Classic American Film Noir
Film Noir can be an incredibly challenging thing to define. Likely, you know what it is when you see it: it’s the gorgeous, high-contrast cinematography of black and white; the femme fatale holding a cigarette in one hand and a revolver in the other; the dejected male protagonist stumbling to a fate predetermined for him, spouting hard-boiled dialogue atop a sultry jazz score; the suppressed violence and subtleties of sex pictured in studio sets and on the grimy streets of 50s America.
But how do you define what it really is? If we were to call Film Noir a genre, we would have to consider the multitude of genre-crossing Noir films - there are examples of noir-westerns, noir-comedies and even noir-horror - noir is not simply a run of detective or crime pictures. Perhaps we would call noir a style, noting with those smoky rooms and dangerous shadows, so influenced by expressionist, surreal lighting design, that we recognise its aesthetic nearly immediately - but some of the most famous film-noirs opt for a more reserved presentation of documentary-style realism that appears to be lacking the theatricality we characteristically expected. Given the short life span of the classic film noir, we may determine that the run of films released were simply part of a cultural zeitgeist, an exploitation of a pervasive mood that swept America in the wake of the economic depression and the emergence of a devastating World War - however, this does not account for the cultural persistence of Neo-Noir, the genre’s successor which possesses many similarities in the themes and iconography that it chooses to explore.
Likely, it is a mix of all three: a ‘genre, a mood, and a zeitgeist’ (Naremore, p. 19) that persists in its recognition and impact well into the modern day. The central issue around definition comes from the delay around conceptual identification - much like the post-mortem emergence of Folk Horror (Ingham, p. 97), Film Noir is mostly recognised as a term of description popularised after its heyday had passed. Therefore, defining the cinematic concept after the time of its production creates a confusion around the validity of suggested entries into that genre, and thus, confusion around what collective qualities are shared amongst them. You could argue for a variety of films to belong under the umbrella of film noir, determining it as a genre that begins as far back as the early 1900s, persisting through to the modern day if you were so inclined. However, generally, it is agreed that classic film noir in America has a run of around 15 years, one that is relatively short when we consider the lasting impact of the idea: beginning with The Maltese Falcon (1941), ending with Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and, as Paul Schrader (2004) outlines, with Touch of Evil (1958) serving as the ‘epitaph’, before the cinematic landscape turned to neo-noir and post-modern projections of pastiche and parody.
The original writings around film noir, and the utilisation of its term, had appeared within the timeline of its production cycle, but didn’t find widespread use until after its (supposed) demise. An idea ‘popularised by cinéastes of the French New Wave’ in France, much like concepts of the Auteur, the term didn’t find considerable favour in America until the descriptor was subsequently ‘appropriated by reviewers, academics, and filmmakers’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 10) in a time past its production cycle. As such, film noir is both ‘an important cinematic legacy’ and ‘an idea we have projected onto the past’ (p.11), making it a concept ripe for critical re-appraisal, revision and exploration.
Similar to film noir’s own reminiscent atmosphere, these French critics may have been attracted to American Noir for its familiar qualities - a presentation matching that of 1930s French cinema, evoking memories of their own golden age, which subsequently seemed appropriate to champion for its artistic merit; darkly-infused narratives that, much as with Italian Giallo’s yellow source-paper, were named série noire for the cheap paperbacks of lurid crime stories sold on pulpy paper; elsewhere, existentialists were drawn to the ‘world of obsessive return, dark corners, or huis-clos’ (Naramore, 2019, p. 5), praising the films’ tendencies to craft narratives and cinematic experiences that explored the everyday ‘violence and criminality of American life’ whilst simultaneously functioning as spectacular ‘critiques of American capitalism’ (p. 7).
Borde and Chaumeton (2002), writing in 1955 after the genre’s self-described death, chose to couple together four films which would become ‘prototypical members of an emergent category’ (p. 13) when looking to early definitions of film noir: The Maltese Falcon; Double Indemnity (1944); Laura (1944); and Murder, My Sweet (1944). The writers’ published analysis not only provided an ‘identity and cachet to pictures that might have been forgotten’ (Naremore, 2019, p. 7) actively helping to create what is regarded as a full-fledged genre, but also indicated a list of the films which they believed were categorised as Film Noir. Unsurprisingly, their list is long, and riddled with examples that are disregarded in the modern common understanding of the genre, although it does collect a wide-ranging, thematically interesting group of pictures to consider and parse through.
