• For added effect, play this, this, or this while reading the article. Film Noir (literally "black film" in French) is a genre of stylish crime dramas.
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Entertainment News - Los Angeles Times. Justin Chang“Sieranevada,” Cristi Puiu’s nonsensically titled, formally accomplished and richly engrossing new movie, unfolds during a dour family gathering in a cramped apartment in Bucharest, Romania. The date is Jan. 1.

Film Noir - TV Tropes. Sirens of the automotive and female kind. Whether works since then can be accurately classed as Noir is a subject of much debate among film critics. Film Noir, and the literature from which it is drawn, is clearly the progenitor of later genres, particularly cyberpunk. Common plots of noir films include murder investigations, heists, con games, and (mostly) innocent men or women Wrongly Accused of crime. The double- cross and cigarette smoking are mandatory. Complicated plots are further convoluted by Flashbacks and Flash Forwards — the narration tying everything together, assuming we can trust him.

Film noir is not a clearly defined genre (see here for details on the characteristics). Therefore, the composition of this list may be controversial.

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This visual motif is so iconic that homages and parodies are almost universally Deliberately Monochrome, using a transition between colour and black and white where necessary. Scenes are often filmed on location, and night scenes are shot at night.

Camera angles are often very creative and unusual, heightening the viewers sense of unease, adding to the atmosphere. The contrast between light and dark is sometimes used in the cinematography to reflect the difference between the villain and the protagonist(s). It rains most every night in Film Noir; filmmakers admit that this is entirely because at night wet pavement looks cooler than dry.

Also, the rain makes it plausible that no one else is around. These movies differed from the crime movies of the 3. Depression Gangster films such as The Public Enemy or the original Scarface in that criminal behaviour is no longer relegated to gangsters or ethnic ghettos, the plots don't usually revolve around turf wars or police clampdowns. Protagonists in films noir are often normal people who get involved in crime, and the motivations are no longer just social or circumstantial but psychological and personal. The standard noir plot is, in broad terms, best summed up as centring around a protagonist who, usually by pure chance, is placed in a complex and dangerous situation completely beyond their control where they are pitted against an adversary whose identity and motives are not immediately obvious. The system and the law is usually either apathetic to their plight or is even outright working against them, meaning that they will have to take up the fight and make sense of it all by themselves or die trying. As a style and sensibility, Film Noir was flexible to include hybrids such as the Western- Film Noir (The 1.

Pursued with flashbacks, Dark and Troubled Past, high contrast black and white lighting and weird Freudian themes), and even the film- noir musical (The Man I Love, Love Me and Leave Me) and in the case of Leave Her to Heaven a Film Noir in technicolor. The clash between crude pulp fiction narratives and complex storytelling and characterization, derived from emerging psychology, research in criminal behaviour as well as wider influences in modern art and literature.

The term was first used by French critics (hence the name) and it derives from . The French critics looked at the American crime films from their perspective of post- Occupation France. To some extent they over- exaggerated the doom and gloom of American films by projecting their experiences in their writings of these films.

Later, American writers when translating these articles into English brought this into Pop- Cultural Osmosis. The mix of European cynicism with American landscape is also borne out in the fact that several directors of films noir - Billy Wilder (who lost his mother in Auschwitz), Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger - were refugees, exiles and emigres from Nazi Germany, being quite active in 1. Berlin which in many ways was the closest a real- life city came to being the exaggerated City Noir landscape. Watch Spare Parts (2015) Free.

The lighting in Film Noir was also strongly influenced by European trends, especially German Expressionism but later after the war, the Italian neorealist films of Roberto Rossellini also influenced it greatly. The period became especially fertile during the post- war years.

The subtext of many of these films often dealt with the trauma of the returning Shell- Shocked Veteran (most notably, Act of Violence) and the rising Red Scare and The Hollywood Blacklist which made the working climate in Hollywood highly paranoid and hostile, and this infused the films made in the late '4. Familiar haunts include dimly- lit bars, nightclubs filled with questionable clientele (including, the Gayngster) whom the lead may intimidate for information, gambling dens, juke joints and the ubiquitous seedy waterfront warehouse. At night in the big city, you can bet the streets are slick with rain, reflecting streetlights like a Hopper painting.

Most of the characters (including the lead) are cynical, misanthropical and hopeless all the way through the film, and never find true redemption. It is important to note that the term . As Robert Mitchum famously stated, .

Many historians feel that the classic Film Noir genre died when it became self- conscious. Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumenton cite the MGM musical The Band Wagon (made in 1. Mickey Spillane crime setting, with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse playing the detective and femme fatale in an obvious send- up.

Others feel that Orson Welles' Touch of Evil was the real end since it was made by the director of Citizen Kane (which while not a Noir influenced the lighting and style of several other films noir) and the genre conventions were pretty much stretched inside and outside. They also argue that Noir only worked in a climate of censorship since the crime genre often falling Beneath Suspicion allowed writers and directors more chances to subvert cliches.

Once censorship eroded, Film Noir had pretty much served its purpose and achieved its goals. Nobody gets what they want, and everyone gets what's coming to them. Characters are often armed — revolversnote Especially Snubnosed . Colt 1. 91. 1s, and if they need More Dakka, tommy guns.

Also, no self- respecting Film Noir thug will be seen without his brass knuckles. They'll probably wear a Fedora or trilby hat with a trench coat. Frequently the ending will be low- key and leave no one character happy or fulfilled. Commonly, there is also a great deal of sexual tension between the hero and the female lead; Noir stories are quite risqu. The original Film Noir era followed the Hays Code, so the odds of a female lead removing her clothing are minimal. This applies to modern versions; gratuitous nudity or scenes of excessive violence are hinted atrather than portrayed. It is often what is not seen that adds to the mystery and suspense.

The conclusion may or may not tie up all the loose ends, with the major mystery being the morally ambiguous theme of the story. These factors contribute to the widely- held opinion that Film Noir works are among the best artistic works of all time and contributed greatly to the maturity of cinema as an artform. Fantastic Noir is a sub- genre with fantastic or Science Fiction elements. See also our Write a Film Noir guide.

Braddon (Lady Audley's Secret). Not quite noir, but it certainly wouldn't be here without the series. Also has a Noir style Anti- Hero who knocks up a teenage girl that falls in love with him but is then seduced by The Femme Fatale. And it in general depicts the seedy underworld of 1. Paris. Not quite noir, but getting there.

Following the exploits of a hoodlum from entry- level crimes, to his rise in the crime ranks, and to his eventual demise. A Depression Gangster film where the tensions are related to the hoodlum and his .

Excluding all the slice- of- life scenes that take up the majority of it, the actual plot is pretty noirish. A random man is caught up in a robbery and the legal system never ceases to hunt him down. An anti- establishment film with a famous finale. Mabuse (1. 93. 3). A sequel to an earlier film and a story where the eponymous Diabolical Mastermind seems to control an entire gang while incarcerated. A Mystery Fiction film based on a Dashiel Hammett novel.