Film Noir is... a cinematic term to describe a hollywood crime drama. From there Film Noir is broken down into two sub-sets: Classic noir and Neo-Noir.
Classic noir films were made in the 1940's to 1950's and feature many of the characteristics previously covered in the other research sections.Film Noir was heavily influenced by German Expressionism from the 1910s and 1920s, particularly in style and appearance.
According to Robert Egbert, Film Noir is...
- A movie which at no time misleads you into thinking there is going to be a happy ending.
- Locations that reek of the night, of shadows.
- Cigarettes
- Women who would just as soon kill you as love you, and vice versa.
- For women: low necklines, floppy hats, mascara, lipstick, dressing rooms, boudoirs, calling the doorman by his first name, high heels, red dresses, elbow length gloves, mixing drinks, having gangsters as boyfriends, having soft spots for alcoholic private eyes, wanting a lot of someone else's women, sprawling dead on the floor with every limb meticulously arranged and every hair in place.
- For men: fedoras, suits and ties, shabby residential hotels with a neon sign blinking through the window, buying yourself a drink out of the office bottle, cars with running boards, all-night diners, protecting kids who shouldn't be playing with the big guys, being on first-name terms with homicide cops, knowing a lot of people whose descriptions end in "ies," such as bookies, newsies, junkies, alkys, jockeys and cabbies.
- Relationships in which love is only the final flop card in the poker game of death.
- The most American film genre, because no society could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless it were essentially naive and optimistic.
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