ISBN 978-1-55783-855-1
  • Kaplan, E. Ann, ed. (1998). Women in Film Noir, new ed. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-666-5
  • Keaney, Michael F. (2003). Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940–1959. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-1547-2
  • Mason, Fran (2002). American Gangster Cinema: From Little Caesar to Pulp Fiction. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-333-67452-9
  • Mayer, Geoff, and Brian McDonnell (2007). Encyclopedia of Film Noir. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-33306-4
  • McArthur, Colin (1972). Underworld U.S.A. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-01953-3
  • Naremore, James (2019). Film Noir: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-879174-4
  • Osteen, Mark. Nightmare Alley: Film Noir and the American Dream (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2013) 336 pages; interprets film noir as a genre that challenges the American mythology of upward mobility and self-reinvention.
  • Palmer, R. Barton (1994). Hollywood's Dark Cinema: The American Film Noir. New York: Twayne. ISBN 978-0-8057-9335-2
  • Palmer, R. Barton, ed. (1996). Perspectives on Film Noir. New York: G.K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-1601-0
  • Pappas, Charles (2005). It's a Bitter Little World: The Smartest, Toughest, Nastiest Quotes from Film Noir. Iola, Wisc.: Writer's Digest Books. ISBN 978-1-58297-387-6
  • Rabinowitz, Paula (2002). Black & White & Noir: America's Pulp Modernism. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11481-3
  • Schatz, Thomas (1997). Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-684-19151-5
  • Selby, Spencer (1984). Dark City: The Film Noir. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-89950-103-1
  • Shadoian, Jack (2003). Dreams and Dead Ends: The American Gangster Film, 2d ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514291-4
  • Silver, Alain, and James Ursini (1999). The Noir Style. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0-87951-722-9
  • Silver, Alain, and James Ursini (2016). Film Noir Compendium. Milwaukee, WI: Applause. ISBN 978-1-49505-898-1
  • Spicer, Andrew (2002). Film Noir. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education. ISBN 978-0-582-43712-8
  • Starman, Ray (2006). TV Noir: the 20th Century. Troy, N.Y.: The Troy Bookmakers Press. ISBN 978-1-933994-22-2

Suggested listening

  • Murder is My Beat: Classic Film Noir Themes and Scenes (1997, Rhino Movie Music) - 18-track audio CD
  • Maltese Falcons, Third Men & Touches of Evil-The Sound of Film Noir 1941-1950 (2019, Jasmine Records [UK]) - 42-track audio CD
  • Film Noir: Six Classic Soundtracks (2016, Real Gone Jazz [UK]) - 57 tracks on 4 audio CDs

External links

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  • Film Noir: An Introduction essay with links to discussions of ten important noirs; part of Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture
  • writings by John Blaser, with film noir glossary, timeline, and noir-related media
  • Kiss Me Deadly: Evidence of A Style (part 1) 2019-02-12 at the Wayback Machine unrevised online version of essay by Alain Silver in three parts: (2) 2019-02-12 at the Wayback Machine and (3) 2019-02-12 at the Wayback Machine
  • A Guide to Film Noir Genre 2013-01-20 at the Wayback Machine ten deadeye bullet points from Roger Ebert
  • essay by Lee Horsley
  • excerpt from 2001 book by Lee Horsley
  • What Is This Thing Called Noir?: Parts I, II 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine and III 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine essay by Alain Silver and Linda Brookover
  • Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, co-sponsored by the Palm Springs Cultural Center
  • Noir and Neonoir | The Criterion Collection
  • Notebook Primer: Film Noir
  • Collection: "Film Noir, Visuality and Themes" from the University of Michigan Museum of Art

January 15, 2023
film, noir, film, noir, redirects, here, album, film, noir, album, ɑːr, french, film, nwaʁ, cinematic, term, used, primarily, describe, stylish, hollywood, crime, dramas, particularly, those, that, emphasize, cynical, attitudes, motivations, 1940s, 1950s, gene. Film Noir redirects here For the album see Film Noir album Film noir n w ɑːr French film nwaʁ is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir Film noir of this era is associated with a low key black and white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression 1 Film noirTwo silhouetted figures in The Big Combo 1955 The film s cinematographer John Alton was the creator of many of film noir s stylized images Years activeearly 1920s late 1950sCountryUnited StatesInfluencesGerman Expressionism French poetic realism Italian neorealism American hardboiled fictionInfluencedFrench New Wave Neo noir Tech noirThe term film noir French for black film literal or dark film closer meaning 2 was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946 but was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era 3 Frank is believed to have been inspired by the French literary publishing imprint Serie noire founded in 1945 Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s many of the classic films noir a were referred to as melodramas Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it is more of a filmmaking style is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars Film noir encompasses a range of plots the central figure may be a private investigator The Big Sleep a plainclothes police officer The Big Heat an aging boxer The Set Up a hapless grifter Night and the City a law abiding citizen lured into a life of crime Gun Crazy or simply a victim of circumstance D O A Although film noir was originally associated with American productions the term has been used to describe films from around the world Many films released from the 1960s onward share attributes with films noir of the classical period and often treat its conventions self referentially Some refer to such latter day works as neo noir The cliches of film noir have inspired parody since the mid 1940s 4 Contents 1 Definition 2 Background 2 1 Cinematic sources 2 2 Literary sources 3 Classic period 3 1 Overview 3 2 Directors and the business of noir 4 Outside the United States 5 Neo noir and echoes of the classic mode 5 1 1960s and 1970s 5 2 1980s and 1990s 5 3 Neon noir 5 4 2000s and 2010s 5 5 2020s 5 6 Science fiction noir 6 Parodies 7 Identifying characteristics 7 1 Visual style 7 2 Structure and narrational devices 7 3 Plots characters and settings 7 4 Worldview morality and tone 7 5 Music 8 See also 9 Notes 10 Citations 11 Sources 12 Suggested reading 13 Suggested listening 14 External linksDefinition Edit source source source source source source source source track The Stranger full film The questions of what defines film noir and what sort of category it is provoke continuing debate 5 We d be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric strange erotic ambivalent and cruel this set of attributes constitutes the first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir americain 1941 1953 A Panorama of American Film Noir the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject 6 They emphasize that not every film noir embodies all five attributes in equal measure one might be more dreamlike another particularly brutal 7 The authors caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship in the more than five decades since there have been innumerable further attempts at definition yet in the words of cinema historian Mark Bould film noir remains an elusive phenomenon always just out of reach 8 Though film noir is often identified with a visual style unconventional within a Hollywood context that emphasizes low key lighting and unbalanced compositions 9 films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream 10 Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres from the gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s now seen as noir s classical era was likely to be described as a melodrama at the time 11 It is night always The hero enters a labyrinth on a quest He is alone and off balance He may be desperate in flight or coldly calculating imagining he is the pursuer rather than the pursued A woman invariably joins him at a critical juncture when he is most vulnerable Her eventual betrayal of him or herself is as ambiguous as her feelings about him Nicholas Christopher Somewhere in the Night 1997 12 While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself others argue that it can be no such thing 13 Foster Hirsch defines a genre as determined by conventions of narrative structure characterization theme and visual design Hirsch as one who has taken the position that film noir is a genre argues that these elements are present in abundance Hirsch notes that there are unifying features of tone visual style and narrative sufficient to classify noir as a distinct genre 14 Others argue that film noir is not a genre Film noir is often associated with an urban setting but many classic noirs take place in small towns suburbia rural areas or on the open road setting therefore cannot be its genre determinant as with the Western Similarly while the private eye and the femme fatale are stock character types conventionally identified with noir the majority of films noir feature neither so there is no character basis for genre designation as with the gangster film Nor does film noir rely on anything as evident as the monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film the speculative leaps of the science fiction film or the song and dance routines of the musical 15 An analogous case is that of the screwball comedy widely accepted by film historians as constituting a genre the screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute but by a general disposition and a group of elements some but rarely and perhaps never all of which are found in each of the genre s films 16 Because of the diversity of noir much greater than that of the screwball comedy certain scholars in the field such as film historian Thomas Schatz treat it as not a genre but a style 17 Alain Silver the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies refers to film noir as a cycle 18 and a phenomenon 19 even as he argues that it has like certain genres a consistent set of visual and thematic codes 20 Screenwriter Eric R Williams labels both film noir and screwball comedy a pathway in his screenwriters taxonomy explaining that a pathway has two parts 1 the way the audience connects with the protagonist and 2 the trajectory the audience expects the story to follow 21 Other critics treat film noir as a mood 22 characterize it as a series 23 or simply address a chosen set of films they regard as belonging to the noir canon 24 There is no consensus on the matter 25 Background EditCinematic sources Edit Marlene Dietrich an actress frequently called upon to play a femme fatale The aesthetics of film noir were influenced by German Expressionism an artistic movement of the 1910s and 1920s that involved theater music photography painting sculpture and architecture as well as cinema The opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and then the threat of Nazism led to the emigration of many film artists working in Germany who had been involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners 26 M 1931 shot only a few years before director Fritz Lang s departure from Germany is among the first crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir type plot in which the protagonist is a criminal as are his most successful pursuers Directors such as Lang Jacques Tourneur Robert Siodmak and Michael Curtiz brought a dramatically shadowed lighting style and a psychologically expressive approach to visual composition mise en scene with them to Hollywood where they made some of the most famous classic noirs 27 By 1931 Curtiz had already been in Hollywood for half a decade making as many as six films a year Movies of his such as 20 000 Years in Sing Sing 1932 and Private Detective 62 1933 are among the early Hollywood sound films arguably classifiable as noir scholar Marc Vernet offers the latter as evidence that dating the initiation of film noir to 1940 or any other year is arbitrary 28 Expressionism orientated filmmakers had free stylistic rein in Universal horror pictures such as Dracula 1931 The Mummy 1932 the former photographed and the latter directed by the Berlin trained Karl Freund and The Black Cat 1934 directed by Austrian emigre Edgar G Ulmer 29 The Universal horror film that comes closest to noir in story and sensibility is The Invisible Man 1933 directed by Englishman James Whale and photographed by American Arthur Edeson Edeson later photographed The Maltese Falcon 1941 widely regarded as the first major film noir of the classic era 30 Josef von Sternberg was directing in Hollywood during the same period Films of his such as Shanghai Express 1932 and The Devil Is a Woman 1935 with their hothouse eroticism and baroque visual style anticipated central elements of classic noir The commercial and critical success of Sternberg s silent Underworld 1927 was largely responsible for spurring a trend of Hollywood gangster films 31 Successful films in that genre such as Little Caesar 1931 The Public Enemy 1931 and Scarface 1932 demonstrated that there was an audience for crime dramas with morally reprehensible protagonists 32 An important possibly influential cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism with its romantic fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes 33 The movement s sensibility is mirrored in the Warner Bros drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang 1932 a forerunner of noir 34 Among films not considered noir perhaps none had a greater effect on the development of the genre than Citizen Kane 1941 directed by Orson Welles Its visual intricacy and complex voiceover