Benjamin Sandberg Writing For New Media Blog Post 2

A Brief History of

Film Noir

Film Noir is a term not easily described. Is it a style? Is it a genre? What exactly is it? You

can nd numerous denitions of it around the web and none of them are inherently wrong nor inherently right. On Wikipedia.com the Film Noir article denes it simply as, a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations.1 On Dictionary.com Film Noir is dened as, a motion picture with an often grim urban setting, photographed in somber tones and permeated by a feeling of disillusionment, pessimism, and despair.2 Both of these bring up important elements of the style and capture the essence of what a noir entails. We could spend pages and pages discussing how to dene this class of lm and the elements that make it up, but for this post we will simply be going through a brief history of this lm movement and what it has done for lm today. What we consider to be classic lm noirs were made primarily in the 40s and 50s. The term lm-noir was coined by French critic Nino Frank, hence the french term lm-noir which means black lm. 3 At the time these movies were being made in Hollywood, they did not refer to these movies as noirs, but as melodramas.4 It was at a later time that these lms came to be known as a collective group that could be dened as a lm noir. But where does this genre stem from? The dark compositions and use of lighting and shadow that permeates the style of a noir was heavily inuenced by a lm movement known as German Expressionism. There are denitely many similar elements between the two styles.
Wikipedia, "Film Noir." Last modified February 14, 2012. Accessed February 20, 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Film_noir.
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Dictionary.com, LLC, "Film Noir." Accessed February 20, 2012. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/film+noir.

Holmes, M. "Nino Frank, From Dada to Film Noir." Last modified December 2011. Accessed February 20, 2012. http://rememberninofrank.org/.
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Wikipedia, "Film Noir."

There is a huge emphasis on shadows and shapes that reinforce a psychological state of a character.5

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Night and the City

Metropolis

Night and the City

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

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Force of Evil

Hudson, Davis. GreenCine, LLC, "GreenCine German Expressionism." Accessed February 20, 2012. http:// www.greencine.com/static/primers/expressionism1.jsp.

In the above pictures, the left column are examples of German Expressionist lms, whereas the right side are examples of Film Noirs. Looking at each picture next to each other you can easily see the similarities in style. In the top row, you can see that the use of shadows, and even the body language of the characters, are composed very similarly. In the second row, you can see similar styles in the way the outside world is portrayed. It is dark and full of shadow and uncertainty. The gothic city is common in both styles of lm. In the bottom row you can see the main characters of the lms against white with contrasting dark buildings with sharp angles that represent the uncertainty of the world they live in. Film Noir had such great directors as Orson Welles, Jules Dassin, Fritz Lang and even Alfred Hitchcock to pave the way for this genre. Fritz Lang, a German director, who clearly took his inspiration from German Expressionism, is considered the most important director associated with the style of noir lmmaking. His lm M from 1931 is often used as an example of the archetypal noir.6 To see a video that demonstrates this just click here. It is hard to say what the rst lm noir was for sure. According to lmnoirstudies.coms timeline, Stranger on the Third Floor, directed by Boris Ingster in 1940 was the earliest lm to be classied as a noir. And in 1958, Orson Welles wonderful lm noir Touch of Evil marked the end of what is considered the era of Classical Film Noir.7

Santos, Steven. "The Fine Cut: The Prototype of Noir: Fritz Lang's M." The Fine Cut. http:// thefinecut.blogspot.com/2011/02/prototype-of-noir-fritz-langs-m.html (accessed February 20, 2012).
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Blaser, John, and Stephanie Blaser. "Film Noir Studies Timeline." Accessed February 20, 2012. http:// www.filmnoirstudies.com/timeline/index.asp.
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Although the era of classical noirs has ended, there is still more to its history. Out of this lm noir movement has come what is now known as neo-noir, which simply takes prominent elements of the noir genre and applies them to modern lms. The biggest dierence is that lms are now in color rather than black and white, which gives modern noirs a dierent aesthetic feel. Another dierence comes from the fact that the classic noirs came out in the era of the code, a time where censorship rules limited what you could show in a lm. So the way sex and violence was portrayed had to be done in dierent ways whereas modern lms often have explicit acts of sexuality and violence sometimes going into the extreme of ultra-violence as is the case with such neo-noirs as Drive and The Long Goodbye.8 Noir is still a very important piece of modern cinema. Neo-noirs are being made by well acclaimed directors like the Coen Brothers (Ethan & Joel Coen), with the Academy Award winning movie No Country For Old Men, and other lms such as Blood Simple, Barton Fink, Fargo, and even their black and white lm The Man Who Wasnt There (clearly following the
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noir genre archetype). And Christopher Nolans Memento and his black and white lm Following are more prime examples of the neo-noir movement that helped propel him into working on such lms as The Dark Knight (stylistically similar to noirs) and Inception.

The Man Who Wasnt There

Following

No Country For Old Men

Barton Fink

Memento

Film Noir is a genre that will continue to fascinate and entertain for a long time to come. It is the style of lm that most inspires me and my work as a lmmaker and I look forward to seeing where it will go in the future. I have just given you a very brief history of Film Noir but the history does not stop here where I leave o because the genre will continue to ourish and grow throughout the years continuously putting audiences into shock and awe.