Film Noir

Film Noir: 'black film' - mood or atmosphere is bleak and pessimistic.

• Film Noir has a very distinctive look.
• Film Noir can be seen as a genre of stylish/crime dramas.
• Film Noir was first used by Nino Frank in 1946 to describe the bleak but stylish style of the film.
• Emerged from Hollywood in 1940s during the end of WW2 and the years after.                                     - Because Europeans brought their culture to Hollywood when they fled,                                     - Influenced by German Expressionism.                                                                                         - Pessimistic outlook because of the brutality of war.

         Classic Period of Film Noir was 1941 - 1958. The first being Maltese Falcon (John Huston,                1941) and the last being A Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

Film Noir has a unique visual style:

• Dark and Light
• Shadows
• Strange camera angles (dutch angles)
• Silhouttes
• Blinds and Bars
• Extreme Contrasts
• Black and White

And has unique visual features

• Rain
• Night
• Cityscape
• Smoke
• Cigars
• Cars
• Guns
• Beautiful Women (femme fatale)
• Urban Streets
• Private Investigators

Main Characters are usually the femme fatale and a private Investigator.

And the Narrative Elements are - flashbacks, circular anarratives, voiceovers, tragic endings, twisting and complicating plots and subplots, a network of minor characters.