The Famous Film Noir Genre in Review
The film style that became popular in the U.S. in the mid 1940s of noir has lived on in subtler tones, and parodied even at that time. From Bob Hope’s movie “My Favorite Brunette” in 1947, to “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” in the 1970s, the genre has been given a lot of homage.
Actor, actresses, directors and writers launched careers from the movie genre. Robert Mitchum, Lana Turner, Otto Preminger, and the author Dashiell Hammett all gave the light to the new style of film in the U.S. beginning in the early 1930s. The movie style became popular for several different reasons, but perhaps the best reason is that it was a stylized movie that was largely unknown by American audiences.
The elements of filming for noir are based in a lot of different factors. It has voice-overs telling the story, and there are a lot of hazy, dark and shadowy figures just out of sight, or indistinguishable in features. The setting for the films involved people that were trapped in a world that was cold and distant to their needs. Because of their human nature, characters would give into their wants, and justified it because they felt alone and mistreated by a world that did not understand them. They would if necessary get to their goals, even if it hurt others that were innocent.
Movies of the noir style became popular because of the way they were filmed, and the solid writing skills of detective novelists like Chandler, who wrote the Falcon series of crime books. Many early movies of noir were drawn from a lot of different writers like him. It is interesting to note that the high period of interest in the detective type stories coincided with the real life rabble-rousers, the gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s, like The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932).
Strangely, this type of writing would draw out other sub styles of noir like the femme fatale, and the docudramas of the late 1940s and 1950s. Film fatales became extremely popular from right after then end of WWII and by the late 1950s were virtually eliminated from the wide screen. “Out of the Past” a 1947 classic noir film starred Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. Her entanglement with Mitchum leaves him witnessing Greer’s character murder 2 men. She was a beautiful but very dangerous and calculating foe for him.
Directors that would become famous for the horror genre were also into the film noir early in the 20th century. Alfred Hitchcock was the most famous director, and is known for his works later in “Psycho” and “The Birds”. Elements of noir film influence are seen in both, but particularly with “The Birds”. It is exemplified in one scene where darkening skies are set against a backdrop of black birds setting menacingly on playground equipment, as the actress waits for children locked in a schoolroom. The over all theme of the noir genre is weaved throughout the story.
After the classic period of noir films in Hollywood, another type of sub genre appeared on the movie screens called neo-noir. A lot of these films were made overseas that had direct artistic influence with the genre, like Germany’s “The American Friend”. In the early 1970s Polanski made a film with the noir style, “Chinatown”. The influence of the style extends back to print where it started today. Popular Sunday comics include the detective Spade from the ever loving, but ingratiating Garfield comic strip. There are more new genres in today’s movie making that is influenced by noir from the classical traditional gangster movies of the past. Like the movies of the yesterday that were set in a city setting, pulp noir is urban, but it is more blatantly violent and harsh, like the movie “Reservoir Dogs”.
Psychologically the popularity of the film style and influence on American culture is one that gives the audience a glimpse into their own frustrated lives, and the moral decisions that they make everyday. It lets them know that they are not alone, and in life moral decisions sometimes come in gray, and they have to live with the consequences of their actions. Noir let the fantasy world of escapism, and brought real life for the audience long before TV promoted the idea that is was okay to do it. Noir gave permission for the human element to be spoken about.
