If critical study of film noir has proven anything, it is that the classification of a film as no... more If critical study of film noir has proven anything, it is that the classification of a film as noir is ambiguous and (almost) entirely dependent upon one's own personal particularities. The most evident example of this is would most certainly be Raymond Durgnat's exhaustive essay, "Paint It Black: the Family Tree of the Film Noir", which accepts nearly any serious, dramatic film under the noir umbrella without question. Further complicating matters is the proliferation of the "neo-noir" within the cinema, a contemporary (beginning in the 1970's) updating of the semi-established "classical" formula of shadows, cynicism, femmefatales, and murder. Film noir has established itself as such an enduringly popular portion of film history that many contemporary films and filmmakers owe a great deal of their visual and thematic style to the "classic" noirs of the 40's and 50's, further complicating noir classification in contemporary cinema. If there is a silver lining to the discussion regarding the identification and classification of neo-noirs it is the established aesthetic guidelines that have come to define the "classic" film noirs, which appear in slightly altered form in many recent "psychological thrillers".
If critical study of film noir has proven anything, it is that the classification of a film as no... more If critical study of film noir has proven anything, it is that the classification of a film as noir is ambiguous and (almost) entirely dependent upon one's own personal particularities. The most evident example of this is would most certainly be Raymond Durgnat's exhaustive essay, "Paint It Black: the Family Tree of the Film Noir", which accepts nearly any serious, dramatic film under the noir umbrella without question. Further complicating matters is the proliferation of the "neo-noir" within the cinema, a contemporary (beginning in the 1970's) updating of the semi-established "classical" formula of shadows, cynicism, femmefatales, and murder. Film noir has established itself as such an enduringly popular portion of film history that many contemporary films and filmmakers owe a great deal of their visual and thematic style to the "classic" noirs of the 40's and 50's, further complicating noir classification in contemporary cinema. If there is a silver lining to the discussion regarding the identification and classification of neo-noirs it is the established aesthetic guidelines that have come to define the "classic" film noirs, which appear in slightly altered form in many recent "psychological thrillers".
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