Film Noir - What is it?

There are five key questions tackled here. These are:
What is film noir?
What is neo-noir?
What is the difference between film noir and neo-noir?
What is different about noirs?
What is a femme fatale?

To find the answer to the question you are interested in, click on the question above, and that will jump you to the answer.

What is film noir?
Film noir is a French term which literally translates into English as 'black film'. These 'black films' are both dark in content and in visual style. French critics applied the term to films that emerged in the aftermath of World War 2. Examples of early films noir are "Double Indemnity" (1946), "Out of the Past" (1947), "Kiss of Death" (1947) and "Mildred Pierce" (1945). Such films usually took place in the city, at night, with several violent episodes, usually resulting in death, and they were populated by lying, deceiving characters.

There are four key influences which gelled to produce the original film noir cycle, which lasted from the early 40s till the late 50s. The beginning and end of this period are bookended by "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and "Touch of Evil" (1958).

The four key influences are:

German Expressionism - this artistic movement gave film noir it's distinctive 'look' with the use of the chiaroscuro lighting effect which cuts the screen up into ribbons of light, partially obscuring characters and objects.
Italian neo-realism - in the immediate aftermath of WW2, filmmaking in Italy took to the streets, as the studios had been bombed out. This was ground-breaking at the time, and this neo-realism influenced noir directors to take their film onto the mean streets too.
Hard-boiled writing and pulp fiction - the novels of Dashiell Hammett ( a major influence on the work of the Coen Brothers), James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler provided the source material for many films noir - such as classics as "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1945), "The Big Sleep" (1946) and "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). Also pulp fiction published in the form of magazines and comics - such as Detective Comics, where Batman first appeared in 1927.
After the end of WW2 there was an air of post-war disillusionment that set in the USA - a sense of was the sacrifice worth it? Men had fought and died in Europe, Africa and Asia and were returning home to see their traditional roles taken by women and by the men who did not go and fight. This change in gender roles and distrust of women and the men who did not fight is manifested in films such as "The Blue Dahlia" (1946) and "Mildred Pierce" (1945).

For further information on the influences on film noir, see Paul Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir".

What is neo-noir?
Just as a range of influences behind the original film noir cycle can be identified, so it is for neo-noir also.
As with the original noirs, a neo-noir is a film that is both dark in content and visual style.
There are five distinct influences which have brewed together to form the neo-nor concoction.
Post-war disillusionment - neo-noirs started to be made in the mid 70s - in the aftermath of the American defeat in Vietnam, and amidst the collapse of the Nixon presidency under the weight of the lies told about Watergate. The disillusionment with politicians and the state is most vividly demonstrated in Taxi Driver (1976) and "The Conversation" (1974). Neo-noirs were produced in significant numbers in the 1990s. I argue that this was in part response to yet another form of post-war disillusionment - that the settlement of the Cold War didn't result in a settled world. After the end of the Cold War, a number of smaller hot wars erupted in the early 1990s - most notably in Kuwait and the break-up of Yugoslavia. The end of the Cold War allowed American filmmakers to focus more on the home front - and the chill winds of unhappiness at home are marked in such films as "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" (1992) and "Red Rock West" (1993).
Recession and globalisation - just as film noir was a part response to the Depression of the 30s, with noir's refutation of the American Dream, so neo-noir has a an antecedent in economic changes. The recession of the early 90s, coupled with the rise of globalisation, shifting jobs from one country to another, has led to many people being cut adrift. This loss of security and certainty manifests itself in neo-noirs in the form of the drifters we see - such as Michael in "Red Rock West" (1993) and Lenny in Strange Days (1995). Also, economic changes have led to seismic changes in employment patterns - with many women now in full-time work. The changing balance of power in the post-feminist era has displaced men from the old role of 'breadwinner', leaving many men confused and out of sync with the world as it now is - just as servicemen returning from WW2 felt upon returning home. The themes of trust and betrayal that these feelings lead to are to be found all over the place in neo-noir.
Cultural change - one way of making sense of our world is to look back at the past. With the changes we have seen, it is natural that we would look back to the past to see what answers for the same questions were derived at other times. With the advent of cable television, this looking back at previous answers to such questions in film and television has never been easier. Access to the original films noir has enabled these film to become significant influences on other filmmakers trying to make sense out of what they see. In that way, the neo-noir we see are quite conscious efforts to re-create the feel and mood of earlier noirs - by plugging into the vibe of the original noirs, filmmakers are trying to make statements about their own films. Films such as Blade Runner (1982) and Batman (1989) make very conscious and deliberate efforts to invoke the spirit of noirs past to inject meaning into these films - see these pages for further details on how this is done.
Many of the original films noir were low-budget 'B movies'. The rise of independent filmmaking in the US over the past decade, epitomized by the launch and continuing success of the Sundance festival, has offereed a new platform for the production of such low budge t films. With channels such as HBO Box Office launching and showing films such as "The Last Seduction", this alternate film circuit has been re-created.
Together, this range of influences have combined to make the return of noir a possibility.