narrative structure are echoed in dozens of classic films noir 35 Italian neorealism of the 1940s with its emphasis on quasi documentary authenticity was an acknowledged influence on trends that emerged in American noir The Lost Weekend 1945 directed by Billy Wilder another Vienna born Berlin trained American auteur tells the story of an alcoholic in a manner evocative of neorealism 36 It also exemplifies the problem of classification one of the first American films to be described as a film noir it has largely disappeared from considerations of the field 37 Director Jules Dassin of The Naked City 1948 pointed to the neorealists as inspiring his use of location photography with non professional extras This semidocumentary approach characterized a substantial number of noirs in the late 1940s and early 1950s Along with neorealism the style had an American precedent cited by Dassin in director Henry Hathaway s The House on 92nd Street 1945 which demonstrated the parallel influence of the cinematic newsreel 38 Literary sources Edit The October 1934 issue of Black Mask featured the first appearance of the detective character whom Raymond Chandler developed into the famous Philip Marlowe 39 The primary literary influence on film noir was the hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett whose first novel Red Harvest was published in 1929 and James M Cain whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask The classic film noirs The Maltese Falcon 1941 and The Glass Key 1942 were based on novels by Hammett Cain s novels provided the basis for Double Indemnity 1944 Mildred Pierce 1945 The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946 and Slightly Scarlet 1956 adapted from Love s Lovely Counterfeit A decade before the classic era a story by Hammett was the source for the gangster melodrama City Streets 1931 directed by Rouben Mamoulian and photographed by Lee Garmes who worked regularly with Sternberg Released the month before Lang s M City Streets has a claim to being the first major film noir both its style and story had many noir characteristics 40 Raymond Chandler who debuted as a novelist with The Big Sleep in 1939 soon became the most famous author of the hardboiled school Not only were Chandler s novels turned into major noirs Murder My Sweet 1944 adapted from Farewell My Lovely The Big Sleep 1946 and Lady in the Lake 1947 he was an important screenwriter in the genre as well producing the scripts for Double Indemnity The Blue Dahlia 1946 and Strangers on a Train 1951 Where Chandler like Hammett centered most of his novels and stories on the character of the private eye Cain featured less heroic protagonists and focused more on psychological exposition than on crime solving 41 the Cain approach has come to be identified with a subset of the hardboiled genre dubbed noir fiction For much of the 1940s one of the most prolific and successful authors of this often downbeat brand of suspense tale was Cornell Woolrich sometimes under the pseudonym George Hopley or William Irish No writer s published work provided the basis for more films noir of the classic period than Woolrich s thirteen in all including Black Angel 1946 Deadline at Dawn 1946 and Fear in the Night 1947 42 Another crucial literary source for film noir was W R Burnett whose first novel to be published was Little Caesar in 1929 It was turned into a hit for Warner Bros in 1931 the following year Burnett was hired to write dialogue for Scarface while The Beast of the City 1932 was adapted from one of his stories At least one important reference work identifies the latter as a film noir despite its early date 43 Burnett s characteristic narrative approach fell somewhere between that of the quintessential hardboiled writers and their noir fiction compatriots his protagonists were often heroic in their own way which happened to be that of the gangster During the classic era his work either as author or screenwriter was the basis for seven films now widely regarded as films noir including three of the most famous High Sierra 1941 This Gun for Hire 1942 and The Asphalt Jungle 1950 44 Classic period EditOverview Edit The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir While City Streets and other pre WWII crime melodramas such as Fury 1936 and You Only Live Once 1937 both directed by Fritz Lang are categorized as full fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward s film noir encyclopedia other critics tend to describe them as proto noir or in similar terms 45 The film now most commonly cited as the first true film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor 1940 directed by Latvian born Soviet trained Boris Ingster 46 Hungarian emigre Peter Lorre who had starred in Lang s M was top billed although he did not play the primary lead He later played secondary roles in several other formative American noirs Although modestly budgeted at the high end of the B movie scale Stranger on the Third Floor still lost its studio RKO US 56 000 equivalent to 1 083 154 in 2021 almost a third of its total cost 47 Variety magazine found Ingster s work too studied and when original lacks the flare to hold attention It s a film too arty for average audiences and too humdrum for others 48 Stranger on the Third Floor was not recognized as the beginning of a trend let alone a new genre for many decades 46 Whoever went to the movies with any regularity during 1946 was caught in the midst of Hollywood s profound postwar affection for morbid drama From January through December deep shadows clutching hands exploding revolvers sadistic villains and heroines tormented with deeply rooted diseases of the mind flashed across the screen in a panting display of psychoneurosis unsublimated sex and murder most foul Donald Marshman Life August 25 1947 49 Most film noirs of the classic period were similarly low and modestly budgeted features without major stars B movies either literally or in spirit In this production context writers directors cinematographers and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big picture constraints There was more visual experimentation than in Hollywood filmmaking as a whole the Expressionism now closely associated with noir and the semi documentary style that later emerged represent two very different tendencies Narrative structures sometimes involved convoluted flashbacks uncommon in non noir commercial productions In terms of content enforcement of the Production Code ensured that no film character could literally get away with murder or be seen sharing a bed with anyone but a spouse within those bounds however many films now identified as noir feature plot elements and dialogue that were very risque for the time 50 Out of the Past 1947 directed by Jacques Tourneur features many of the genre s hallmarks a cynical private detective as the protagonist a femme fatale multiple flashbacks with voiceover narration dramatically shadowed photography and a fatalistic mood leavened with provocative banter Pictured are noir icons Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer Thematically films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on portrayals of women of questionable virtue a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid 1930s and the end of the pre Code era The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder setting the mold was Barbara Stanwyck s unforgettable femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson an apparent nod to Marlene Dietrich who had built her extraordinary career playing such characters for Sternberg An A level feature the film s commercial success and seven Oscar nominations made it probably the most influential of the early noirs 51 A slew of now renowned noir bad girls followed such as those played by Rita Hayworth in Gilda 1946 Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946 Ava Gardner in The Killers 1946 and Jane Greer in Out of the Past 1947 The iconic noir counterpart to the femme fatale the private eye came to the fore in films such as The Maltese Falcon 1941 with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade and Murder My Sweet 1944 with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general 52 A prime example is Kiss Me Deadly 1955 based on a novel by Mickey Spillane the best selling of all the hardboiled authors here the protagonist is a private eye Mike Hammer As described by Paul Schrader Robert Aldrich s teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most perversely erotic Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the great whatsit which turns out to be joke of jokes an exploding atomic bomb 53 Orson Welles s baroquely styled Touch of Evil 1958 is frequently cited as the last noir of the classic period 54 Some scholars believe film noir never really ended but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions in this view post 1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir 55 A majority of critics however regard comparable films made outside the classic era to be something other than genuine film noir They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion 56 These later films are often called neo noir Directors and the business of noir Edit A scene from In a Lonely Place 1950 directed by Nicholas Ray and based on a novel by noir fiction writer Dorothy B Hughes Two of noir s defining actors Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart portray star crossed lovers in the film While the inceptive noir Stranger on the Third Floor was a B picture directed by a virtual unknown many of the films noir still remembered were A list productions by well known film makers Debuting as a director with The Maltese Falcon 1941 John Huston followed with Key Largo 1948 and The Asphalt Jungle 1950 Opinion is divided on the noir status of several Alfred Hitchcock thrillers from the era at least four qualify by consensus Shadow of a Doubt 1943 Notorious 1946 Strangers on a Train 1951 and The Wrong Man 1956 57 Otto Preminger s success with Laura 1944 made his name and helped demonstrate noir s adaptability to a high gloss 20th Century Fox presentation 58 Among Hollywood s most celebrated directors of the era arguably none worked more often in a noir mode than Preminger his other noirs include Fallen Angel 1945 Whirlpool 1949 Where the Sidewalk Ends 1950 all for Fox and Angel Face 1952 A half decade after Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend Billy Wilder made Sunset Boulevard 1950 and Ace in the Hole 1951 noirs that were not so much crime dramas as satires on Hollywood and the news media respectively In a Lonely Place 1950 was Nicholas Ray s breakthrough his other noirs include his debut They Live by Night 1948 and On Dangerous Ground 1952 noted for their unusually sympathetic treatment of characters alienated from the social mainstream 59 Rita Hayworth in the trailer for The Lady from Shanghai 1947 Orson Welles had notorious problems with financing but his three film noirs were well budgeted The Lady from Shanghai 1947 received top level prestige backing while The Stranger 1946 his most conventional film and Touch of Evil 1958 an unmistakably personal work were funded at levels lower but still commensurate with headlining releases 60 Like The Stranger Fritz Lang s The Woman in the Window 1945 was a production of the independent International Pictures Lang s follow up Scarlet Street 1945 was one of the few classic noirs to be officially censored filled with erotic innuendo it was temporarily banned in Milwaukee Atlanta and New York State 61 Scarlet Street was a semi independent cosponsored by Universal and Lang s Diana Productions of which the film s co star Joan Bennett was the second biggest shareholder Lang Bennett and her husband the Universal veteran and Diana production head Walter Wanger made Secret Beyond the Door 1948 in similar fashion 62 Before leaving the United States while subject to the Hollywood blacklist Jules Dassin made two classic noirs that also straddled the major independent line Brute Force 1947 and the influential documentary style The Naked City 1948 were developed by producer Mark Hellinger who had an inside outside contract with Universal similar to Wanger s 63 Years earlier working at Warner Bros Hellinger had produced three films for Raoul Walsh the proto noirs They Drive by Night 1940 Manpower 1941 and High Sierra 1941 now regarded as a seminal work in noir s development 64 Walsh had no great name during his half century as a director but his noirs White Heat 1949 and The Enforcer 1951 had A list stars and are seen as important examples of the cycle 65 Other directors associated with top of the bill Hollywood films noir include Edward Dmytryk Murder My Sweet 1944 Crossfire 1947 the first important noir director to fall prey to the industry blacklist as well as Henry Hathaway The Dark Corner 1946 Kiss of Death 1947 and John Farrow The Big Clock 1948 Night Has a Thousand Eyes 1948 Most of the Hollywood films considered to be classic noirs fall into the category of the B movie 66 Some were Bs in the most precise sense produced to run on the bottom of double bills by a low budget unit of one of the major studios or by one of the smaller Poverty Row outfits from the relatively well off Monogram to shakier ventures such as Producers Releasing Corporation PRC Jacques Tourneur had made over thirty Hollywood Bs a few now highly regarded most forgotten before directing the A level Out of the Past described by scholar Robert Ottoson as the ne plus ultra of forties film noir 67 Movies with budgets a step up the ladder known as intermediates by the industry might be treated as A or B pictures depending on the circumstances Monogram created Allied Artists in the late 1940s to focus on this sort of production Robert Wise Born to Kill 1947 The Set Up 1949 and Anthony Mann T Men 1947 and Raw Deal 1948 each made a series of impressive intermediates many of them noirs before graduating to steady work on big budget productions Mann did some