Despite the immediacy of its aesthetic recognition, writing from an age when many films were shot in black and white and the “noir style” wasn’t as original as it seems now, Borde and Chaumeton instead place ‘great emphasis on the theme of death’, listing five essential ‘affective qualities’ that are ‘typical of surrealism’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 19): ‘oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel’ (Borde, p. 3). Of the various pictures determined to belong under the noir category, these adjectives are expressed within varying levels of explicitness, sometimes foregrounding the strange for a more erotic take, or dispensing with the erotic altogether and crafting a truly cruel picture. Of these adjectives, however, it appears that Borde and Chaumeton are most enamoured with that of the ‘strange’, praising the noir-style for having narratives often ‘situated on the margins of dreams’, engendering an uncanny, surreal mood that helps to intensify the ‘atmosphere of violent confusion, ambiguity, or disequilibrium’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 21) present throughout. As is clear, a large proportion of the allure for noir is found within the thematic content.
Historically, Film Noir explores a great deal of themes throughout its varying genres, moods and narratives. These themes, often mired in pessimism, existential anguish and fears of the growing modern landscape, originate from a mixture of historical and cultural inspirations (p. 40): sociologically, there was a new realism about violence in the wake of World War II, a rise in the American crime rate and a widespread institutionalisation and popularisation of psychoanalysis; artistically, there was the hard-boiled crime novel, European cinema, and certain Hollywood genres of the 1930s.
Narratively, noir draws heavily from these books of the hard-boiled crime genre, infusing these tried-and-tested popular stories with the anxieties of the modern world around it. The examples abound - hard-boiled writers like Dashiell Hammet, Graham Greene, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain were often credited with writing the novels these films were based on, and regularly contributed directly to the screenplays - in fact, Double Indemnity (1943), a novel by James M. Cain, was adapted from a screenplay edited by Raymond Chandler into one of the highest critically regarded films of classic noir.
Thematically then, it is no surprise that the film narratives are drenched in the fears of the masculine, 1950s middle-class American - the capitalistic society he lives within, the women he meets and the relationships he forms, the continuous push towards conflict and violence that is encouraged by World Wars abroad and the increasing charge of rampant criminality back home. These dark, noir-like themes inevitably clashed with the comforts of the Hollywood system, inherently giving film noir an attribute of systematic rebellion, working against Hollywood conventions to unsettle the audience (Naremore, 2019, p. 9): where they once had ‘straightforward narratives with clearly motivated characters’, American cinema-goers were now offered flashback-laden stories populated by ambiguous figures, often told from a criminal point-of-view with the intent of eliciting our sympathy; where Hollywood once doted on ‘virginal or domesticated heroines’, they now found themselves drawn into the erotically dangerous world of the femme fatale, equally capable of slaughter as she was of seduction. Both the production, critical and audience popularity of such a picture, one which is actively promoting a ‘psychological and moral disorientation’ and ‘an inversion of capitalist and puritan values’ suggests a widespread acceptance to push the American system toward ‘revolutionary destruction’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 22) felt on all levels.
As these thematic views found their source in a predominantly white, masculine voice, engagement with these ideas is predominantly flawed. Debates around the depiction of women within film noir are incredibly common, and, as is usually the case with complex gender politics, there are little definitive answers available. One could argue that they are integral to the plot, taking part in ‘important “ideological work” normally assigned to males’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 221), during their stance as the femme fatale, (themselves an intrinsic ‘threat to the proper order of things’ that is usually maintained by the weakened masculine heroes) is a form of progressive representation. It is just as easy to argue that their bodies, fetishised by the photography, symptomatic of the wandering, de-humanising male gaze (Mulvey, 1975), their characters often subject to a great deal of ‘eroticized treatment of violence’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 22) and their moral compass presented as scheming, duplicitous villains, using their sexuality and “feminine wiles” to achieve criminal ends is simply misogynistic, arising from a masculine insecurity as the modern woman progresses and the modern man regresses.
To exacerbate the issue, a clash with mainstream Hollywood values, promoting dangerously explicit depictions of sex, violence and criminality, was inevitably going to mean a clash with the long-reigning, harshly-policed Hays Code, resulting in a litany of censorship crimes levied against the genre throughout its production and reception. Enforcement of the Code itself was found guilty of causing great changes to established narratives; in particular, requesting an overwhelming epidemic of morally-positive conclusions which softened their intended impact in a ‘qualified attempt to assert some kind of justice or return to social equilibrium’ (p. 209). It is not an entirely negative impact, however. In fact, some have argued that the necessity for subtlety had a net-positive effect on the oneiric quality of the films, wherein the not-quite honest portrayal of explicit topics and need for innuendo engenders a confused and dreamlike atmosphere, promoting a type of lighting that enhances the suggestive power of the images, and brings the focus down to the macro items of everyday life: a cigarette to relieve tension, a glass to drink from or throw out, a bus ticket to a different story. Put simply, the process of systematically restricting narratives to a method of imply-don’t-tell was integral to the creation of noir, and key to the distinction it holds against neo-noir, its sexier, more-outwardly violent successor.
