The simplest definition I could find of ‘Film Noir’ is as follows:
“Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The term film noir (French for "black film"),first applied to Hollywood movies by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the classic era.”[1]
There has been much contention over whether ‘Film Noir’ can be defined as a genre or not. Tom Dirks sheds some light on this issue:
“Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film. It is also helpful to realize that 'film noir' usually refers to a distinct historical period of film history - the decade of film-making after World War II, similar to the German Expressionism or the French New Wave periods. However, it was labeled as such only after the classic period - early noir film-makers didn't even use the film designation (as they would the labels "western" or "musical"), and were not conscious that their films would be labeled noirs”[2]
The fact that the term ‘Film Noir’ came about after the boom in such films is evidence for it not being a genre. The fact that it is not a genre makes defining the conventions of Film Noir difficult, as film-makers of Film Noir would not have been following a strict set of conventions themselves. This is quite useful to a modern day film-maker, as film-makers are able to make Film Noir, drawing influence from Hollywood productions from the 40s and 50s, whilst bringing in more modern conventions, settings, characters and ideas.
A good example of this is Frank Miller's 2005 Crime Thriller ‘Sin City’, which follows the stories of three different people in Basin City, Washington, US, and their struggle through violence and sin. Miller is obviously influenced by the Film Noir period- the film is shot mostly in gritty black and white, lighting is sparse and intermittent, the narrative involves police corruption and violence, and the mood and feel of the cynical three main characters are reminiscent of the Noir period. However, Miller is able to experiment with more modern genres, using technicolour to accentuate certain aspects of the cinematography. The dialogue is modern- guns, cars and other props are also all post-1995. Furthermore, although the soundtrack held some similarities with classic Film Noir scores, i.e. strings, bass notes, the soundtrack is primarily made up of electric guitars, drum machines and synthesizers.
As I mentioned earlier, it is difficult to give a set of conventions for Film Noir. After some research these are the loose conventions that I have found, with examples:
- The primary moods of classic film noir were melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia.[3]
o Examples include: Citizen Kane, The Escape, Rage in Heaven, The Blue Dahlia
- The hero- or protagonist can range from a Detective, Writer, War Veteran, Government agents, Private eyes, Cops, Sociopaths, Murderers and many more. They are often ‘lone-wolfs’, with an aversion to trust and love. They very rarely have on screen relationships, but prefer to go about their business on their own. They are often dark and mysterious, cynical, straight talking and intelligent.
o Examples include: Philip Marlowe in ‘The Big Sleep’ and ‘Charlie Lupo’ in New York Confidential
- Female characters in Film Noir can be generally classified into two archetypes:
- Femme Fatales: mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women[4]. They are used in Film Noir for sexual attractiveness and ruthless cunning to manipulate men in order to gain power, independence, money, or all three at once[5]
- Devoted Female: the ‘girl-next-door’ type- dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women[6]. They are sometimes driven to insanity or drastic action by their own emotions, and often more withdrawn and less intelligent than Femme Fatales.
o Examples of FF: Elsa "Rosalie" Bannister in ‘The Lady from Shanghai’ and Ellen Brent Harland in ‘Leave Her to Heaven’
o Examples of DF: Jennie Joyce in ‘The Escape’ and Carmen Sternwood in ‘The Big Sleep’
- Storylines were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting. Narratives were frequently complex, maze-like and convoluted, and typically told with foreboding background music, flashbacks (or a series of flashbacks), witty, razor-sharp and acerbic dialogue, and/or reflective and confessional, first-person voice-over narration.[7]
- Props and mise-en-scene often includes: 40s and 50s fashion, smoking, drinking, large mansion and gritty downtown settings, guns, violence, murder, Asian imports, streets, cars, offices, coffee- all props authentically 1940s-60s.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir#cite_note-0 Accessed: 14th January 2011
Inter-references: 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 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.
[2] http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html Accessed: 14th January 2011
[3] http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.htmlAccessed: 14th January 2011
[4] http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html Accessed: 14th January 2011
[5] http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/essays/progressive.asp Accessed: 14th January 2011
[6] http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html Accessed: 14th January 2011
[7] http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html Accessed: 14th January 2011
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