3/15/2024 0 Comments Scarface minimalist postereventual betrayal of him (or herself) is as ambiguous as her feelings about him. He may be desperate, in flight, or coldly calculating, imagining he is the pursuer rather than the pursued.Ī woman invariably joins him at a critical juncture, when he is most vulnerable. Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres, from the gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture-any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s, now seen as noir's classical era, was likely to be described as a melodrama at the time. Though film noir is often identified with a visual style that emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions, films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches, including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream. The authors' caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship, but in the words of cinema historian Mark Bould, film noir remains an "elusive phenomenon." They emphasize that not every noir film embodies all five attributes in equal measure-one might be more dreamlike another, particularly brutal. "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel ."-this set of attributes constitutes the first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 ( A Panorama of American Film Noir), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject. The questions of what defines film noir, and what sort of category it is, provoke continuing debate. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s. Some refer to such latter-day works as neo-noir. Many films released from the 1960s onward share attributes with films noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially. Although film noir was originally associated with American productions, the term has been used to describe films from around the world. Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it is more of a filmmaking style is a matter of ongoing and heavy debate among scholars.įilm noir encompasses a range of plots: the central figure may be 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.). Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noir were referred to as " melodramas". Frank is believed to have been inspired by the French literary publishing imprint Série noire, founded in 1945.Ĭinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. 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. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. The film's cinematographer, John Alton, was the creator of many of film noir's stylized images.įilm noir ( / n w ɑːr/ French: ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylized Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. Two silhouetted figures in The Big Combo (1955).
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