Film noir: History and Key Facts

A film noir (; French: [film nwaʁ]) is a Hollywood crime drama film that emphasizes 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 attitudes expressed in classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression, known as noir fiction. Film noir encompasses a range of plots, commonly featuring mysteries/crime dramas, detective fiction, and stories with themes of corruption, organized crime, redemption, cynicism, and tragedy.

Common archetypical protagonists include 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), a femme fatale (Gilda) or simply a victim of circumstance (D.O.A.).

The term film noir, French for "black film" (literal) or "dark film" (closer meaning), 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. 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 film noirs[a] were referred to as "melodramas". Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it should be considered a filmmaking style continues to be debated by film scholars.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Film noir by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.