Film Noir - definition

The term film noir, French for "black film".Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.  Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic film noirs were referred to as melodramas.Film noir style : camera angles, dense shadows, a romantic, doom-laden atmosphere, always in shimmering, high-contrast black and white.

Noir's roots can be traced to American pulp literature and German cinema in the years immediately preceding the Great Depression and the Third Reich's rise to power. It's as if American tough guy writers were pre-destined to fall under the spell of a world-weary Teutonic femme fatale.The lighting used in film noir was very dark, creating long shadows,the characters always seemed to be set in dark, smoke filled rooms.The femme fatale was a portrayal of women as they had never been seen before. She was the exciting, illicit desire of the male protagonist. She could lure a man to commit murder for her own purposes. The murder would usually be that of the man's wife. In film noir, the gender roles had changed, the woman was usually the stronger character and sometimes the villain.