of his most celebrated work with cinematographer John Alton a specialist in what James Naremore called hypnotic moments of light in darkness 68 He Walked by Night 1948 shot by Alton though credited solely to Alfred Werker directed in large part by Mann demonstrates their technical mastery and exemplifies the late 1940s trend of police procedural crime dramas It was released like other Mann Alton noirs by the small Eagle Lion company it was the inspiration for the Dragnet series which debuted on radio in 1949 and television in 1951 69 Detour 1945 cost 117 000 to make when the biggest Hollywood studios spent around 600 000 on the average feature Produced at small PRC however the film was 30 percent over budget 70 Several directors associated with noir built well respected oeuvres largely at the B movie intermediate level Samuel Fuller s brutal visually energetic films such as Pickup on South Street 1953 and Underworld U S A 1961 earned him a unique reputation his advocates praise him as primitive and barbarous 71 72 Joseph H Lewis directed noirs as diverse as Gun Crazy 1950 and The Big Combo 1955 The former whose screenplay was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo disguised by a front features a bank hold up sequence shown in an unbroken take of over three minutes that was influential 73 The Big Combo was shot by John Alton and took the shadowy noir style to its outer limits 74 The most distinctive films of Phil Karlson The Phenix City Story 1955 and The Brothers Rico 1957 tell stories of vice organized on a monstrous scale 75 The work of other directors in this tier of the industry such as Felix E Feist The Devil Thumbs a Ride 1947 Tomorrow Is Another Day 1951 has become obscure Edgar G Ulmer spent most of his Hollywood career working at B studios and once in a while on projects that achieved intermediate status for the most part on unmistakable Bs In 1945 while at PRC he directed a noir cult classic Detour 76 Ulmer s other noirs include Strange Illusion 1945 also for PRC Ruthless 1948 for Eagle Lion which had acquired PRC the previous year and Murder Is My Beat 1955 for Allied Artists A number of low and modestly budgeted noirs were made by independent often actor owned companies contracting with larger studios for distribution Serving as producer writer director and top billed performer Hugo Haas made films like Pickup 1951 The Other Woman 1954 and Jacques Tourneur The Fearmakers 1958 It was in this way that accomplished noir actress Ida Lupino established herself as the sole female director in Hollywood during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s She does not appear in the best known film she directed The Hitch Hiker 1953 developed by her company The Filmakers with support and distribution by RKO 77 It is one of the seven classic film noirs produced largely outside of the major studios that have been chosen for the United States National Film Registry Of the others one was a small studio release Detour Four were independent productions distributed by United Artists the studio without a studio Gun Crazy Kiss Me Deadly D O A 1950 directed by Rudolph Mate and Sweet Smell of Success 1957 directed by Alexander Mackendrick One was an independent distributed by MGM the industry leader Force of Evil 1948 directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield both of whom were blacklisted in the 1950s 78 Independent production usually meant restricted circumstances but Sweet Smell of Success despite the plans of the production team was clearly not made on the cheap though like many other cherished A budget noirs it might be said to have a B movie soul 79 Perhaps no director better displayed that spirit than the German born Robert Siodmak who had already made a score of films before his 1940 arrival in Hollywood Working mostly on A features he made eight films now regarded as classic era films noir a figure matched only by Lang and Mann 80 In addition to The Killers Burt Lancaster s debut and a Hellinger Universal co production Siodmak s other important contributions to the genre include 1944 s Phantom Lady a top of the line B and Woolrich adaptation the ironically titled Christmas Holiday 1944 and Cry of the City 1948 Criss Cross 1949 with Lancaster again the lead exemplifies how Siodmak brought the virtues of the B movie to the A noir In addition to the relatively looser constraints on character and message at lower budgets the nature of B production lent itself to the noir style for economic reasons dim lighting saved on electricity and helped cloak cheap sets mist and smoke also served the cause night shooting was often compelled by hurried production schedules plots with obscure motivations and intriguingly elliptical transitions were sometimes the consequence of hastily written scripts of which there was not always enough time or money to shoot every scene In Criss Cross Siodmak achieved these effects with purpose wrapping them around Yvonne De Carlo playing the most understandable of femme fatales Dan Duryea in one of his many charismatic villain roles and Lancaster as an ordinary laborer turned armed robber doomed by a romantic obsession 81 Classic era film noirs in the National Film Registry1940 49 The Maltese Falcon Shadow of a Doubt Laura Double Indemnity Mildred Pierce The Lost Weekend Detour Gilda The Big Sleep The Killers Notorious Out of the Past The Lady from Shanghai Force of Evil The Naked City All the King s Men White Heat1950 58 Gun Crazy D O A In a Lonely Place The Asphalt Jungle Sunset Boulevard The Hitch Hiker The Big Heat Kiss Me Deadly The Night of the Hunter The Phenix City Story Sweet Smell of Success Touch of EvilOutside the United States Edit Generique Nuit sur les Champs Elysees source source The moody evocative music improvised by jazz trumpeter Miles Davis s quintet for Ascenseur pour l echafaud 1958 is regarded as one of the definitive noir scores 82 Problems playing this file See media help Some critics regard classic film noir as a cycle exclusive to the United States Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward for example argue With the Western film noir shares the distinction of being an indigenous American form a wholly American film style 83 However although the term film noir was originally coined to describe Hollywood movies it was an international phenomenon 84 Even before the beginning of the generally accepted classic period there were films made far from Hollywood that can be seen in retrospect as films noir for example the French productions Pepe le Moko 1937 directed by Julien Duvivier and Le Jour se leve 1939 directed by Marcel Carne 85 In addition Mexico experienced a vibrant film noir period from roughly 1946 to 1952 which was around the same time film noir was blossoming in the United States 86 During the classic period there were many films produced in Europe particularly in France that share elements of style theme and sensibility with American films noir and may themselves be included in the genre s canon In certain cases the interrelationship with Hollywood noir is obvious American born director Jules Dassin moved to France in the early 1950s as a result of the Hollywood blacklist and made one of the most famous French film noirs Rififi 1955 Other well known French films often classified as noir include Quai des Orfevres 1947 and Les Diaboliques 1955 both directed by Henri Georges Clouzot Casque d Or 1952 Touchez pas au grisbi 1954 and Le Trou 1960 directed by Jacques Becker and Ascenseur pour l echafaud 1958 directed by Louis Malle French director Jean Pierre Melville is widely recognized for his tragic minimalist films noir Bob le flambeur 1955 from the classic period was followed by Le Doulos 1962 Le deuxieme souffle 1966 Le Samourai 1967 and Le Cercle rouge 1970 87 In the 1960s Greek films noir The Secret of the Red Mantle 88 and The Fear 89 allowed audience for an anti ableist reading which challenged stereotypes of disability 90 Stray Dog 1949 directed and cowritten by Akira Kurosawa contains many cinematographic and narrative elements associated with classic American film noir Scholar Andrew Spicer argues that British film noir evidences a greater debt to French poetic realism than to the expressionistic American mode of noir 91 Examples of British noir from the classic period include Brighton Rock 1947 directed by John Boulting They Made Me a Fugitive 1947 directed by Alberto Cavalcanti The Small Back Room 1948 directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger The October Man 1950 directed by Roy Ward Baker and Cast a Dark Shadow 1955 directed by Lewis Gilbert Terence Fisher directed several low budget thrillers in a noir mode for Hammer Film Productions including The Last Page a k a Man Bait 1952 Stolen Face 1952 and Murder by Proxy a k a Blackout 1954 Before leaving for France Jules Dassin had been obliged by political pressure to shoot his last English language film of the classic noir period in Great Britain Night and the City 1950 Though it was conceived in the United States and was not only directed by an American but also stars two American actors Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney it is technically a UK production financed by 20th Century Fox s British subsidiary The most famous of classic British noirs is director Carol Reed s The Third Man 1949 from a screenplay by Graham Greene Set in Vienna immediately after World War II it also stars two American actors Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles who had appeared together in Citizen Kane 92 Elsewhere Italian director Luchino Visconti adapted Cain s The Postman Always Rings Twice as Ossessione 1943 regarded both as one of the great noirs and a seminal film in the development of neorealism 93 This was not even the first screen version of Cain s novel having been preceded by the French Le Dernier Tournant in 1939 94 In Japan the celebrated Akira Kurosawa directed several films recognizable as films noir including Drunken Angel 1948 Stray Dog 1949 The Bad Sleep Well 1960 and High and Low 1963 95 Spanish author Mercedes Formica s novel La ciudad perdida The Lost City was adapted into film in 1960 96 Among the first major neo noir films the term often applied to films that consciously refer back to the classic noir tradition was the French Tirez sur le pianiste 1960 directed by Francois Truffaut from a novel by one of the gloomiest of American noir fiction writers David Goodis 97 Noir crime films and melodramas have been produced in many countries in the post classic area Some of these are quintessentially self aware neo noirs for example Il Conformista 1969 Italy Der Amerikanische Freund 1977 Germany The Element of Crime 1984 Denmark and El Aura 2005 Argentina Others simply share narrative elements and a version of the hardboiled sensibility associated with classic noir such as Castle of Sand 1974 Japan Insomnia 1997 Norway Croupier 1998 UK and Blind Shaft 2003 China 98 Neo noir and echoes of the classic mode EditSee also Neo noir The neo noir film genre developed mid way into the Cold War This cinematological trend reflected much of the cynicism and the possibility of nuclear annihilation of the era This new genre introduced innovations that were not available to earlier noir films The violence was also more potent 99 1960s and 1970s Edit While it is hard to draw a line between some of the noir films of the early 1960s such as Blast of Silence 1961 and Cape Fear 1962 and the noirs of the late 1950s new trends emerged in the post classic era The Manchurian Candidate 1962 directed by John Frankenheimer Shock Corridor 1963 directed by Samuel Fuller and Brainstorm 1965 directed by experienced noir character actor William Conrad all treat the theme of mental dispossession within stylistic and tonal frameworks derived from classic film noir 100 The Manchurian Candidate examined the situation of American prisoners of war POWs during the Korean War Incidents that occurred during the war as well as those post war functioned as an inspiration for a Cold War Noir subgenre 101 102 The television series The Fugitive 1963 67 brought classic noir themes and mood to the small screen for an extended run 100 As car thief Michel Poiccard a k a Laszlo Kovacs Jean Paul Belmondo in A bout de souffle Breathless 1960 Poiccard reveres and styles himself after Humphrey Bogart s screen persona Here he imitates a characteristic Bogart gesture one of the film s motifs 103 In a different vein films began to appear that self consciously acknowledged the conventions of classic film noir as historical archetypes to be revived rejected or reimagined These efforts typify what came to be known as neo noir 104 Though several late classic noirs Kiss Me Deadly in particular were deeply self knowing and post traditional in conception none tipped its hand so evidently as to be remarked on by American critics at the time 105 The first major film to overtly work this angle was French director Jean Luc Godard s A bout de souffle Breathless 1960 which pays its literal respects to Bogart and his crime films while brandishing a bold new style for a new day 106 In the United States Arthur Penn 1965 s Mickey One drawing inspiration from Truffaut s Tirez sur le pianiste and other French New Wave films John Boorman 1967 s Point Blank similarly caught up though in the Nouvelle vague s deeper waters and Alan J Pakula 1971 s Klute directed films that knowingly related themselves to the original films noir inviting audiences in on the game 107 A manifest affiliation with noir traditions which by its nature allows different sorts of commentary on them to be inferred can also provide the basis for explicit critiques of those traditions In 1973 director Robert Altman flipped off noir piety with The Long Goodbye Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler it features one of Bogart s most famous characters but in iconoclastic fashion Philip Marlowe the prototypical hardboiled detective is replayed as a hapless misfit almost laughably out of touch