film noir

film noir
  a French phrase literally meaning "black film" that developed in the early 40s; refers to a genre of mostly black/white films that blossomed in the post-war era in American cinema, with bleak subject matter and a somber, downbeat tone; the plot (often a quest), low-key lighting (harsh shadows and chiaroscuro) often in night scenes, camera angles (often canted or high angle shots), the setting (the gloomy underworld of crime and corruption), iconography (guns, urban settings), characters (disillusioned, jaded), and other elements (voice-overs and flashbacks) combined to present a dark atmosphere of pessimism, tension, cynicism, or oppression. Film noirs, often crime films, were usually set in grim and seedy cities, with characters including criminals, anti-heroes, private detectives, and duplicitous femme fatales; see also tech-noir
  Examples: American films of the 1940s and early 1950s, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), and Sunset Boulevard (1950). Also present day noirs, such as Body Heat (1981) and The Man Who Wasn't There (2001); Carl Reiner's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) was a parody of film noir (and contained excerpted footage from classic film noir films)

Glossary of cinematic terms . 2015.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Film Noir — Cinéma …   Wikipédia en Français

  • film noir — 1958, from French, lit. black film, from noir (12c.), from L. niger (see NEGRO (Cf. Negro)) …   Etymology dictionary

  • film noir — [film΄ nwär′] n. [Fr, lit., black film] a type of film, esp. of the 1940s and 1950s, fatalistic, pessimistic, or cynical in mood and often dealing melodramatically with urban crime and corruption …   English World dictionary

  • film noir — [ˌfılm ˈnwa: US ˈnwa:r] n plural films noirs (same pronunciation) [U and C] a film that deals with subjects such as evil, moral problems etc, often using a story about people involved in a crime and filmed in a way that seems dark or filled with… …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • film noir — [ ,fılm nwar ] noun uncount movies that present the world as a sad place in which the characters are caught in complicated or dangerous situations …   Usage of the words and phrases in modern English

  • film noir — film′ noir′ n. 1) sbz a motion picture genre marked by grim urban settings, cynical, bleakly pessimistic characters, and starkly shadowed photography 2) sbz a motion picture in this genre • Etymology: 1955–60; < F: lit., black film …   From formal English to slang

  • Film noir — Two silhouetted figures in The Big Combo (1955). The film s cinematographer was John Alton, the creator of many of film noir s iconic images …   Wikipedia

  • Film noir — Der Begriff Film noir [filmˈnwaʀ] (frz. für „schwarzer Film“) bezeichnet ein Filmgenre oder – je nach Sichtweise – eine Stilrichtung des Films. Seine klassische Ära hatte der Film noir in den Vereinigten Staaten der 1940er und 1950er Jahre.… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • film noir — /nwahr/ a motion picture with an often grim urban setting, photographed in somber tones and permeated by a feeling of disillusionment, pessimism, and despair. [1955 60; < F: lit., black film] * * * (French; black film ) Film genre that offers… …   Universalium

  • film noir —    It is easy to identify STANLEY KUBRICK’s KILLER’S KISS (1955) and THE KILLING (1956) as examples of the kind of noir films that reflect the corruption of a postwar world. The term film noir was not in common use in the film industry itself at… …   The Encyclopedia of Stanley Kubrick

  • Film noir — Le film noir est plus un courant qu un genre cinématographique apparu aux États Unis et fortement inspiré des nouvelles de détective de Dashiell Hammett ou Raymond Chandler, elles mêmes dérivées du naturalisme, un mouvement littéraire basé sur le …   Wikipédia en Français

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