History and Development of Film Noir

Film noir which actually means black films which is also a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas particularly on those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s who came about in the 1946 by the French critics (Nino Frank) who was unknown to most American film industry of the classic era. The themes of Hollywood dramas were very dark involving a lot of crimes films but was not widely known in the States until the 1970's but before it was adopted by the widely nations many of the classic film noirs were referred to as melodramas. The films are deeply influenced by German Expressionism which is an artistic movement in 1910's and 1920's that involved in theater, photography, painting, sculpture, architecture as well as cinema. It also has a lot of Germen expressionistic cinematography, as it was all black and white and had a sense of despite which reflected the time of war that the people were going thru just like the German Expressionistic film  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

This opportunity offered by the booming of Hollywood film industry and the reign of Nazi power led to the emigration of many great film artists to work in Germany who had directly involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners. The Hollywood’s classic noir films of the 1940s and 1950s, a women’s role as femme fatale tied her closely to sexual, social and ideological unrest. .Pre-war femme fatale indicates wartime misgivings about sex roles, marriage and sexuality, and the post-war ‘return to normalcy’ never materialised.  Film noir marks down the post-modernism as it marks our inability to define ourselves in imagine what it could be. Film noir is the style of the films not the genre, which emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions. Film Noir was developed during and after World War II, taking advantage of the post-war ambience of instability, despair, fear, and guardedness. Film Noir was only labeled after the classic period, the film-makers was not conscious that their films would be labeled noirs. One of the first few Noir films are from the Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity and Edward Dmytryk"s Murder,My Sweet in 1944.

Next came about neo noir starting in the early 60's bringing about a new style using characteristics from a noir film. A distinctive method was used, a more modern technique to send the same sort of a message. 

Referring to Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981), Jameson notes the film's 'faintly archaic feel' and its small-town setting, which 'has a crucial strategic function: it allows the film to do without most of the signals and references which we might associate with the contemporary world, with consumer society - the appliances and artefacts, the high rises, the object world of late capitalism'. 

Leaving aside for the moment the matter of nostalgic pastiche, the most important question is whether self-consciously 'noir' contemporary narratives are to be seen as escaping from or as engaging with contemporary issues. There are good grounds for taking issue with Jameson’s arguments. Even when its settings are retro, both literary and cinematic neo-noir have been as concerned with exposing the nature of contemporary consumer society as earlier noir was with satirising, for example, the conformist ethos of small town America in the fifties.