with contemporary mores and morality 108 Where Altman s subversion of the film noir mythos was so irreverent as to outrage some contemporary critics 109 around the same time Woody Allen was paying affectionate at points idolatrous homage to the classic mode with Play It Again Sam 1972 The blaxploitation film Shaft 1971 wherein Richard Roundtree plays the titular African American private eye John Shaft takes conventions from classic noir The most acclaimed of the neo noirs of the era was director Roman Polanski s 1974 Chinatown 110 Written by Robert Towne it is set in 1930s Los Angeles an accustomed noir locale nudged back some few years in a way that makes the pivotal loss of innocence in the story even crueler Where Polanski and Towne raised noir to a black apogee by turning rearward director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the noir attitude crashing into the present day with Taxi Driver 1976 a crackling bloody minded gloss on bicentennial America 111 In 1978 Walter Hill wrote and directed The Driver a chase film as might have been imagined by Jean Pierre Melville in an especially abstract mood 112 Hill was already a central figure in 1970s noir of a more straightforward manner having written the script for director Sam Peckinpah s The Getaway 1972 adapting a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson as well as for two tough private eye films an original screenplay for Hickey amp Boggs 1972 and an adaptation of a novel by Ross Macdonald the leading literary descendant of Hammett and Chandler for The Drowning Pool 1975 Some of the strongest 1970s noirs in fact were unwinking remakes of the classics neo mostly by default the heartbreaking Thieves Like Us 1974 directed by Altman from the same source as Ray s They Live by Night and Farewell My Lovely 1975 the Chandler tale made classically as Murder My Sweet remade here with Robert Mitchum in his last notable noir role 113 Detective series prevalent on American television during the period updated the hardboiled tradition in different ways but the show conjuring the most noir tone was a horror crossover touched with shaggy Long Goodbye style humor Kolchak The Night Stalker 1974 75 featuring a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating strange usually supernatural occurrences 114 1980s and 1990s Edit Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell archetypal modern femme fatale in Basic Instinct 1992 Her diabolic nature is underscored by an extra lurid visual code as in the notorious interrogation scene 115 The turn of the decade brought Scorsese s black and white Raging Bull 1980 cowritten by Schrader An acknowledged masterpiece in 2007 the American Film Institute ranked it as the greatest American film of the 1980s and the fourth greatest of all time it tells the story of a boxer s moral self destruction that recalls in both theme and visual ambiance noir dramas such as Body and Soul 1947 and Champion 1949 116 From 1981 Body Heat written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan invokes a different set of classic noir elements this time in a humid erotically charged Florida setting Its success confirmed the commercial viability of neo noir at a time when the major Hollywood studios were becoming increasingly risk averse The mainstreaming of neo noir is evident in such films as Black Widow 1987 Shattered 1991 and Final Analysis 1992 117 Few neo noirs have made more money or more wittily updated the tradition of the noir double entendre than Basic Instinct 1992 directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas 118 The film also demonstrates how neo noir s polychrome palette can reproduce many of the expressionistic effects of classic black and white noir 115 Like Chinatown its more complex predecessor Curtis Hanson s Oscar winning L A Confidential 1997 based on the James Ellroy novel demonstrates the opposite tendency the deliberately retro film noir its tale of corrupt cops and femmes fatale is seemingly lifted straight from a film of 1953 the year in which it is set 119 Director David Fincher followed the immensely successful neo noir Seven 1995 with a film that developed into a cult favorite after its original disappointing release Fight Club 1999 a sui generis mix of noir aesthetic perverse comedy speculative content and satiric intent 120 Dub Driving source source Angelo Badalamenti has scored most of David Lynch s noir related work His work on this track typifies a modern noir style which the director explicitly sought for Lost Highway 1997 121 Problems playing this file See media help Working generally with much smaller budgets brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the most extensive oeuvres influenced by classic noir with films such as Blood Simple 1984 and Fargo 1996 the latter considered by some a supreme work in the neo noir mode 122 The Coens cross noir with other generic traditions in the gangster drama Miller s Crossing 1990 loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key and the comedy The Big Lebowski 1998 a tribute to Chandler and an homage to Altman s version of The Long Goodbye 123 The characteristic work of David Lynch combines film noir tropes with scenarios driven by disturbed characters such as the sociopathic criminal played by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet 1986 and the delusionary protagonist of Lost Highway 1997 The Twin Peaks cycle both the TV series 1990 91 and a film Fire Walk with Me 1992 puts a detective plot through a succession of bizarre spasms David Cronenberg also mixes surrealism and noir in Naked Lunch 1991 inspired by William S Burroughs novel Perhaps no American neo noirs better reflect the classic noir B movie spirit than those of director writer Quentin Tarantino 124 Neo noirs of his such as Reservoir Dogs 1992 and Pulp Fiction 1994 display a relentlessly self reflexive sometimes tongue in cheek sensibility similar to the work of the New Wave directors and the Coens Other films from the era readily identifiable as neo noir some retro some more au courant include director John Dahl s Kill Me Again 1989 Red Rock West 1992 and The Last Seduction 1993 four adaptations of novels by Jim Thompson The Kill Off 1989 After Dark My Sweet 1990 The Grifters 1990 and the remake of The Getaway 1994 and many more including adaptations of the work of other major noir fiction writers The Hot Spot 1990 from Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams Miami Blues 1990 from the novel by Charles Willeford and Out of Sight 1998 from the novel by Elmore Leonard 125 Several films by director writer David Mamet involve noir elements House of Games 1987 Homicide 1991 126 The Spanish Prisoner 1997 and Heist 2001 127 On television Moonlighting 1985 89 paid homage to classic noir while demonstrating an unusual appreciation of the sense of humor often found in the original cycle 125 Between 1983 and 1989 Mickey Spillane s hardboiled private eye Mike Hammer was played with wry gusto by Stacy Keach in a series and several stand alone television films an unsuccessful revival followed in 1997 98 The British miniseries The Singing Detective 1986 written by Dennis Potter tells the story of a mystery writer named Philip Marlow widely considered one of the finest neo noirs in any medium some critics rank it among the greatest television productions of all time 128 Neon noir Edit Among big budget auteurs Michael Mann has worked frequently in a neo noir mode with such films as Thief 1981 126 and Heat 1995 and the TV series Miami Vice 1984 89 and Crime Story 1986 88 Mann s output exemplifies a primary strain of neo noir or as it is affectionately called neon noir 129 130 in which classic themes and tropes are revisited in a contemporary setting with an up to date visual style and rock or hip hop based musical soundtrack 131 Neo noir film borrows from and reflects many of the characteristics of the film noir the presence of crime and violence complex characters and plot lines mystery and moral ambivalence all of which come into play in the neon noir sub genre But more than just exhibiting the superficial traits of the genre neon noir emphasizes the socio critique of film noir recalling the specific socio cultural dimensions of the interwar years when noirs first became prominent a time of global existential crisis depression and the mass movement of the rural population to cities Long shots or montages of cityscapes often portrayed as dark and menacing are suggestive of what Dueck referred to as a bleak societal perspective 132 providing a critique on global capitalism and consumerism Other characteristics include the use of highly stylized lighting techniques such chiaroscuro and neon signs and brightly lit buildings that provide a sense of alienation and entrapment Accentuating the use of artificial and neon lighting in the films noir of the 40s and 50s neon noir films accentuate this aesthetic with electrifying color and manipulated light in order to highlight their socio cultural critiques and their references to contemporary and pop culture In doing so neon noir films present the themes of urban decay consumerist decadence and capitalism existentialism sexuality and issues of race and violence in the contemporary culture not only in America but the globalized world at large Neon noirs seek to bring the contemporary noir somewhat diluted under the umbrella of neo noir back to the exploration of culture class race gender patriarchy and capitalism Neon noirs present an existential exploration of society in a hyper technological and globalized world Illustrating society as decadent and consumerist and identity as confused and anxious neon noirs reposition the contemporary noir in the setting of urban decay often featuring scenes set in underground city haunts brothels nightclubs casinos strip bars pawnshops laundromats Neon noirs were popularized in the 70s and 80s by films such as Taxi Driver 1976 Blade Runner 1982 133 and films from David Lynch such as Blue Velvet 1986 and later Lost Highway 1997 Other titles from this era included Brian De Palma s Blow Out 1981 and the Coen Brothers debut Blood Simple 1984 134 135 More currently films such as Harmony Korine s highly provocative Spring Breakers 2012 136 and Danny Boyle s Trance 2013 have been especially noted for their neon infused rendering of film noir while Trance was celebrated for shak ing the ingredients of the noir like colored sand in a jar Spring Breakers notoriously produced a slew of criticism 137 referring to its fever dream aesthetic and neon caked explosion of excess Kohn 138 Another neon noir endowed with the fever dream aesthetic is The Persian Connection expressly linked to Lynchian aesthetics as a neon drenched contemporary noir 139 Neon noir can be seen as a response to the over use of the term neo noir While the term neo noir functions to bring noir into the contemporary landscape it has often been criticized for its dilution of the noir genre Author Robert Arnett commented on its amorphous reach any film featuring a detective or crime qualifies 140 The neon noir more specifically seeks to revive noir sensibilities in a more targeted manner of reference focalizing socio cultural commentary and a hyper stylized aesthetic 2000s and 2010s Edit The Coen brothers make reference to the noir tradition again with The Man Who Wasn t There 2001 a black and white crime melodrama set in 1949 it features a scene apparently staged to mirror one from Out of the Past Lynch s Mulholland Drive 2001 continued in his characteristic vein making the classic noir setting of Los Angeles the venue for a noir inflected psychological jigsaw puzzle British born director Christopher Nolan s black and white debut Following 1998 was an overt homage to classic noir During the new century s first decade he was one of the leading Hollywood directors of neo noir with the acclaimed Memento 2000 and the remake of Insomnia 2002 141 Director Sean Penn s The Pledge 2001 though adapted from a very self reflexive novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt plays noir comparatively straight to devastating effect 142 Screenwriter David Ayer updated the classic noir bad cop tale typified by Shield for Murder 1954 and Rogue Cop 1954 with his scripts for Training Day 2001 and adapting a story by James Ellroy Dark Blue 2002 he later wrote and directed the even darker Harsh Times 2006 Michael Mann s Collateral 2004 features a performance by Tom Cruise as an assassin in the lineage of Le Samourai The torments of The Machinist 2004 directed by Brad Anderson evoke both Fight Club and Memento 143 In 2005 Shane Black directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang basing his screenplay in part on a crime novel by Brett Halliday who published his first stories back in the 1920s The film plays with an awareness not only of classic noir but also of neo noir reflexivity itself 144 With ultra violent films such as Sympathy for Mr Vengeance 2002 and Thirst 2009 Park Chan wook of South Korea has been the most prominent director outside of the United States to work regularly in a noir mode in the new millennium 145 The most commercially successful neo noir of this period has been Sin City 2005 directed by Robert Rodriguez in extravagantly stylized black and white with splashes of color 146 The film is based on a series of comic books created by Frank Miller credited as the film s codirector which are in turn openly indebted to the works of Spillane and other pulp mystery authors 147 148 Similarly graphic novels provide the basis for Road to Perdition 2002 directed by Sam Mendes and A History of Violence 2005 directed by David Cronenberg the latter was voted best film of the year in the annual Village Voice poll 149 Writer director Rian Johnson s Brick 2005 featuring present day high schoolers speaking a version of 1930s hardboiled argot won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the Sundance Film Festival The television series Veronica Mars 2004 07 and the movie Veronica