Stylistically, noir is heavily indebted to that which came before it - both the rise in ‘urban street photography in the 1940s and 1950s’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 280) and the emigration of European directors during wartime to the American Hollywood system. The effect on cinematography was twofold. A generalised growth of urban street photography accounted for an integration of documentary-style realism, taking the camera (and thus the problems it pictured) to the real streets of the United States - San Francisco particularly benefited from a wide variety of gorgeously shot examples such as Dark Passage (1947), The Lineup (1958) and, of course, Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). This free-roaming, non-manufactured view of America, indicating the dangerous violence and criminality was already on the doorstep of the US homeowners, was directly contrasted with the artificiality of the studio sets.
The constructed, meticulously designed and particularly shot cinematography of these Hollywood producers’ studio sets was key to crafting that feeling of the uncanny, non-real nature Borde and Chaumeton wrote of. As the tensions of the World War increased, a wave of European émigrés were brought forth, travelling to America and joining the Hollywood system, their luggage of complex cinematic tricks in hand (Naremore, 2008, p. 45): British Hitchcock and his concentration on ‘international intrigue’; the French with their ‘realist pictures about working-class crime’; and the Weimar Germans, specialising in ‘gothic horror, criminal psychology, and sinister conspiracies’. However, a German director like Fritz Lang had a second carry-on in the hold - his expressionistic style of lighting and shooting, heavily influenced by his national cinematic heritage. Much like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the new Hollywood noirs opted to paint the screen with complex, surrealist shadows of light and dark, crafting a gorgeous canvas of chiaroscuro to accurately (but unrealistically) reflect the dwindling mental state of their doomed protagonists.
The reasoning for these stylistic endeavours was complicated by other contributions. Common film noirs were mostly relegated to shoot only within a black-and-white camera stock, ‘symptomatic of a wartime economy’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 139). As such, though providing a gritty sense of realism that the painting-esque, colourful cinematography of big-budget spectaculars often contrasted, the artists behind the camera found themselves needing to think more creatively - an inherent issue with the limited colour spectrum meant that sets could easily look flat and cheap if little variation was applied. Cinematographers like John Alton, a man who consistently championed Painting with Light (2013), learnt to use contrasting points of illumination, popularising and perfecting a style of lighting that could be ‘immediately duplicated at every level of the industry’ (Naremore, 2008, p. 139). With such a widespread, easily recognisable aesthetic, indulging in modern, realist photography as much as the artistic and surreal, it is no wonder the suffix “-noir” conjures up such vivid and iconographic imagery, even now.
But, of course, it was only around for 15 years. Such a short existence. We could attribute a few historical bullets plugged into classic noir that contributed to the metaphorical death of the genre (Naremore, 2008, p. 21): a simple exhaustion of a tried-and-overplayed formula, leaving the common tropes and recognisable iconography ripe for parodic exploitation; a growth in the television and leisure industry leading Hollywood to turn to ‘Cinemascope, colour, and biblical epics’ to draw in the appetite-appeased crowds; and an overwhelming lack of residual talent stemming from the systematic culling of writers, directors and actors, blacklisted from the major studios for their political beliefs. Regardless of the weapon of choice, Noir was dead on the ground by '55. The mob boss that had reigned for so long was down, and in its place, a successor was brewing. Something more angry, more explicit, sexier and more violent. Something that was new, but not quite. Perhaps something Neo...
Reference List
Literature
Naremore, J. (2008) More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts. California: University of California Press.
Ingham, H. D. (2018) We Don't Go Back: A Watcher's Guide to Folk Horror. New York: Room 207 Press.
Schrader, P. (2004) ‘Notes on Film Noir’ in Silver, A (ed.) and Ursini, J. (ed.), Film Noir Reader. New York: Limelight Editions, pp. 53 - 61.
Naremore, J. (2019) Film Noir: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP Oxford.
Borde, R. and Chaumeton, E. (2002) A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953). San Francisco: City Lights Publishers.
Mulvey, L. (1975) ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in Mulvey, L. (ed.), Visual and Other Pleasures. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 14 - 26.
Cain, J.M. (1943) Double Indemnity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Alton, J. (2013) Painting with Light. California: University of California Press.
Filmography
The Maltese Falcon, 1941. [Film]. Directed by John Huston. US: Warner Bros.
Kiss Me Deadly, 1955. [Film]. Directed by Robert Aldrich. US: United Artists.
Touch of Evil, 1958. [Film]. Directed by Orson Welles. US: Universal Pictures.
Double Indemnity, 1944. [Film]. Directed by Billy Wilder. US: Paramount Pictures.
Laura, 1944. [Film]. Directed by Otto Preminger. US: 20th Century Studios.
Murder, My Sweet, 1944. [Film]. Directed by Edward Dmytryk. US: RKO Pictures.
Dark Passage, 1947. [Film]. Directed by Delmer Daves. US: Warner Bros.
The Lineup, 1958. [Film]. Directed by Don Siegel. US: Columbia Pictures.
Vertigo, 1958. [Film]. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. US: Paramount Pictures.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920. [Film]. Directed by Robert Wiene. Germany: Goldwyn Pictures.
Comments