Noir: Genre or a Time Period

Spoilers in multiple films will be in here.

Within the course of four films (the Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil, Chinatown, and Brick) encountering the film noir genre has been interesting. Although Notes on a Film Noir by Paul Schrader says that "film noir is not a genre...It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by convention of setting and conflict but rather the more subtle qualities of tone and mood...Film noir is also a specific period of film history." (230 Schrader) I beg to differ. I propose that the makings of noir in the way that Schrader describes it makes it a genre. There are conventions, expectations, and a general formula that makes up film noir. If noir was a time period in the history of film making it would have a distinct flavor to it. His argument is that "full lighting and close-ups, gradually undercut the German influence, and color cinematography was, of course, the final blow to the noir look" (240 Shrader). I still differ on that last part alone since I think Brick was definitely a noir and it had a high budget, full lighting, close-ups, and color. Also the mechanics of noir is still in Brick. In some ways Brick is more of a noir than Touch of Evil. Many of the elements of film noir are universal (which makes it a genre not a film time period).

The genre conventions(the characters, settings, props, and events) do make up the film and are repeated within the film contrary to what Schrader may think (and of course I being a sophomore in college know more than Paul Schrader)! The archetypes repeated within each film noir are the same in many, if not every, noir. The hero is most of the time a washed up hero who is preconditioned to descend into darkness in order to let justice prevail. In the Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade was already cold and distant when he met with Mrs. Wonderly and he was already having an affair with his partner's wife. By the time his partner died he really didn't have any remorse, in fact he actually replaced his partner's name on their company the next day. In Chinatown, Jake Gittes is already a washed up detective who left Chinatown to get away from whatever the system let him down for. There is a recurring theme with the main character which Schrader even addresses in his article which is that the heroes have "a passion for the past and the present but also a fear of the future. Noir heroes dread to look ahead" (Schrader 237). This is one way we are able to organize noirs like a genre. The setting is usually in the city and "lit for night" (235 Schrader). Both of these elements "creates a fatalistic, hopeless mood. There is nothing protagonists; the city will outlast and negate even their best efforts" (235 Schrader). Also within the story itself there are similar events that happen in all noirs, which is that there is usually a detective who meets a very beautiful woman but she is also a very dangerous woman (this is also known as the femme fatale). She is either a liar or a temptress of some kind and through the course of the film she leads the man on a very dark path which he usually takes willingly. The protagonist usually feels sorry or loves the femme fatale in some way that inhibits his ways of thinking. As he descends and his morality sort of diminishes he starts to also find out more about the femme fatale and all of her wily ways as well as he starts to find out about the case with the villains. He eventually descends so far into darkness that the audience might not be able to tell if the protagonist is good or evil. At the end of the movie the femme fatale and the protagonist have a falling out and the protagonist usually ends up taking up the path of goodness. The overall events all hover around the theme that there is no morality within justice.

Schrader not only describes in his own paper how there are certain conventions repeated in each noir (which makes it a film genre), but he also describes how there are certain expectations with each movie. There are aspects of each movie that allows the watcher to know whether the movie is noir or not noir within the first five minutes or so. The movie should have a feeling of "something is wrong" and that the main character should already have a dark side and not just be the classic ultra-pure archetype of a superhero. The making of a noir hero and the making of the setting (which is usually a dark setting either metaphorically or literally) and the events within the first five minutes (which is usually the meeting of the femme fatale or the actual event being told such as a murder) all point towards the genre of film noir. There is a style to noir, which makes it more of a sub genre but it is still a genre nonetheless and not just a style or a memento of an age long gone.