Mars 2014 also brought a youth oriented twist to film noir Examples of this sort of generic crossover have been dubbed teen noir 150 151 Neo noir films released in the 2010s include Kim Jee woon s I Saw the Devil 2010 Fred Cavaye s Point Blank 2010 Na Hong jin s The Yellow Sea 2010 Nicolas Winding Refn s Drive 2011 152 Claire Denis Bastards 2013 153 154 and Dan Gilroy s Nightcrawler 2014 2020s Edit The Science Channel broadcast the 2021 science documentary series Killers of the Cosmos in a format it describes as space noir In the series actor Aidan Gillen in animated form serves as the host of the series while portraying a private investigator who takes on cases in which he hunts down lethal threats to humanity posed by the cosmos The animated sequences combine the characteristics of film noir with those of a pulp fiction graphic novel set in the mid 20th century and they link conventional live action documentary segments in which experts describe the potentially deadly phenomena 155 156 157 158 Science fiction noir Edit See also Tech noir Harrison Ford as detective Rick Deckard in Blade Runner 1982 Like many classic noirs the film is set in a version of Los Angeles where it constantly rains 159 The steam in the foreground is a familiar noir trope while the bluish smoky exterior updates the black and white mode 160 In the post classic era a significant trend in noir crossovers has involved science fiction In Jean Luc Godard s Alphaville 1965 Lemmy Caution is the name of the old school private eye in the city of tomorrow The Groundstar Conspiracy 1972 centers on another implacable investigator and an amnesiac named Welles Soylent Green 1973 the first major American example portrays a dystopian near future world via a noir detection plot starring Charlton Heston the lead in Touch of Evil it also features classic noir standbys Joseph Cotten Edward G Robinson and Whit Bissell The film was directed by Richard Fleischer who two decades before had directed several strong B noirs including Armored Car Robbery 1950 and The Narrow Margin 1952 161 The cynical and stylish perspective of classic film noir had a formative effect on the cyberpunk genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1980s the film most directly influential on cyberpunk was Blade Runner 1982 directed by Ridley Scott which pays evocative homage to the classic noir mode 162 Scott subsequently directed the poignant 1987 noir crime melodrama Someone to Watch Over Me Scholar Jamaluddin Bin Aziz has observed how the shadow of Philip Marlowe lingers on in such other future noir films as 12 Monkeys 1995 Dark City 1998 and Minority Report 2002 163 Fincher s feature debut was Alien 3 1992 which evoked the classic noir jail film Brute Force David Cronenberg s Crash 1996 an adaptation of the speculative novel by J G Ballard has been described as a film noir in bruise tones 164 The hero is the target of investigation in Gattaca 1997 which fuses film noir motifs with a scenario indebted to Brave New World The Thirteenth Floor 1999 like Blade Runner is an explicit homage to classic noir in this case involving speculations about virtual reality Science fiction noir and anime are brought together in the Japanese films of 90s Ghost in the Shell 1995 and Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence 2004 both directed by Mamoru Oshii 165 The Animatrix 2003 based on and set within the world of The Matrix film trilogy contains an anime short film in classic noir style titled A Detective Story 166 Anime television series with science fiction noir themes include Noir 2001 165 and Cowboy Bebop 1998 167 The 2015 film Ex Machina puts an understated film noir spin on the Frankenstein mythos with the sentient android Ava as a potential femme fatale her creator Nathan embodying the abusive husband or father trope and her would be rescuer Caleb as a clueless drifter enthralled by Ava 168 Parodies EditFilm noir has been parodied many times in many manners In 1945 Danny Kaye starred in what appears to be the first intentional film noir parody Wonder Man 169 That same year Deanna Durbin was the singing lead in the comedic noir Lady on a Train which makes fun of Woolrich brand wistful miserablism Bob Hope inaugurated the private eye noir parody with My Favorite Brunette 1947 playing a baby photographer who is mistaken for an ironfisted detective 169 In 1947 as well The Bowery Boys appeared in Hard Boiled Mahoney which had a similar mistaken identity plot they spoofed the genre once more in Private Eyes 1953 Two RKO productions starring Robert Mitchum take film noir over the border into self parody The Big Steal 1949 directed by Don Siegel and His Kind of Woman 1951 b The Girl Hunt ballet in Vincente Minnelli s The Band Wagon 1953 is a ten minute distillation of and play on noir in dance 170 The Cheap Detective 1978 starring Peter Falk is a broad spoof of several films including the Bogart classics The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca Carl Reiner s black and white Dead Men Don t Wear Plaid 1982 appropriates clips of classic noirs for a farcical pastiche while his Fatal Instinct 1993 sends up noir classic Double Indemnity and neo noir Basic Instinct Robert Zemeckis s Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1988 develops a noir plot set in 1940s L A around a host of cartoon characters 171 Loneliness has followed me my whole life everywhere In bars in cars sidewalks stores everywhere There s no escape I m God s lonely man Robert De Niro as neo noir antihero Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver 1976 Noir parodies come in darker tones as well Murder by Contract 1958 directed by Irving Lerner is a deadpan joke on noir with a denouement as bleak as any of the films it kids An ultra low budget Columbia Pictures production it may qualify as the first intentional example of what is now called a neo noir film it was likely a source of inspiration for both Melville s Le Samourai and Scorsese s Taxi Driver 172 Belying its parodic strain The Long Goodbye s final act is seriously grave Taxi Driver caustically deconstructs the dark crime film taking it to an absurd extreme and then offering a conclusion that manages to mock every possible anticipated ending triumphant tragic artfully ambivalent while being each all at once 173 Flirting with splatter status even more brazenly the Coens Blood Simple is both an exacting pastiche and a gross exaggeration of classic noir 174 Adapted by director Robinson Devor from a novel by Charles Willeford The Woman Chaser 1999 sends up not just the noir mode but the entire Hollywood filmmaking process with each shot seemingly staged as the visual equivalent of an acerbic Marlowe wisecrack 175 In other media the television series Sledge Hammer 1986 88 lampoons noir along with such topics as capital punishment gun fetishism and Dirty Harry Sesame Street 1969 curr occasionally casts Kermit the Frog as a private eye the sketches refer to some of the typical motifs of noir films in particular the voiceover Garrison Keillor s radio program A Prairie Home Companion features the recurring character Guy Noir a hardboiled detective whose adventures always wander into farce Guy also appears in the Altman directed film based on Keillor s show Firesign Theatre s Nick Danger has trodden the same not so mean streets both on radio and in comedy albums Cartoons such as Garfield s Babes and Bullets 1989 and comic strip characters such as Tracer Bullet of Calvin and Hobbes have parodied both film noir and the kindred hardboiled tradition one of the sources from which film noir sprang and which it now overshadows 176 Identifying characteristics Edit Some consider Vertigo 1958 a noir on the basis of plot and tone and various motifs but it has a modernist graphic design typical of the 1950s and a more modern set design 177 which would remove it from the category of film noir Others say the combination of color and the specificity of director Alfred Hitchcock s vision exclude it from the category 178 In their original 1955 canon of film noir Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton identified twenty two Hollywood films released between 1941 and 1952 as core examples they listed another fifty nine American films from the period as significantly related to the field of noir 179 A half century later film historians and critics had come to agree on a canon of approximately three hundred films from 1940 to 1958 180 There remain however many differences of opinion over whether other films of the era among them a number of well known ones qualify as films noir or not For instance The Night of the Hunter 1955 starring Robert Mitchum in an acclaimed performance is treated as a film noir by some critics but not by others 181 Some critics include Suspicion 1941 directed by Alfred Hitchcock in their catalogues of noir others ignore it 182 Concerning films made either before or after the classic period or outside of the United States at any time consensus is even rarer To support their categorization of certain films as noirs and their rejection of others many critics refer to a set of elements they see as marking examples of the mode The question of what constitutes the set of noir s identifying characteristics is a fundamental source of controversy For instance critics tend to define the model film noir as having a tragic or bleak conclusion 183 but many acknowledged classics of the genre have clearly happy endings e g Stranger on the Third Floor The Big Sleep Dark Passage and The Dark Corner while the tone of many other noir denouements is ambivalent 184 Some critics perceive classic noir s hallmark as a distinctive visual style Others observing that there is actually considerable stylistic variety among noirs instead emphasize plot and character type Still others focus on mood and attitude No survey of classic noir s identifying characteristics can therefore be considered definitive In the 1990s and 2000s critics have increasingly turned their attention to that diverse field of films called neo noir once again there is even less consensus about the defining attributes of such films made outside the classic period 185 Visual style Edit The low key lighting schemes of many classic films noir are associated with stark light dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning a style known as chiaroscuro a term adopted from Renaissance painting c The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods cast upon an actor a wall or an entire set are an iconic visual in noir and had already become a cliche well before the neo noir era Characters faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood filmmaking While black and white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir the color films Leave Her to Heaven 1945 and Niagara 1953 are routinely included in noir filmographies while Slightly Scarlet 1956 Party Girl 1958 and Vertigo 1958 are classified as noir by varying numbers of critics 186 Film noir is also known for its use of low angle wide angle and skewed or Dutch angle shots Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects such as during the strangulation scene in Strangers on a Train and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature Night for night shooting as opposed to the Hollywood norm of day for night was often employed 187 From the mid 1940s forward location shooting became increasingly frequent in noir 188 In an analysis of the visual approach of Kiss Me Deadly a late and self consciously stylized example of classic noir critic Alain Silver describes how cinematographic choices emphasize the story s themes and mood In one scene the characters seen through a confusion of angular shapes thus appear caught in a tangible vortex or enclosed in a trap Silver makes a case for how side light is used to reflect character ambivalence while shots of characters in which they are lit from below conform to a convention of visual expression which associates shadows cast upward of the face with the unnatural and ominous 189 Structure and narrational devices Edit Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster were two of the most prolific stars of classic noir The complex structure of Sorry Wrong Number 1948 involves a real time framing story multiple narrators and flashbacks within flashbacks 190 Films noir tend to have unusually convoluted story lines frequently involving flashbacks and other editing techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence Framing the entire primary narrative as a flashback is also a standard device Voiceover narration sometimes used as a structuring device came to be seen as a noir hallmark while classic noir is generally associated with first person narration i e by the protagonist Stephen Neale notes that third person narration is common among noirs of the semidocumentary style 191 Neo noirs as varied as The Element of Crime surrealist After Dark My Sweet retro and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang meta have employed the flashback voiceover combination Bold experiments in cinematic storytelling were sometimes attempted during the classic era Lady in the Lake for example is shot entirely from the point of view of protagonist Philip Marlowe the face of star and director Robert Montgomery is seen only in mirrors 192 The Chase 1946 takes oneirism and fatalism as the basis for its fantastical narrative system redolent of certain horror stories but with little precedent in the context of a putatively realistic genre In their different ways both Sunset Boulevard and D O A are tales told by dead men Latter day noir has been in the forefront of structural experimentation in popular cinema as exemplified by such films as Pulp Fiction Fight Club and Memento 193 Plots characters and settings Edit Crime usually murder is an element of almost all films noir in addition to standard issue greed jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation A crime investigation by a private eye a police detective