Film Noir A Style Spanning Genres Essay - 1016 Words

The classification and cataloging of items seem to fulfill a basic need in human beings, whether it is vegetable, mineral or animal. It seems that this basic need to analyze and categorize items applies also to objets d’art, including film – and the recognition or dismissal of film noir as a genre has been argued since the term was coined. While the term itself is valid, film noir as a genre is a misnomer. More properly, film noir should be considered a style unto itself, but definitively not genre, defined by the very definitions of the words â€Å"style† and â€Å"genre†. We will limit our subject matter here to the classic film noir period of 1941-1958, recognizing that all modern noir variants seek to emulate this period. These modern†¦show more content†¦While there is no decisive list of these films, and critics tend to add or remove films from their own personal lists of films noir, those that are commonly classified as such share a co mmon theme perhaps best described by Paul Schrader in his 1972 â€Å"Note on Film Noir†: There is a passion for the past and present, but a fear of the future. The noir hero dreads to look ahead, but instead tries to survive by the day, and if unsuccessful at that, he retreats into the past. Thus film noir’s techniques emphasize loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, insecurity; then submerge these self-doubts in mannerism and style. In such a world style becomes paramount; it is all that separates one from meaninglessness†¦. (5) This moral ambivalence and relentless cynicism, the overall tone of hopelessness and bleakness is one of the defining features of this class of films. Mark Conard, in â€Å"Philosophy of Film Noir†, references critics Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton as defining noir as a film which creates a state of tension by removing psychological reference points, in order to create a feeling of alienation (34). This illustrates that the earliest critics who began to define the body of films noir placed emphasis on mood and tone, rather than subject material. Nathaniel Rich identifies this tone as dread, stating that it is â€Å"The sense that everything is going to go badly, no matter what happens, and it’s usually goingShow MoreRelatedOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagesinto India. The second chapter of this strugg le, which produced the country of Bangladesh in 1971, drove 8–10 million Hindus into India. The process of ending French rule in Algeria (1954–1962) uprooted 2 million Algerians and pushed 1 million Pied-Noirs across the Mediterranean. Decolonization in sub-Saharan Africa was followed by the exodus of tens of thousands of French, English, and Portuguese residents, the expulsion of some 80,000 Indians, and the flight of millions of members of African ethnic