Film Noir

           Film Noir, which literally translates “black film’, is a film that presents dark and violent theme, sometimes referred to as stylish Hollywood crime drama. It features the different struggles of a certain person in finding himself. These struggles are the reason why this person becomes deeper and deeper to the point of making the film showing the dark and violent side of the character. Basically, this film is about the darker side of human nature.

               According to the clip of PBS American Cinema, noir is a film of error and confusion. In film noir, men are always in danger by a strong, sexual female. They are extremely driven selfish ambitious character, which are generally the characteristics associated with male characters. This woman is sometimes referred to as the spiderwoman in film noir. They can be distinguished through their sexuality which includes their long hair, tight clothes, claw nails, and often smoking. According to the actress Marrie Windsor, the usual femme fatale is the woman who gets the man in bed and in trouble.

                      Light and shadow became a useful element for film noir, because those elements helped define a certain scene, they are always present as a content of the film.

                      Example films of film noir provided in the video clip of PBS American Cinema: the 1977 TV Movie The Force Evil directed by Richard Lang, which was about a lawyer, working for a powerful gangster, who wishes to consolidate and control the numbers game in New York; the 1945 film Detour which starred Tom Neal and Ann Savage; the 1947 film Crossfire which deals with the theme of Anti-Semitism; the 1995 film Kiss Me Deadly directed Robert Aldrich which was about a female hitchhiker who pulled a tough Los Angeles private eye into a deadly whirlpool of intrigue revolving around a mysterious great whatsit.

- ClarissaAlimot