What is Film Noir?

FILM NOIR

Here is some different websites ideas about what film noir is/was/and where it originated :

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. 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 last depression.

The term film noir, French for "black film,"^[1] first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era.^[2]Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noirs were referred to as melodramas.^[a]Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars.

Film noir encompasses a range of plots: the central figure may be a private eye (The Big Sleep), a plainclothes policeman (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, films now so described have been made around the world. Many pictures released from the 1960s onward share attributes with film noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventionsself-referentially. Some refer to such latter-day works as neo-noir. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

NB: This is an excerpt from the above website and in no way am trying to plagiarize or copy this material it is for analytical research only. 

 Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Nino Frank in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as  The Maltese Falcon (1941), Murder, My Sweet (1944),  Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Laura (1944). A wide range of films reflected the resultant tensions and insecurities of the time period, and counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's musicals and comedies. Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are readily evident in noir, reflecting the 'chilly' Cold War period when the threat of nuclear annihilation was ever-present. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict, purposelessness and sense of injustice. There were rarely happy or optimistic endings in noirs.

http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

NB: This is an excerpt from the above website and in no way am trying to plagiarize or copy this material it is for analytical research only.

A dark city street bathed in shadows. A seedy office with “Investigations” stenciled on the door. A winding road along the ocean cliffs. An isolated house on the outskirts of town. The scenes offilm noir are all disturbingly familiar, as are the archetypal characters: the hard-boiled detective, the dangerously alluring femme fatale, and the well-heeled villain surrounded by gun-toting thugs. But even so, it is the visual style – canted camera angles, deep-focus shots, high-contrast lighting – and ultimately subversive message that are the hallmarks of classic film noir.

Yet, in spite of its recognizable elements, this deeply complex film genre – yes, it is a genre – has been the source of much discussion since it appeared in the early 1940s, later giving rise to modern neo-noir and tech-noir and forever changing the face of American cinema. Today, movie buffs attend film noir festivals, colleges offer courses on the subject, and critics argue whether the latest film is a noir or something just a bit different. The topic is as vibrant and intriguing now as it was 70 years ago.

http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/

NB: This is an excerpt from the above website and in no way am trying to plagiarize or copy this material it is for analytical research only.