sometimes acting alone or a concerned amateur is the most prevalent but far from dominant basic plot In other common plots the protagonists are implicated in heists or con games or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements as are betrayals and double crosses According to J David Slocum protagonists assume the literal identities of dead men in nearly fifteen percent of all noir 194 Amnesia is fairly epidemic noir s version of the common cold in the words of film historian Lee Server 195 By the late 1940s the noir trend was leaving its mark on other genres A prime example is the Western Pursued 1947 filled with psychosexual tensions and behavioral explanations derived from Freudian theory 196 Films noir tend to revolve around heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm often fall guys of one sort or another The characteristic protagonists of noir are described by many critics as alienated 197 in the words of Silver and Ward filled with existential bitterness 198 Certain archetypal characters appear in many film noirs hardboiled detectives femme fatales corrupt policemen jealous husbands intrepid claims adjusters and down and out writers Among characters of every stripe cigarette smoking is rampant 199 From historical commentators to neo noir pictures to pop culture ephemera the private eye and the femme fatale have been adopted as the quintessential film noir figures though they do not appear in most films now regarded as classic noir Of the twenty six National Film Registry noirs in only four does the star play a private eye The Maltese Falcon The Big Sleep Out of the Past and Kiss Me Deadly Just four others readily qualify as detective stories Laura The Killers The Naked City and Touch of Evil There is usually an element of drug or alcohol use particularly as part of the detective s method to solving the crime as an example the character of Mike Hammer in the 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly who walks into a bar saying Give me a double bourbon and leave the bottle Chaumeton and Borde have argued that film noir grew out of the literature of drugs and alcohol 200 Film noir is often associated with an urban setting and a few cities Los Angeles San Francisco New York and Chicago in particular are the location of many of the classic films In the eyes of many critics the city is presented in noir as a labyrinth or maze 201 Bars lounges nightclubs and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action The climaxes of a substantial number of film noirs take place in visually complex often industrial settings such as refineries factories trainyards power plants most famously the explosive conclusion of White Heat set at a chemical plant 202 In the popular and frequently enough critical imagination in noir it is always night and it always raining 203 A substantial trend within latter day noir dubbed film soleil by critic D K Holm heads in precisely the opposite direction with tales of deception seduction and corruption exploiting bright sun baked settings stereotypically the desert or open water to searing effect Significant predecessors from the classic and early post classic eras include The Lady from Shanghai the Robert Ryan vehicle Inferno 1953 the French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith s The Talented Mr Ripley Plein soleil Purple Noon in the United States more accurately rendered elsewhere as Blazing Sun or Full Sun 1960 and director Don Siegel s version of The Killers 1964 The tendency was at its peak during the late 1980s and 1990s with films such as Dead Calm 1989 After Dark My Sweet 1990 The Hot Spot 1990 Delusion 1991 Red Rock West 1993 and the television series Miami Vice 204 Worldview morality and tone Edit You ve got a touch of class but I don t know how far you can go A lot depends on who s in the saddle Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep Film noir is often described as essentially pessimistic 205 The noir stories that are regarded as most characteristic tell of people trapped in unwanted situations which in general they did not cause but are responsible for exacerbating striving against random uncaring fate and are frequently doomed The films are seen as depicting a world that is inherently corrupt 206 Classic film noir has been associated by many critics with the American social landscape of the era in particular with a sense of heightened anxiety and alienation that is said to have followed World War II In author Nicholas Christopher s opinion it is as if the war and the social eruptions in its aftermath unleashed demons that had been bottled up in the national psyche 207 Films noir especially those of the 1950s and the height of the Red Scare are often said to reflect cultural paranoia Kiss Me Deadly is the noir most frequently marshaled as evidence for this claim 208 Film noir is often said to be defined by moral ambiguity 209 yet the Production Code obliged almost all classic noirs to see that steadfast virtue was ultimately rewarded and vice in the absence of shame and redemption severely punished however dramatically incredible the final rendering of mandatory justice might be A substantial number of latter day noirs flout such conventions vice emerges triumphant in films as varied as the grim Chinatown and the ribald Hot Spot 210 The tone of film noir is generally regarded as downbeat some critics experience it as darker still overwhelmingly black according to Robert Ottoson 211 Influential critic and filmmaker Paul Schrader wrote in a seminal 1972 essay that film noir is defined by tone a tone he seems to perceive as hopeless 212 In describing the adaptation of Double Indemnity noir analyst Foster Hirsch describes the requisite hopeless tone achieved by the filmmakers which appears to characterize his view of noir as a whole 213 On the other hand definitive film noirs such as The Big Sleep The Lady from Shanghai Scarlet Street and Double Indemnity itself are famed for their hardboiled repartee often imbued with sexual innuendo and self reflexive humor 214 Music Edit This section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed September 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message The music of film noir was typically orchestral per the Hollywood norm but often with added dissonance Many of the prime composers like the directors and cameramen were European emigres e g Max Steiner The Big Sleep Mildred Pierce Miklos Rozsa Double Indemnity The Killers Criss Cross and Franz Waxman Fury Dark City Night and the City Double Indemnity is a seminal score initially disliked by Paramount s music director for its harshness but strongly endorsed by director Billy Wilder and studio chief Buddy DeSylva 215 There is a widespread popular impression that sleazy jazz saxophone and pizzicato bass constitute the sound of noir but those characteristics arose much later as in the late 1950s music of Henry Mancini for Touch of Evil and television s Peter Gunn See also EditFilm gris a term coined by experimental filmmaker Thom Andersen Scandinavian noir List of film noir titles List of neo noir titles B movie Modernist film Postmodern film Minimalist film Maximalist filmNotes Edit The plural forms of film noir in English include films noirs derived from the French films noir and film noirs Merriam Webster which acknowledges all three styles as acceptable favors film noirs 216 while the Oxford English Dictionary lists only films noirs 217 His Kind of Woman was originally directed by John Farrow then largely reshot under Richard Fleischer after studio owner Howard Hughes demanded rewrites Only Farrow was credited 218 In Academic Dictionary of Arts 2005 Rakesh Chopra notes that the high contrast film lighting schemes commonly referred to as chiaroscuro are more specifically representative of tenebrism whose first great exponent was the Italian painter Caravaggio p 73 See also Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 16 Citations Edit Film Noir American Cinema Annenberg Learner See e g Biesen 2005 p 1 Hirsch 2001 p 9 Lyons 2001 p 2 Silver and Ward 1992 p 1 Schatz 1981 p 112 Outside the field of film noir scholarship dark film is also offered on occasion see e g Block Bruce A The Visual Story Seeing the Structure of Film TV and New Media 2001 p 94 Klarer Mario An Introduction to Literary Studies 1999 p 59 Naremore 2008 pp 4 15 16 18 41 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 4 5 22 255 Foteini Vlachou Nandia 6 September 2016 Parody and the noir I Know Where I m Going Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 3 Borde and Chaumeton 2002 p 2 Borde and Chaumeton 2002 pp 2 3 Bould 2005 p 13 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 4 Bould 2005 p 12 Place and Peterson 1974 See e g Naremore 2008 p 167 68 Irwin 2006 p 210 Neale 2000 p 166 Vernet 1993 p 2 Naremore 2008 pp 17 122 124 140 Bould 2005 p 19 Christopher Nicholas 1997 Somewhere in the Night Film Noir and the American City New York NY p 7 ISBN 0 684 82803 0 OCLC 36330881 For overview of debate see e g Bould 2005 pp 13 23 Telotte 1989 pp 9 10 For description of noir as a genre see e g Bould 2005 p 2 Hirsch 2001 pp 71 72 Tuska 1984 p xxiii For the opposing viewpoint see e g Neale 2000 p 164 Ottoson 1981 p 2 Schrader 1972 Durgnat 1970 Conrad Mark T 2006 The Philosophy of Film Noir University Press of Kentucky Ottoson 1981 pp 2 3 See Dancyger and Rush 2002 p 68 for a detailed comparison of screwball comedy and film noir Schatz 1981 pp 111 15 Silver 1996 pp 4 6 passim See also Bould 2005 pp 3 4 Hirsch 2001 p 11 Silver 1996 pp 3 6 passim See also Place and Peterson 1974 Silver 1996 pp 7 10 Williams Eric R 2017 The screenwriters taxonomy a roadmap to collaborative storytelling New York NY Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice ISBN 978 1 315 10864 3 OCLC 993983488 See e g Jones 2009 See e g Borde and Chaumeton 2002 pp 1 7 passim See e g Telotte 1989 pp 10 11 15 passim For survey of the lexical variety see Naremore 2008 pp 9 311 12 n 1 Bould 2005 pp 24 33 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 9 11 Vernet 1993 p 15 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 11 13 Davis 2004 p 194 See also Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 133 Ottoson 1981 pp 110 111 Vernet 1993 notes that the techniques now associated with Expressionism were evident in the American cinema from the mid 1910s pp 9 12 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 6 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 6 9 Silver and Ward 1992 pp 323 24 Spicer 2007 pp 26 28 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 13 15 Bould 2005 pp 33 40 McGarry 1980 p 139 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 20 Schatz 1981 pp 116 22 Ottoson 1981 p 2 Biesen 2005 p 207 Naremore 2008 pp 13 14 Krutnik Neale and Neve 2008 pp 147 148 Macek and Silver 1980 p 135 Widdicombe 2001 pp 37 39 59 60 118 19 Doherty Jim Carmady Thrilling Detective Web Site Retrieved 2010 02 25 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 6 Macek 1980 pp 59 60 Irwin 2006 pp 71 95 96 Irwin 2006 pp 123 24 129 30 White 1980 p 17 Irwin 2006 pp 97 98 188 89 Silver and Ward 1992 p 333 as well as entries on individual films pp 59 60 109 10 320 21 For description of City Streets as proto noir see Turan 2008 For description of Fury as proto noir see Machura Stefan and Peter Robson Law and Film 2001 p 13 For description of You Only Live Once as pre noir see Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 9 a b See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 19 Irwin 2006 p 210 Lyons 2000 p 36 Porfirio 1980 p 269 Biesen 2005 p 33 Variety 1940 Marshman 1947 pp 100 1 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 4 19 26 28 33 Hirsch 2001 pp 1 21 Schatz 1981 pp 111 16 See e g Naremore 2008 pp 81 319 n 13 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 86 88 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 30 Hirsch 2001 pp 12 202 Schrader 1972 pp 59 61 in Silver and Ursini Schrader 1972 p 61 See e g Silver 1996 p 11 Ottoson 1981 pp 182 183 Schrader 1972 p 61 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 19 53 See e g Hirsch 2001 pp 10 202 7 Silver and Ward 1992 p 6 though they phrase their position more ambiguously on p 398 Ottoson 1981 p 1 See e g entries on individual films in Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 34 190 92 Silver and Ward 1992 pp 214 15 253 54 269 70 318 19 Biesen 2005 p 162 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 188 202 3 For overview of Welles s noirs see e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 210 11 For specific production circumstances see Brady Frank Citizen Welles A Biography of Orson Welles 1989 pp 395 404 378 81 496 512 Bernstein 1995 McGilligan 1997 pp 314 17 Schatz 1998 pp 354 58 See e g Schatz 1981 pp 103 112 See e g entries on individual films in Silver and Ward 1992 pp 97 98 125 26 311 12 See Naremore 2008 pp 140 55 on B Pictures versus Intermediates Ottoson 1981 p 132 Naremore 2008 p 173 Hayde 2001 pp 3 4 15 21 37 Erickson 2004 p 26 Sarris 1985 p 93 Thomson 1998 p 269 Naremore 2008 pp 128 150 51 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 97 99 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 59 60 Clarens 1980 pp 245 47 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 83 85 Ottoson 1981 pp 60 61 Muller 1998 pp 176 77 Krutnik Neale and Neve 2008 pp 259 60 262 63 See Mackendrick 2006 pp 119 20 See e g Silver and Ward 1992 pp 338 39 Ottoson 1981 also lists two period pieces directed by Siodmak The Suspect 1944 and The Spiral Staircase 1946 pp 173 74 164 65 Silver and Ward list nine classic era film noirs by Lang plus two from the 1930s pp 338 396 Ottoson lists eight excluding Beyond a Reasonable Doubt 1956 plus the same two from the 1930s passim Silver and Ward list seven by Mann p 338 Ottoson also lists Reign of Terror a k a The Black Book 1949 set during the French Revolution for a total of eight passim See also Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 241 