What's the difference between film noir and neo-noir?
Good question - after all we don't have gangster and neo-gangsters. This is where we lurch into a serious debate in film studies - is film noir a genre - as the way films that feature gangsters can be pulled together and said to comprise one type, or genre, of film - the gangster film - or is film noir something else? In my view, film noir isn't a genre, but a style and an attitude. While noirs typically take place in the city at night, this is not a hard and fast rule - as Orson Welles' rural set film "The Stranger" (1946) shows. But "The Stranger" shares the same kind of concerns as in the city-set "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) - a fear and distrust of the people around us and the of the world in general. The settings and stories of films noir can vary widely but are united in their approach to the their subjects and their treatment of it. This is why I argue that film noir is not a genre, but a style.

If you see film noir as a style, and not as a genre, with one bound you are free. To argue that film noir is a genre is to deny the existence of neo-noirs, as such films would be merely be part of a larger genre. If, however, film noir is a style and and attitude that dealt with the world as it was in the 40s and 50s, then there needs to be a new term for the return of the noir from the 70s onwards. After all, these films have slightly different concerns, and crucially noirs these days are made in colour - but the original films noir were in black and white. This makes a huge difference when we talk of cutting the screen into ribbons of light - this is nowhere near so easy in colour films. Therefore, it is the thematic and stylistic differences that split film noir off form neo-noir. The noirs that have been produced since the mid 70s are not the same as the original noirs, and that difference is reflected in the title neo-noir - these are in every way, new black films.

What is different about noirs compared to other films?
The two key difference between noirs and other films is the structure and content of noirs.
Narrative structure - commonly (but not always) in noirs the narrative is told in the first person and is told after the fact - this is better known as the flashback structure, and is used to great effect in The Usual Suspects (1995). The flashback structure, relating past events lends an air of inevitablility to proceedings, denying the characters the ability to change things. This helps to create the gloom that hangs like a heavy rain cloud over so many noirs. Also, noirs use flashbacks to create the links between past and present to show the past shapes the present and demonstrate that there is truly no escape from the past - as is the case in Batman (1989).
The other key difference between noirs and other films is the heavy prevalence of themes and concerns about corruption, fatalism and general disillusionment with the world. These kinds of concerns can be found in each one of the films featured on this site. Compare neo-noirs to the big budget movies that Hollywood produces - "Top Gun", "Die Hard" "Spider-Man" and "Pearl Harbor" to name but a few - these kind of big action films have central characters that are essentially 'good' characters, and the 'good guys' triumph over the 'bad guys' - there is no disillusionment with the world generally in these films.

What is a femme fatale?
Again, the influence of French theorists shines through with this term. Literally translate, it means 'fatal woman'. In many noirs there is a femme fatale who lures men to their doom - such as The Last Seduction (1994), Strange Days (1995) and Memento (2000) which are all featured on this site. The femme fatale is the master manipulator, luring men by virtue of her sexuality, as the black widow spider does in the natural world (and there is a neo-noir called "Black Widow"). For example, in The Last Seduction, Bridget uses her sex appeal to bind Mike ever tighter in to her web, to enable her to use him to get revenge against her husband. The result for Mike is a long trip to prison, while Bridget walks away free.