Film Noir – why is it so dark?

Film noir represents a dark night of the soul in American cinema. The group of films made in the 1940s and 50s, which are referred to as “film noir”, convey dark feelings of disillusionment, pessimism and cynicism. Some recurring characteristics of such films are: the whole society portrayed seems corrupt; the protagonist is more anti-hero than hero; a femme fatale lures the protagonist into crime; crime is presented as a cunning exploit, as intelligence at work, but fatalism rules as plans go awry. The expressionistic use of black/white photography which gives film noir its name, emphasises the bleak reality of urban life and the disillusionment it brings.

Why did film-makers in the 40s and 50s take such a grim view of contemporary life? Why were they drawn to tales of disillusionment and fatalism? And why were audiences so responsive to those tales? Many critics have commented on the phenomenon of film noir since Borde and Chaumeton first identified it in 1955. Is it a genre, or a visual style, or merely an attitude? Are there any defining characteristics, or is it a loose collection of vague similarities? Some critics say that film noir ended around 1960, but others say noir films have been made continuously since 1940.

Why is Film Noir so dark? That is the question which forms the title for a talk on Monday 3 March by Les Reid, Chair of the Belfast Humanist Group. Whether Humanism and film noir have a special affinity will be considered. There will be an opportunity for questions and discussion after the talk.

For a list of classic film noir see http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

In his "Notes on Film Noir", Paul Shrader, the scriptwriter and director, argues that film noir is not a genre but an art movement with its own distinctive style and its time. Like 1920s Cubism, for example. Shrader sees film noir as a reaction to the trauma of World War 2. The typical characteristics of film noir, for example, the stark, low key lighting and the dark mood of alienation and pessimism, he takes to be an artistic expression of social tensions in America which have been caused by the disruption to ordinary life during wartime. In particular, he suggests that relations between the sexes were strained, firstly by the departure of the men going abroad, then by women taking on men's jobs, by fears of infidelity, by the alienation of the soldiers returning after the war and by the difficulty of resuming relationships after lengthy separation. Much of that is speculative, but it has some plausibility. It is quite true, for one thing, that many women were dismissed from their war-time jobs once the soldiers returned. Resentment on both sides would be quite understandable in that situation.

Shrader limits film noir to the 1940s and 50s because he says that the trauma of the war recedes after that. Society comes to terms with what happened and the strained relations between the sexes recover from that time of doubt, anger and resentment. Films made after 1960 which tell similar stories to the classic noirs and employ a comparable expressionist technique (only in colour, probably) may be called neo-noir, but they are derivative of the core film noir, rather than being a continuation of it.

The Coen Brothers' Blood Simple makes an interesting test case. It has many of the characteristics of classic noir (murky morality, alienated hero, a corrupt society, plans go awry, a femme fatale, etc) and colour is used effectively to highlight mood, just as low key black and white lighting was used formerly. It even has troubled relations between the sexes, in this case, husband and wife, Marty and Abby, which derive from her rebellion against his chauvinist ways. One could argue that it is a film noir just like the classics in everything except its use of colour. Is black and white photography a sine qua non, an essential ingredient, of film noir? Surely not. But if colour photography is permitted, then it is hard to see any reason to deny the label of "film noir" to Blood Simple.