Clarens 1980 pp 200 2 Walker 1992 pp 139 45 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 77 79 Butler 2002 p 12 Silver and Ward 1992 p 1 See Palmer 2004 pp 267 68 for a representative discussion of film noir as an international phenomenon Spicer 2007 pp 5 6 26 28 59 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 14 15 Jones Kristin 2015 07 21 A Series on Mexican Noir Films Illuminates a Dark Genre The Wall Street Journal Retrieved 2018 04 30 Spicer 2007 pp 32 39 43 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 255 61 Gaedtke Andrew December 2009 The Politics and Aesthetics of Disability A Review of Michael Davidson s Concerto for the Left Hand Disability and the Defamiliar Body Journal of Modern Literature 33 1 164 170 doi 10 2979 jml 2009 33 1 164 ISSN 0022 281X S2CID 146184141 The Fear 1966 film Wikipedia 2021 01 22 retrieved 2022 06 06 Fessas Nikitas 2020 08 01 Representations of Disability in 1960s Greek Film Noirs Journal of Literary amp Cultural Disability Studies 14 3 281 300 doi 10 3828 jlcds 2020 18 ISSN 1757 6466 S2CID 225451304 Spicer 2007 p 9 Spicer 2007 pp 16 91 94 96 100 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 144 249 55 Lyons 2000 p 74 81 114 15 Spicer 2007 pp 13 28 241 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 264 266 Spicer 2007 pp 19 n 36 28 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 266 68 Garcia Lopez 2015 pp 46 53 Spicer 2007 p 241 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 257 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 253 255 263 64 266 267 270 74 Abbas 1997 p 34 Schwartz Ronald 2005 Neo Noir The New Film Noir Style from Psycho to Collateral PDF The Scarecrow Press Inc Archived from the original PDF on 2013 11 04 Retrieved 2013 03 31 a b Ursini 1995 pp 284 86 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 278 Sautner Mark Cold War Noir and the Other Films about Korean War POWs Archived from the original on 2013 02 18 Retrieved 2013 03 31 Conway Marianne B Korean War Film Noir the POW Movies Archived from the original on 2013 02 17 Retrieved 2013 03 31 Appel 1974 p 4 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 41 See e g Variety 1955 For a latter day analysis of the film s self consciousness see Naremore 2008 pp 151 55 See also Kolker 2000 p 364 Greene 1999 p 161 For Mickey One see Kolker 2000 pp 21 22 26 30 For Point Blank see Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 36 38 41 257 For Klute see Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 114 15 Kolker 2000 pp 344 363 73 Naremore 2008 pp 203 5 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 36 39 130 33 Kolker 2000 p 364 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 132 Ross Graeme March 11 2019 10 best neo noir films of all time From Chinatown to LA Confidential independent co uk The Independent Kolker 2000 pp 207 44 Silver and Ward 1992 pp 282 83 Naremore 1998 pp 34 37 192 Silver and Ward 1992 pp 398 99 For Thieves Like Us see Kolker 2000 pp 358 63 For Farewell My Lovely see Kirgo 1980 pp 101 2 Ursini 1995 p 287 a b Williams 2005 p 229 For AFI ranking see AFI s 100 Years 100 Movies 10th Anniversary Edition American Film Institute 2007 Retrieved 2012 04 19 For kinship to classic noir boxing films see Muller 1998 pp 26 27 Silver and Ward 1992 pp 400 1 408 See e g Grothe Mardy Viva la Repartee Clever Comebacks and Witty Retorts from History s Great Wits amp Wordsmiths 2005 p 84 Naremore 2008 p 275 Wager 2005 p 83 Hanson 2008 p 141 Wager 2005 p 101 14 Lynch and Rodley 2005 p 241 Hirsch 1999 pp 245 47 Maslin 1996 For Miller s Crossing see Martin 1997 p 157 Naremore 2008 p 214 15 Barra Allen 2005 02 28 From Red Harvest to Deadwood Salon Archived from the original on 2010 03 30 Retrieved 2009 09 29 For The Big Lebowski see Tyree and Walters 2007 pp 40 43 44 48 51 65 111 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 237 James 2000 pp xviii xix a b Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 279 a b Noir and Neonoir The Criterion Collection See e g Silver and Ward 1992 pp 398 402 407 412 Creeber 2007 p 3 The Singing Detective is the sole TV production cited in Corliss Richard Richard Schickel 2005 05 23 All Time 100 Movies Time com Archived from the original on 2010 03 12 Retrieved 2009 09 29 NEON NOIR Movie List on MUBI Neon Noir series trailer on Cinefamily Archive s Vimeo channel Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 44 47 279 80 Dueck Cheryl November 2016 Secret Police in Style The Aesthetics of Remembering Socialism A Journal of Germanic Studies Volume 52 4 10 Visually Stunning Movies with Neon Lighting Scene360 Neonoir The Criterion Channel Archived from the original on 2021 07 01 Retrieved 2021 07 02 Neonoir Criterion Channel teaser criterioncollection on YouTube YouTube 5 Neon Noir Movies to Watch After Blade Runner 2049 That Moment In Rosen Christopher Spring BreakersIs A Fever Dream Or The Most Common Description Of Harmony Korine s New Film Kohn Eric From Trance to Spring Breakers Is This the Golden Age of Film Noir March 23 2016 Indiewire Online Reza Sixo Safai on his Film The Persian Connection American Iranian Council Arnett Robert October 2006 Eighties Noir The Dissenting Voice in Reagan s America Journal of Popular Film and Television 123 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 49 51 53 235 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 50 Hibbs Thomas 2004 12 03 Bale Imitation National Review Online Archived from the original on 2009 03 22 Retrieved 2010 02 11 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 107 109 Macaulay Scott 2009 05 19 Cinema with Bite On the Films of Park Chan wook Film in Focus Archived from the original on 2009 08 25 Retrieved 2009 09 29 Accomando Beth 2009 08 20 Thirst KPBS org Retrieved 2009 09 29 Neo Noir Movies at the Box Office Box Office Mojo Retrieved 2010 09 15 Naremore 2008 pp 256 295 96 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 52 2008 Film Poll Results Village Voice 2008 12 30 Retrieved 2009 09 29 Naremore 2008 p 299 Hughes Sarah 2006 03 26 Humphrey Bogart s Back But This Time Round He s at High School The Guardian Retrieved 2010 10 10 Puckett Terek 2014 05 03 The 20 Best Neo Noir Films Of The 2000s Tasteofcinema com Nelson Max Review Bastards Film Comment September October 2013 Retrieved 2017 06 03 Taubin Amy 2013 This is Noir The Bastards Sight amp Sound Retrieved 2017 06 03 Kanter Jake 2020 11 20 Game Of Thrones Star Aidan Gillen To Front Genre Bending Discovery Cosmology Series Killers Of The Cosmos Deadline Retrieved 2021 10 31 Killer of the Cosmos Programs Science Channel Discovery Press Web press discovery com Retrieved 2021 10 31 When Outer Space Meets Film Noir Discovery Retrieved 2021 10 31 Killers of the Cosmos TVmaze retrieved 2021 10 31 Hunter 1982 p 197 Kennedy 1982 p 65 Downs 2002 pp 171 173 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 242 Aziz 2005 section Future Noir and Postmodernism The Irony Begins Ballinger and Graydon note future noir synonyms cyber noir but predominantly tech noir p 242 Dougherty Robin 1997 03 21 Sleek Chrome Bruised Thighs Salon Archived from the original on 2011 01 23 Retrieved 2009 09 29 a b Dargis 2004 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 234 Cammila Collar 2014 The Animatrix A Detective Story 2003 Movies amp TV Dept The New York Times Archived from the original on 2014 11 29 Retrieved 2014 03 26 Jeffries L B 2010 01 19 The Film Noir Roots of Cowboy Bebop PopMatters Retrieved 2012 01 25 Matt Zoller Seitz 2015 04 09 Ex Machina rogerebert com Retrieved 2015 06 03 a b Silver and Ward 1992 p 332 Richardson 1992 p 120 Springer Katherine 2013 06 23 Touch Of Noir Top 5 Film Noir Parodies FilmFracture Retrieved 2018 04 25 Naremore 2008 p 158 See e g Kolker 2000 pp 238 41 Silver and Ward 1992 p 419 Holden 1999 Irwin 2006 p xii Rennie Paul 2008 09 29 Vertigo Disorientation in orange The Guardian Retrieved 2018 04 25 Bould 2005 p 18 Borde and Chaumeton 2002 pp 161 63 Silver and Ward 1992 list 315 classic films noir passim and Tuska 1984 lists 320 passim Later works are much more inclusive Paul Duncan The Pocket Essential Film Noir 2003 lists 647 pp 46 84 The title of Michael F Keaney s Film Noir Guide 745 Films of the Classic Era 1940 1959 2003 is self explanatory Treated as noir Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 34 Hirsch 2001 pp 59 163 64 168 Excluded from canon Silver and Ward 1992 p 330 Ignored Bould 2005 Christopher 1998 Ottoson 1981 Included Bould 2005 p 126 Ottoson 1981 p 174 Ignored Ballinger and Graydon 2007 Hirsch 2001 Christopher 1998 Also see Silver and Ward 1992 ignored in 1980 included in 1988 pp 392 396 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 4 Christopher 1998 p 8 See e g Ray 1985 p 159 Williams 2005 pp 34 37 See Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 31 on general issue Christopher 1998 and Silver and Ward 1992 for instance include Slightly Scarlet and Party Girl but not Vertigo in their filmographies By contrast Hirsch 2001 describes Vertigo as among those Hitchcock films that are richly demonstrably noir p 139 and ignores both Slightly Scarlet and Party Girl Bould 2005 similarly includes Vertigo in his filmography but not the other two Ottoson 1981 includes none of the three in his canon Place and Peterson 1974 p 67 Hirsch 2001 p 67 Silver 1995 pp 219 222 Telotte 1989 pp 74 87 Neale 2000 pp 166 67 n 5 Telotte 1989 p 106 Rombes Nicholas New Punk Cinema 2005 pp 131 36 Slocum 2001 p 160 Server 2006 p 149 Ottoson 1981 p 143 See e g Naremore 2008 p 25 Lyons 2000 p 10 Silver and Ward 1992 p 6 See e g Hirsch 2001 pp 128 150 160 213 Christopher 1998 pp 4 32 75 83 116 118 128 155 Abrams Jerold J 2006 The Philosophy of Film Noir University Press of Kentucky See e g Hirsch 2001 p 17 Christopher 1998 p 17 Telotte 1989 p 148 Ballinger and Graydon 2007 pp 217 18 Hirsch 2001 p 64 See e g Bould 2005 p 18 on the critical establishment of this iconography as well as p 35 Hirsch 2001 p 213 Christopher 1998 p 7 Holm 2005 pp 13 25 passim See e g Naremore 2008 p 37 on the development of this viewpoint and p 103 on contributors to Silver and Ward encyclopedia Ottoson 1981 p 1 See e g Ballinger and Graydon 2007 p 4 Christopher 1998 pp 7 8 Christopher 1998 p 37 See e g Muller 1998 p 81 on analyses of the film Silver and Ward 1992 p 2 See e g Naremore 2008 p 163 on critical claims of moral ambiguity Lyons 2000 pp 14 32 See Skoble 2006 pp 41 48 for a survey of noir morality Ottoson 1981 p 1 Schrader 1972 p 54 in Silver and Ursini For characterization of definitive tone as hopeless see pp 53 the tone more hopeless and 57 a fatalistic hopeless mood Hirsch 2001 p 7 Hirsch subsequently states In character types mood emphasis added themes and visual composition Double Indemnity offer s a lexicon of noir stylistics p 8 Sanders 2006 p 100 Rozsa Miklos 1982 Double Life London The Baton Press pp 121 122 ISBN 0 85936 209 4 film noir Merriam Webster Online Dictionary Merriam Webster Online Retrieved 2009 02 10 Inflected Form s plural film noirs nwar z or films noir or films noirs nwar OED Third Edition September 2016 Server 2002 pp 182 98 209 16 Downs 2002 p 171 Ottoson 1981 pp 82 83 Sources EditAbbas M Ackbar 1997 Hong Kong Culture and the Politics of Disappearance Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press ISBN 978 0 8166 2924 4 Appel Alfred 1974 Nabokov s Dark Cinema Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 501834 9 Aziz Jamaluddin Bin 2005 Future Noir chap in Transgressing Women Investigating Space and the Body in Contemporary Noir Thrillers Ph D dissertation Department of English and Creative Writing Lancaster University chapter available online Ballinger Alexander and Danny Graydon 2007 The Rough Guide to Film Noir London Rough Guides ISBN 978 1 84353 474 7 Bernstein Matthew 1995 A Tale of Three Cities The Banning of Scarlet Street Cinema Journal 35 no 1 Biesen Sheri Chinen 2005 Blackout World War II and the Origins of Film Noir Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 8217 3 Borde Raymond and Etienne Chaumeton 2002 1955 A Panorama of American Film Noir 1941 1953 trans Paul Hammond San Francisco City Lights Books ISBN 978 0 87286 412 2 Bould Mark 2005 Film Noir From Berlin to Sin City London and New York Wallflower ISBN 978 1 904764 50 2 Butler David 2002 Jazz Noir Listening to Music from Phantom Lady to The Last Seduction Westport Conn Greenwood ISBN 978 0 275 97301 8 Cameron Ian ed 1993 The Book of Film Noir New York Continuum ISBN 978 0 8264 0589 0 Christopher Nicholas 1998 1997 Somewhere in the Night Film Noir and the American City 1st paperback ed New York Owl Henry Holt ISBN 978 0 8050 5699 0 Clarens Carlos 1980 Crime Movies An Illustrated History New York W W Norton ISBN 978 0 393 01262 0 Conard Mark T 2007 The Philosophy of Neo Noir Lexington University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 2422 3 Copjec Joan ed 1993 Shades of Noir London and New York Verso ISBN 978 0 86091 625 3 Creeber Glen 2007 The Singing Detective London BFI Publishing ISBN 978 1 84457 198 7 Dancyger Ken and Jeff Rush 2002 Alternative Scriptwriting Successfully Breaking the Rules 3d ed Boston and Oxford Focal Press ISBN 978 0 240 80477 4 Dargis Manohla 2004 Philosophizing Sex Dolls amid Film Noir Intrigue The New York Times September 17 available online Davis Blair 2004 Horror Meets Noir The Evolution of Cinematic Style 1931 1958 in Horror Film Creating and Marketing Fear ed Steffen Hantke Jackson University Press of Mississippi ISBN 978 1 57806 692 6 Downs Jacqueline 2002 Richard Fleischer in Contemporary North American Film Directors A Wallflower Critical Guide 2d ed ed Yoram Allon Del Cullen and Hannah Patterson London and New York Wallflower ISBN 978 1 903364 52 9 Durgnat Raymond 1970 Paint It Black The Family Tree of the Film Noir Cinema 6 7 collected in Gorman et al The Big Book of Noir and Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 1 Erickson Glenn 2004 Fate Seeks the Loser Edgar G Ulmer s Detour in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 