Film Noir's Effect on Modern Cinema

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Film Noir's Effect on Modern Cinema

High heels click on wet pavement, shady detectives stand in the shadows, shots ring out through the cold, dark city night-just another moment in film noir. These seedy, almost underground films are considered to be some of the best and most influential pictures in the history of Hollywood by anyone's standards, most certainly some of the darkest. Even though the glory days of film noir have long passed and given way to big budget productions, their influence and effect on the industry can be felt and seen throughout the movies of today.

The term film noir is a French term literally meaning, black cinema. During the second world war occupying Germans would control what pictures the people of France saw, and it was not until after the war that the French got a glimpse of what American cinema had been doing for nearly five years. The first thing they noticed was how dark the films were both literally and figuratively; hence the name 'black cinema' [1]. Critics were shocked to see plot lines focusing on betrayal, murder, and topics thought to be taboo at the time including drug use and rape. These films were indeed revolutionary in their time, pushing the limits of what was thought to be acceptable on a motion picture screen in America during the 1940?s and 1950?s.

There will be more detail on the plot lines of film noir, as well as examples. But for now, let us focus on the memorable characters introduced to the viewing public through the dark lens of a noir camera. The most prevalent was often the hard boiled detective or private eye, always a male he was considered to be an anti-hero because he was himself no angel and was often corrupt somehow (the most common example was fall...

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... and there. However, it is allowed to come out of the shadows as the classic movies have an enormous following of fans and students wanting to study them and the techniques used to bring them such unique life. No matter what though, these films will never go away so long as there is a wet side street with high heels clicking down it, with the echo of a far off gunshot somewhere in the cold dark night.

Works Cited

Miklitsch, Robert. ?A Panorama of American Film Noir, 1941-1953?.

[Film Quarterly, Berkeley Summer 2004].

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=3&did

Dirks, Tim. ?The Greatest Films-Film Noir?.

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

No author. ?The Internet Movie Database- The Matlese Falcon/Cape

Fear/Double Indemnity

http://www.imdb.com

Dirks, Tim. ?Review- Blade Runner (1982).?

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

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