A brief history of FIlm Noir

Film noir was first used by Nino Frank in 1946, he was a French film critic during the 1930’s and 1940’s, he used the term to describe early Hollywood crime dramas. Film noir translates to English as “black film”; this shows how dark and pessimistic the films were. They tend to be films set with a grim, urban setting and the storyline deals with dark and violent passions in a downbeat way, the budgets to these films were extremely low as during the War there was hardly any money coming into the country and any that was definitely wasn’t being spent on making films, the films usually were B movies made by a small unit of major film studio’s or small companies.

They were most prominent between 1940 right up until 1960. It was developed straight after World War Two, the films helped portray the suspicion and the anxiety that was felt throughout society during the post war era. Film noir was nothing like any other genre produced during that time period, it was contradictory to the optimistic musicals and comedies, they hardly had a happy ending, yet this is more realistic hence why they became so popular.

World War Two really influenced Film noir, the bleakness, despair and darkness of the era is evident in the films. Most of them are set during the Cold War and the villains tend to reflect the violent, greedy real life cynical characters.

Famous noir directors are Orson Wells, who directed such films as “The Lady from Shanghai” in 1947 and highly regarded “Citizen Kane” in 1941. Another one is Billy Wilder; he directed “Sunset Blvd” in 1950 and “Double indemnity” in 1944.
Film noir is not really considered a genre; it is more the tone of a film, it refers to the period these films were made in. However during this era the directors did not know they were fitting into the noir subgenre.
Neo-noirs are similar to film noir, they were produced from mid 1960s to present day, they are generally shot in colour and do not always use visual characteristics shown in classic film noirs, however they often have related themes, characters and plots.