4 pp 25 31 Gorman Ed Lee Server and Martin H Greenberg eds 1998 The Big Book of Noir New York Carroll amp Graf ISBN 978 0 7867 0574 0 Greene Naomi 1999 Landscapes of Loss The National Past in Postwar French Cinema Princeton N J Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 00475 4 Greenspun Roger 1973 Mike Hodges s Pulp Opens A Private Eye Parody Is Parody of Itself The New York Times February 9 available online Hanson Helen 2008 Hollywood Heroines Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film London and New York I B Tauris ISBN 978 1 84511 561 6 Hayde Michael J 2001 My Name s Friday The Unauthorized But True Story of Dragnet and the Films of Jack Webb Nashville Tenn Cumberland House ISBN 978 1 58182 190 1 Hirsch Foster 1999 Detours and Lost Highways A Map of Neo Noir Pompton Plains N J Limelight ISBN 978 0 87910 288 3 Hirsch Foster 2001 1981 The Dark Side of the Screen Film Noir New York Da Capo ISBN 978 0 306 81039 8 Holden Stephen 1999 Hard Boiled as a Two Day Old Egg at a Two Bit Diner The New York Times October 8 available online Holm D K 2005 Film Soleil Harpenden UK Pocket Essentials ISBN 978 1 904048 50 3 Hunter Stephen 1982 Blade Runner in his Violent Screen A Critic s 13 Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem 1995 pp 196 99 Baltimore Bancroft ISBN 978 0 9635376 4 5 Irwin John T 2006 Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them Hard Boiled Fiction and Film Noir Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 8435 1 James Nick 2002 Back to the Brats in Contemporary North American Film Directors 2d ed ed Yoram Allon Del Cullen and Hannah Patterson pp xvi xx London Wallflower ISBN 978 1 903364 52 9 Jones Kristin M 2009 Dark Cynicism British Style Wall Street Journal August 18 available online Kennedy Harlan 1982 Twenty First Century Nervous Breakdown Film Comment July August Kirgo Julie 1980 Farewell My Lovely 1975 in Silver and Ward Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference pp 101 2 Kolker Robert 2000 A Cinema of Loneliness 3d ed Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 512350 0 Krutnik Frank Steve Neale and Brian Neve 2008 Un American Hollywood Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era New Brunswick N J Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0 8135 4198 3 Lynch David and Chris Rodley 2005 Lynch on Lynch rev ed New York and London Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 22018 2 Lyons Arthur 2000 Death on the Cheap The Lost B Movies of Film Noir New York Da Capo ISBN 978 0 306 80996 5 Macek Carl 1980 City Streets 1931 in Silver and Ward Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference pp 59 60 Macek Carl and Alain Silver 1980 House on 92nd Street 1945 in Silver and Ward Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference pp 134 35 Mackendrick Alexander 2006 On Film making An Introduction to the Craft of the Director New York Macmillan ISBN 978 0 571 21125 8 Marshman Donald 1947 Mister See Odd Mack Life August 25 Martin Richard 1997 Mean Streets and Raging Bulls The Legacy of Film Noir in Contemporary American Cinema Lanham Md Scarecrow Press ISBN 0 8108 3337 9 Maslin Janet 1996 Deadly Plot by a Milquetoast Villain The New York Times March 8 available online McGilligan Patrick 1997 Fritz Lang The Nature of the Beast New York and London Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 19375 2 Muller Eddie 1998 Dark City The Lost World of Film Noir New York St Martin s ISBN 978 0 312 18076 8 Naremore James 2008 More Than Night Film Noir in Its Contexts 2d ed Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 978 0 520 25402 2 Neale Steve 2000 Genre and Hollywood London and New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 02606 2 Ottoson Robert 1981 A Reference Guide to the American Film Noir 1940 1958 Metuchen N J and London Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 0 8108 1363 2 Palmer R Barton 2004 The Sociological Turn of Adaptation Studies The Example of Film Noir in A Companion To Literature And Film ed Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo pp 258 77 Maiden Mass Oxford and Carlton Australia Blackwell ISBN 978 0 631 23053 3 Place Janey and Lowell Peterson 1974 Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir Film Comment 10 no 1 collected in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 1 Porfirio Robert 1980 Stranger on the Third Floor 1940 in Silver and Ward Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference p 269 Ray Robert B 1985 A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema 1930 1980 Princeton N J Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 10174 3 Richardson Carl 1992 Autopsy An Element of Realism in Film Noir Metuchen N J and London Scarecrow Press ISBN 978 0 8108 2496 6 Sanders Steven M 2006 Film Noir and the Meaning of Life in The Philosophy of Film Noir ed Mark T Conard pp 91 106 Lexington University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 9181 2 Sarris Andrew 1996 1968 The American Cinema Directors and Directions 1929 1968 Cambridge Massachusetts Da Capo ISBN 978 0 306 80728 2 Schatz Thomas 1981 Hollywood Genres Formulas Filmmaking and the Studio System New York Random House ISBN 978 0 07 553623 9 Schatz Thomas 1998 1996 The Genius of the System Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era new ed London Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 19596 1 Schrader Paul 1972 Notes on Film Noir Film Comment 8 no 1 collected in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 1 Server Lee 2002 Robert Mitchum Baby I Don t Care New York Macmillan ISBN 978 0 312 28543 2 Server Lee 2006 Ava Gardner Love Is Nothing New York Macmillan ISBN 978 0 312 31209 1 Silver Alain 1996 1975 Kiss Me Deadly Evidence of a Style rev versions in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 1 pp 209 35 and Film Noir Compendium newest with remastered frame captures 2016 pp 302 325 Silver Alain 1996 Introduction in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 1 pp 3 15 rev ver in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Compendium 2016 pp 10 25 Silver Alain and James Ursini and Robert Porfirio vol 3 eds 2004 1996 2004 Film Noir Reader vols 1 4 Pompton Plains N J Limelight Silver Alain and Elizabeth Ward 1992 Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style 3d ed Woodstock N Y Overlook Press ISBN 978 0 87951 479 2 See also Silver Ursini Ward and Porfirio 2010 Film Noir The Encyclopedia 4th rev exp ed Overlook ISBN 978 1 59020 144 2 Slocum J David 2001 Violence and American Cinema London and New York Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 92810 6 Spicer Andrew 2007 European Film Noir Manchester UK Manchester University Press ISBN 978 0 7190 6791 4 Telotte J P 1989 Voices in the Dark The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir Urbana and Chicago University of Illinois Press ISBN 978 0 252 06056 4 Thomson David 1998 A Biographical Dictionary of Film 3rd ed New York Knopf ISBN 978 0 679 75564 7 Turan Kenneth 2008 UCLA s Pre Code Series Los Angeles Times January 27 available online Tuska Jon 1984 Dark Cinema American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective Westport Conn and London Greenwood ISBN 978 0 313 23045 5 Tyree J M and Ben Walters 2007 The Big Lebowski London BFI Publishing ISBN 978 1 84457 173 4 Ursini James 1995 Angst at Sixty Fields per Second in Silver and Ursini Film Noir Reader 1 pp 275 87 Variety staff anon 1940 Stranger on the Third Floor review Variety excerpted online Variety staff anon 1955 Kiss Me Deadly review Variety excerpted online Vernet Marc 1993 Film Noir on the Edge of Doom in Copjec Shades of Noir pp 1 31 Wager Jans B 2005 Dames in the Driver s Seat Rereading Film Noir Austin University of Texas Press ISBN 978 0 292 70966 9 Walker Michael 1992 Robert Siodmak in Cameron The Book of Film Noir pp 110 51 White Dennis L 1980 Beast of the City 1932 in Silver and Ward Film Noir An Encyclopedic Reference pp 16 17 Widdicombe Toby 2001 A Reader s Guide to Raymond Chandler Westport Conn Greenwood ISBN 978 0 313 30767 6 Williams Linda Ruth 2005 The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema Bloomington Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 34713 8Suggested reading EditAuerbach Jonathan 2011 Film Noir and American Citizenship Durham N C Duke University Press ISBN 978 0 8223 4993 8 Chopra Gant Mike 2005 Hollywood Genres and Postwar America Masculinity Family and Nation in Popular Movies and Film Noir London IB Tauris ISBN 978 1 85043 838 0 Cochran David 2000 America Noir Underground Writers and Filmmakers of the Postwar Era Washington D C Smithsonian Institution Press ISBN 978 1 56098 813 7 Dickos Andrew 2002 Street with No Name A History of the Classic American Film Noir Lexington University Press of Kentucky ISBN 978 0 8131 2243 4 Dimendberg Edward 2004 Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity Cambridge Massachusetts and London Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 01314 8 Dixon Wheeler Winston 2009 Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia New Brunswick N J Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0 8135 4521 9 Grossman Julie 2009 Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir Ready for Her Close Up Basingstoke UK Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 0 230 23328 7 Hannsberry Karen Burroughs 1998 Femme Noir Bad Girls of Film Jefferson N C McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 0429 2 Hannsberry Karen Burroughs 2003 Bad Boys The Actors of Film Noir Jefferson N C McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 1484 0 Hare William 2003 Early Film Noir Greed Lust and Murder Hollywood Style Jefferson N C McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 1629 5 Hogan David J 2013 Film Noir FAQ Milwaukee WI Hal Leonard ISBN 978 1 55783 855 1 Kaplan E Ann ed 1998 Women in Film Noir new ed London British Film Institute ISBN 978 0 85170 666 5 Keaney Michael F 2003 Film Noir Guide 745 Films of the Classic Era 1940 1959 Jefferson N C McFarland ISBN 978 0 7864 1547 2 Mason Fran 2002 American Gangster Cinema From Little Caesar to Pulp Fiction Houndmills UK Palgrave ISBN 978 0 333 67452 9 Mayer Geoff and Brian McDonnell 2007 Encyclopedia of Film Noir Westport Conn Greenwood ISBN 978 0 313 33306 4 McArthur Colin 1972 Underworld U S A New York Viking ISBN 978 0 670 01953 3 Naremore James 2019 Film Noir A Very Short Introduction Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 879174 4 Osteen Mark Nightmare Alley Film Noir and the American Dream Johns Hopkins University Press 2013 336 pages interprets film noir as a genre that challenges the American mythology of upward mobility and self reinvention Palmer R Barton 1994 Hollywood s Dark Cinema The American Film Noir New York Twayne ISBN 978 0 8057 9335 2 Palmer R Barton ed 1996 Perspectives on Film Noir New York G K Hall ISBN 978 0 8161 1601 0 Pappas Charles 2005 It s a Bitter Little World The Smartest Toughest Nastiest Quotes from Film Noir Iola Wisc Writer s Digest Books ISBN 978 1 58297 387 6 Rabinowitz Paula 2002 Black amp White amp Noir America s Pulp Modernism New York Columbia University Press ISBN 978 0 231 11481 3 Schatz Thomas 1997 Boom and Bust American Cinema in the 1940s Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 978 0 684 19151 5 Selby Spencer 1984 Dark City The Film Noir Jefferson N C McFarland ISBN 978 0 89950 103 1 Shadoian Jack 2003 Dreams and Dead Ends The American Gangster Film 2d ed Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 514291 4 Silver Alain and James Ursini 1999 The Noir Style Woodstock N Y Overlook Press ISBN 978 0 87951 722 9 Silver Alain and James Ursini 2016 Film Noir Compendium Milwaukee WI Applause ISBN 978 1 49505 898 1 Spicer Andrew 2002 Film Noir Harlow UK Pearson Education ISBN 978 0 582 43712 8 Starman Ray 2006 TV Noir the 20th Century Troy N Y The Troy Bookmakers Press ISBN 978 1 933994 22 2Suggested listening EditMurder is My Beat Classic Film Noir Themes and Scenes 1997 Rhino Movie Music 18 track audio CD Maltese Falcons Third Men amp Touches of Evil The Sound of Film Noir 1941 1950 2019 Jasmine Records UK 42 track audio CD Film Noir Six Classic Soundtracks 2016 Real Gone Jazz UK 57 tracks on 4 audio CDsExternal links EditListen to this article 1 hour and 5 minutes source source This audio file was created from a revision of this article dated 26 July 2019 2019 07 26 and does not reflect subsequent edits Audio help More spoken articles Wikiversity is calling for essays on Film Studies Media related to Film noir at Wikimedia Commons Film Noir A Bibliography of Materials and Film Videography holdings of the UC Berkeley Library Film Noir An Introduction essay with links to discussions of ten important noirs part of Images A Journal of Film and Popular Culture Film Noir Studies writings by John Blaser with film noir glossary timeline and noir related media Kiss Me Deadly Evidence of A Style part 1 Archived 2019 02 12 at the Wayback Machine unrevised online version of essay by Alain Silver in three parts 2 Archived 2019 02 12 at the Wayback Machine and 3 Archived 2019 02 12 at the Wayback Machine A Guide to Film Noir Genre Archived 2013 01 20 at the Wayback Machine ten deadeye bullet points from Roger Ebert An Introduction to Neo Noir essay by Lee Horsley The Noir Thriller Introduction excerpt from 2001 book by Lee Horsley What Is This Thing Called Noir Parts I II Archived 2016 03 04 at the Wayback Machine and III Archived 2016 03 04 at the Wayback Machine essay by Alain Silver and Linda Brookover Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival co sponsored by the Palm Springs Cultural Center Noir and Neonoir The Criterion Collection Notebook Primer Film Noir Collection Film Noir Visuality and Themes from the University of Michigan Museum of Art Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Film noir amp oldid 1132086260, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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