Paint It Black: The Evolution of Film Noir

Paint It Black

It’s a dark and rainy night. Our hero is hiding behind a wall with a revolver in hand. A crack of light, illuminates half of his face. He’s shaking nervously because he only has one bullet left. He turns the corner, and a sudden gunshot hits our hero. Who shot him? None other than his partner, who’s secretly in love with the very same dame that our hero fell for. You can consider this an example of a classic film noir ending. Film noir is a term used in cinema to describe a visually styled crime drama. Where did it come from? What are the key elements in a film noir? Why did this kind of cinema emerge when it did? What affect did it have in the film world? And finally, where is film noir now?

The term film noir means, “black film” and was originally coined by French critic Nino Frank in 1946.. The author of “Film Noir”, Bruce Crowther, points out that “in some cases, the movies were based upon the work of such novelists and short-story writes as James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. The work of these and other American writers of the tough-guy and hard-boiled schools were published in France…The prevailing atmosphere of pessimism and doom in these new romans noire translated with ease to the medium of film and prompted the coinage of the term film noir.

Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...

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...ory telling tie it all in together. J.P. Telotte, author of “Voices in the Dark: The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir”, states by, “grounding their social commentary in a factual context, by aligning narrative with the newsreels of the day, these films also challenged the way audiences saw their world. (Telotte 155)

References

NAREMORE, J. (1998). More than night film noir in its contexts. Berkeley, University of California Press. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=42280.

PORFIRIO, R., SILVER, A., & URSINI, J. (2001). Film noir reader 3: interviews with filmmakers of the classic noir period. New York, Limelight.

SILVER, A., & URSINI, J. (1996). Film noir reader. New York, Limelight Editions.

TELOTTE, J. P. (1989). Voices in the dark: the narrative patterns of film noir. Urbana, University of Illinois Press.