Neo-noir is a revival of
film noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...
, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
roughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'',
translates literally to English as "black film", indicating sinister stories often presented in a shadowy cinematographic style. Neo-noir has a similar style but with updated themes, content, style, and visual elements.
Definition
The neologism neo-noir, using the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
prefix for the word ''new'', is defined by Mark Conard as "any film coming after the classic noir period that contains noir themes and noir sensibility". Another definition describes it as later noir that often synthesizes diverse genres while foregrounding the scaffolding of ''film noir''.
History
"
Film noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...
" was coined by critic
Nino Frank
Nino Frank (born 27 June 1904 in Barletta, Italy β Paris, 17 August 1988) was an Italian-born French film critic and writer who was most active in the 1930s and 1940s. Frank is best known for being the first film critic to use the term "film noir ...
in 1946 and popularized by French critics
Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in 1955.
The term revived in general use beginning in the 1980s, with a revival of the style.
The classic ''film noir'' era is usually dated from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. The films were often adaptations of American crime novels, which were also described as "
hardboiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...
". Some authors resisted these terms. For example,
James M. Cain
James Mallahan Cain (July 1, 1892 β October 27, 1977) was an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. He is widely regarded as a progenitor of the hardboiled school of American crime fiction.
His novels ''The Postman Always Rings Twice ...
, author of ''
The Postman Always Rings Twice'' (1934) and ''
Double Indemnity
''Double Indemnity'' is a 1944 American crime film noir directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The screenplay was based on James M. Cain's 1943 novel of the same ...
'' (1944), is considered to be one of the defining authors of hard-boiled fiction. Both novels were adapted as crime films, the former more than once. Cain is quoted as saying, "I belong to no school, hard-boiled or otherwise, and I believe these so-called schools exist mainly in the imagination of critics, and have little correspondence in reality anywhere else."
Characteristics
Neo-noir film directors refer to 'classic noir' in the use of
Dutch angles
The Dutch angle, also known as Dutch tilt, canted angle, or oblique angle, is a type of camera shot which involves setting the camera at an angle on its roll axis so that the shot is composed with vertical lines at an angle to the side of the fr ...
, interplay of light and shadows, unbalanced
framing; blurring of the lines between
good and bad and
right and wrong, and thematic
motifs including
revenge
Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...
,
paranoia
Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concer ...
, and
alienation.
Typically American
crime drama
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
s or
psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting.
In terms of context and co ...
s, films noirs had common themes and plot devices, and many distinctive visual elements. Characters were often conflicted
antihero
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions ...
es, trapped in a difficult situation and making choices out of desperation or
nihilistic
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning of life, meaning. The term was pop ...
moral systems. Visual elements included
low-key lighting
Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for photography, film or television. It is a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuro effect. Traditional photographic lighting (three-point lighting) uses a key light, a fill light and a back light for ...
, striking use of
light and shadow, and unusual camera placement.
Sound effects
A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...
helped create the noir mood of paranoia and nostalgia.
Few major films in the classic ''film noir'' genre have been made since the early 1960s. These films usually incorporated both thematic and visual elements reminiscent of ''film noir''. Both classic and neo-noir films are often produced as
independent features.
After 1970, film critics took note of "neo-noir" films as a separate genre. Noir and post-noir terminology (such as "
hard-boiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...
", "neo-classic" and the like) are often rejected by both critics and practitioners.
Robert Arnett stated, "Neo-noir has become so amorphous as a genre/movement, any film featuring a detective or crime qualifies." Screenwriter and director
Larry Gross
Larry Gross (born 1953) is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. He is a visiting professor of film and new media at New York University Abu Dhabi. Best known for his collaborations with Walter Hill, his credits include ''48 Hrs.'' ...
identifies
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as FranΓ ...
's ''
Alphaville'', alongside
John Boorman
Sir John Boorman (; born 18 January 1933) is a British film director, best known for feature films such as ''Point Blank'' (1967), ''Hell in the Pacific'' (1968), ''Deliverance'' (1972), ''Zardoz'' (1974), '' Exorcist II: The Heretic'' (1977), ...
βs ''
Point Blank
Point-blank range is any distance over which a certain firearm can hit a target without the need to compensate for bullet drop, and can be adjusted over a wide range of distances by sighting in the firearm. If the bullet leaves the barrel paral ...
'' (1967) and
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman ( ; February 20, 1925 β November 20, 2006) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He was a five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director and is considered an enduring figure from the New H ...
βs ''
The Long Goodbye'' (1973), based on
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 β March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
's 1953 novel, as neo-noir films. Gross believes that they deviate from classic noir in having more of a sociological than a psychological focus. Neo noir features characters who commit violent crimes, but without the motivations and narrative patterns found in ''film noir''.
Neo noir assumed global character and impact when filmmakers began drawing elements from films in the global market. For instance,
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, writer, producer, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue, profanity, Black comedy, dark humor, Nonlinear narrative, non-lin ...
's works have been influenced by
Ringo Lam
Ringo Lam Ling-Tung (, Cantonese: Lam Ling-tung, 8 December 1955 β 29 December 2018) was a Hong Kong film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Hong Kong in 1955, Lam initially went to acting school. After finding he preferred making f ...
's ''
City on Fire''. This was particularly the case for the noir-inflected ''
Reservoir Dogs
''Reservoir Dogs'' is a 1992 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunke ...
'', which was instrumental in establishing Tarantino in October 1992.
See also
*
List of neo-noir films
*
Tech noir
*
Arthouse action film The arthouse action genre is an emerging film genre in contemporary cinema that traces its roots back to Asian and European films. Characteristics of arthouse action films include stylized action, an arthouse atmosphere, and a disjointed, fragmented ...
*
New Hollywood
The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence.
They influenced the types o ...
*
Pulp noir
Pulp noir is a subgenre influenced by various " noir" genres, as well as (as implied by its name) pulp fiction genres; particularly the hard-boiled genres which help give rise to film noir. Pulp noir is marked by its use of classic noir techniques, ...
*
Maximalist film Maximalist film or maximalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of maximalism, a reaction against minimalism.
Notable filmmakers
This type of film includes the likes of directors:
* Bill Gunn
*Tyler Perry
*Spike Lee
*Wong Kar-wai
*W ...
*
Minimalist film
Minimalist cinema is related to the art and philosophy of minimalism.
Notable filmmakers
This type of film includes the works of directors like:
*Robert Bresson
*Chloe Zhao
*Kelly Reichardt
* Yasujiro Ozu
*Gus van Sant
*Andy Warhol
*Morgan F ...
*
Postmodernist film
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183β194. characterized by skepticism toward the "grand narratives" of modernis ...
*
Film noir
Film noir (; ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American ' ...
References
External links
*
* .
* .
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neo-Noir
Film noir
Film genres
Television genres