ORIGINS OF FILM NOIR

Origins of film noir

“When I think of film noir, I think of stillness and silence. I think of a pure black screen with tiny pinpricks of white trying to break through. The image is of the central character thinking. He is thinking about all the bad things that are about to happen to him. He is not happy. He knows that shit happens but why does it have to happen to him? Film noir gives him the answer why not?”

                                                                                       

                                                            Paul Duncan

Film noir was discovered by French cineaste Nino Frank in 1946 film noir meaning “black film”. It was the name he gave to all the American crime and detective hard boiled films from the early 1940’s which had just been released in France. The heyday years of film noir began just after world war two and ran to around 1959. The first viewings of these black films in English were in Hollywood in the forties.

Film noir is pessimistic in tone and reflective in mood often presented with a voice over and a series of flashbacks. The visual image is often made up of layers of black and grey. Film noir are films of trust and betrayal and are dark films hence the name ‘noir’ which is black in French.

The social political factors of the film were the immigration of Germans to America as well as French due to the rise in Nazism, now being free in Hollywood to produce what ever they wanted and to broadcast their disappointment on Germany. Very often a film noir story was developed around a cynical, hard hearted, disillusioned male character who encountered a beautiful but promiscuous, unprincipled, cheating and seductive femme fatale. She would use her feminine charms to manipulate him into becoming the easy victim often following a murder. After a betrayal or deceitfulness she was frequently destroyed in the process often at the cost of the hero’s life.

A clip from youtube a prime example of a femme fatale

              B- MOVIES           

When hollywood first started there would be two films your "A" or main picture with a famous cast and known director with a extravagant budget and a "B" picture which was much the opposite.

Film noir was classed as a B-movie picture as Film noir sets where reused sets and the actors in Film noirs were more cost effective as they were not well known actors Film noirs were a chance to give small time actors a break. Directors were also able to make much darker films with stronger messages as the studios were pre-occupied by the "A" pictures. Directors made some of the messages known but some were stronger hidden messages.

PULP FICTION

Film noir was influenced by pulp fiction authors, as pulp fiction is all about gangster type characters such as private eyes, gangsters and criminals from a seedy background. Because there were not many stories around about dark characters such as femme fatales, anti heros, cold case murderers and criminals. Film noir was adapted from pulp fiction authors such as James M cain, Raymond Chandler 

                                and Robert A Heinlein.

More history of Film noir

World War II

Due to the rise in nazism in Europe during ww2 it made people feel dark, depressed, anxious and viewed life very negatively. This is showed in Film noir, Because of the effect of the war, how people felt about it and social/politcal factors Film noir got its characteristics.

German expressionism

 German experssionism brought dark, cold feeling that the germans had experienced from nazism. German expression was reflected in Film noir as film noir is heavily shadow based and uses very dark settings such as the film nosferatu.

Many eastern europeans fled to hollywood where they were free to make any film without the supervision of the nazis and they were also not pressured in what they could make. In film noir eastern europeans who went to hollywood really set the tone of darkness in film noirs and the dark german expressionist settings and the feelings of how they felt in nazi germany.



WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

As all the men were away in the war, women became the sole providers in the family and many jobs what would have been done by men, who were in the war the women took the roles whilst they were away.

This gave women a stand in society as they were so use to being housewives tending to their families and being under the thumb by their husbands.

Women felt liberated this mood was captivated in film noir women had a new found confidence and were more dominant they they had ever been. Men were intimidated by this. This new strong confident type of woman strongly represented femme fatale in film noir an the mood of these dominant women reflected in film noir giving femme fatale its characteristics.