The history of Film noir

Some information of Film noir

Film noir, or black film, or dark film, is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, Particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. 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.

Low-resolution reproduction from trailer for the movie: The Big Combo

Classic period of Film noir

The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. French critics assigned the term film noir in 1946, citing a trending confluence of American film elements-antiheroic characters, biting dialogue shot from the hip, and bold visual design. Although City Streets and other pre-WWⅡ crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms.

The film now most commonly cited as the first "true" film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), directed by Latvian-born, Soviet-trained Boris Ingster.

Stranger on the third floor

Most of the film noir of the classic period were similarly low-and modestly budgeted features without major stars-B movies either literally or in spirit.  In this production context, writers, directors, cinematographers, and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big-picture constraints.

Thematically, films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centred with which they centred on women of questionable virtue-a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder in 1944.Though certainly not a B-movie in production and cost- both Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck were A-list celebrities, you can see a lot of the elements of film noir coming into play, as Billy Wilder brought his German Expressionism influences to Seitz’s cinematography.

 Double Indemnity

Moving in the 1950s is Joseph Lewis's The Big Combo in 1955. This film was a low budget B-picture that defied many of the taboos of the time including violence, sex, and homosexual characters.

The Big Combo

And then coming in at the tail end of the classic Film Noir period is Orson Welle's 1958 film Touch of Evil.

Touch of Evil

Some debates

The exact parameters of film noir are still up for debate-some argue that true noir films were made during a specific period, the post-World War Ⅱ 1940s to around 1958, labelling films made before and after proto-and neo-noir respectively, while others argue film noir is more of a style or mood than a genre.

Also, some scholars believe film noir never really ended but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir. A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside the classic era to be something other than genuine film noirs. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion.