The film noir

You can find precursor's to the film noir (i.e. Citizen Kane, 1941) and there are many contemporary films that have been influenced by noirs (usually called neo-noirs: The Long Goodbye (1973), Blade Runner (1982), Memento (2000), etc.). I mark the film noir as beginning with John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941, adapted from a novel by Dashiell Hammett) and ending with Orson Welle's Touch of Evil (1958). They're generally crime stories and almost always involve a private eye and very seldom a cop (though they may be an ex-cop as Marlowe is). Sometimes though, the main character is a villain (an anti-hero). Other qualities:

• Inspired by early 20th century fiction (generally now called noirs, though the films were called noirs first).
• the "anti-Western" (I'll explain in class)
• often have femme fatales
• working class heroes (though often hired by the wealthy)
• high-contrast lighting (and almost all b&w stock)
• claustrophobic feelings to them (both narratively and stylistically)
• bleak narratives, seldom w/ happy endings 
• urban settings

Few noirs have all of the above qualities. As you'll see this week, The Hitch-Hiker (1953) has no femme fatale and almost no women (ironic since Lupino was a woman and also a famous noir actress herself). Also, it doesn't take place in a city, but out in the country. However, I think you'll find that it has several of the noir qualities above. Try to notice these qualities and write about them on the blog. Over the next four weeks, we'll try to get a handle on what this genre, the film noir, truly is.