Film Noir

Film noir is black and white film in French and features themes which are more negative than positive, with an overall dark and shadowy outlook--being filmed in black and white. The film genre takes in detective and crime noir as well as many gangster films of the 1930's.

Film noir has sources not only in cinema but other artistic media as well. The low-key lighting schemes commonly linked with the classic mode are in the tradition of chiaroscuro and tenebrism, techniques using high contrasts of light and dark developed by 15th- and 16th-century painters associated with Mannerism and the Baroque. Film noir's aesthetics are deeply influenced by German Expressionism, a cinematic movement of the 1910s and 1920s closely related to contemporaneous developments in theater, photography, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The first recognized noir movie was "Stranger on the Third Floor" from 1940.
Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.

Visual style
Film noirs tended to use low-key lighting schemes producing stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness.

Structure and narrational devices
Film noirs tend to have unusually convoluted story lines, frequently involving flashbacks, flashforwards, and other techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence. Voiceover narration—most characteristically by the protagonist.

Plots, characters, and settings
Crime, usually murder, is an element of almost all film noirs; in addition to standard-issue greed, jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation—by a private eye, a police detective (sometimes acting alone), or a concerned amateur—is the most prevalent, but far from dominant, basic plot. Film noirs tend to revolve around heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm, often fall guys of one sort or another. The characteristic heroes of noir are described by many critics as "alienated". (the protagonist always has a major character flaw which leads to ruin.) The femme fatale is not always the only woman in the life of the main character. There is often a balance of the evil femme fatale with another pure and virtuous woman who only wishes the best for the protagonist. In this battle, it is the evil that always triumphs in noir. The protagonist is powerless to make the choice of the woman who is best for him.

Another facet of noir films is the flashback. In nearly all noir films, generous use is made of this vehicle. Often the flashbacks are voice-overs, narrated by the protagonist recounting, somewhat sarcastically, the reasons and details of his downfall. A good example of this is William Holden in "Sunset Boulevard", where he narrates the entire story in flashbacks of what occured before his death.

The plot of a noir movie is circuitous and holds many surprises and unanswered questions for the viewer. Sometimes the resolution of the plot is left hanging, casting an even darker aura over the film, such as the ending of "Scarlet Street", another great film noire in which the audience is left to wonder what eventually happens to the main character. Still, there is much action in noir films, even with the plot unwinding slowly and building to a riveting climax.

Noir heroes are flawed humans and always shown to have character imperfections. Many of those heroes are detectives, taking the cases of mysterious women who draw them into a tangled maze of evil by making use of their hypnotic sensuality. Detective noirs are among some of the most popular films of this genre. Films like the Sam Spade mysteries began the whole detective and crime noir sub-genre and cemented actors such as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the minds of noir buffs.

Worldview, morality, and tone
Film noir is often described as essentially pessimistic. The noir stories that are regarded as most characteristic tell of people trapped in unwanted situations (which, in general, they did not cause but are responsible for exacerbating), striving against random, uncaring fate, and frequently doomed. The movies are seen as depicting a world that is inherently corrupt. The tone of film noir is generally regarded as downbeat.