Readings:

• Casablanca
• Everybody Comes to Casablanca

Mandatory movie for this learning unit:

• Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

:Before I start with the analysis of the genre, a brief grammatical explanation.

The adjective that defines the genre “Noir” is a French word. It means BLACK. When used is singular, Film Noir, I normally refer in this lecture to the whole genre. When used in plural, films noir I refer to the specific movies that belong to the genre. You will see that in some cases I use the substantive adjective “Noirs” in plural. The adjective, in this case, replaces the noun that it modifies.

The Origin of Noir

• The Genre originated in the early 1940ies.
• Frequently it is regarded as reflection of the general climate of fear, gloom and hopelessness of that time of war and post-war.
• Continuation of the gangster and horror movies of the 1930ies.
• Strong influence of the German Expressionism.

Thematic Characteristics

The narrative themes in the Noir genre much darker than in the mainstream movies at that time.

In films Noir, we find a dark and oppressive atmosphere. The movies are invariably pessimist, or even fatalist. Human life is limited. The individual cannot escape his fate/

Plots always happen in Urban settings. The city is an integral part of the narration. In some cases, like in The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950), it can be considered one more character of the story. There are some exceptions to this rule, though, In The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) the whole action mostly takes place on a modest road restaurant.

Exteriors are often in night scenes with deep contrast between light and shadow (chiaroscuro). Frequently, it is rainy. Flashing Neon lights also appear in many movies, contributing to the effect of cheap urban environment.

The interiors, where most of the action takes place, are small and oppressive: ill lighted small apartments, poor hotel rooms, bordellos.

Moral ambiguity: As opposed to what we learned about the horror movies, there is no absolute good or evil in Noirs (we called this distinction moral Manicheism).  What is supposed to be good, is frequently corrupted, for example the police, and what is supposed to be evil, is not that evil. Criminals are frequently portrayed as victims of the corruption and the hypocrisy of society.

The hero of films noir is also different. He is rather an anti-hero, because his negative character traits are predominant. Anti-heroes are cynical, ironical – or even sardonic. They are always disillusioned and lonely, frequently born losers. They do not have a cause to fight for. It is mostly their own interest what they pursue. Yet, they cannot success.

Female main characters frequently play dubious roles. “La femme fatale” is one of the recurrent narrative archetypes of the Noir.  A “femme fatale” is a beautiful, glamorous, sophisticated, but unscrupulous, amoral, and extremely ambitious woman, who frequently is the cause of the perdition of the male anti-hero.

To sum up, the noir genre invariably shows the dark and brutal side of human nature and all our weaknesses: Fear, egotism, ambition, corruption, hatred, …

Narrative Stylistic Elements

The name of the genre, Noir, directly refers to the visual atmosphere characteristic of those movies.

The expressionistic photography, we have been calling it chiaroscuro, emphasizes the contrast between light and shadows. With this photographic technique, the filmmakers are able to visually support the dark undertones of the Noir stories.

Filmmakers use deep focus (extreme visual length of the field), abundant high and low shots and unbalanced compositions. Since the action is very limited, the filmmakers give an extraordinary dynamism to his stories with these bold visual techniques. To increase the fast rhythm of the narration, the directors use sharp dialogues and a very vibrant editing.

A relevant visual factor is the smoke. Anti-heroes, practically with no exception, are chain smokers – and the smoke of the cigarettes also contributes to create the esthetic of the genre.

Another recurrent narrative technique of the Cinema Noir is the “voice-over”. A narrator, the very same anti-hero or someone else, tells the story in off. In Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), paradoxically, the narrator of the story is already dead.

Films Noir use frequent flashbacks to explain the story of the characters. Flashbacks are alteration of the chronological order of the story. In most of the Noirs, the narration jumps back to a point in the story, before the main narrative starts.

The Third Man

---

Literary Authors

• Dashiell Hammett
  • The Maltese Falcon (1941) / The Glass Key (1942)
• Raymond Chandler
  • The Big Sleep (1946), Farewell, My Lovely (1944), The Long Goodbye (1978)
• James M. Cain
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) / Double Indemnity (1944)
• Cornell Woolrich
  • Phantom Lady (1946) / Black Angel (1946)
• Mickey Spillane (Mick Hammer)
  • Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

---

Film-Makers

---

Actors

• James Cagney (the first gangster)
  • Public Enemy (1941) / Angels With Dirty Faces (1937) / The Roaring Twenties (1939)
• Edward G. Robinson (also popular as unscrupulous gangster, but a superb actor in many different genres and roles)
  • Little Cesar (1930) / Key Largo (1946) / The Woman On The Window (1944)
• John Garfield
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) / Force Of Evil (1948)
• Robert Mitchum
  • Out of Past (1947) Angel Face (1953) / The Big Sleep (1978)
• Humphrey Bogart
  • The Maltese Falcon (1941) / The Big Sleep (1946) / High Sierra (1941) / Key Largo (1948) / In a Lonely Place (1950) / Desperate Hours (1955) / Casablanca (1942)

Femmes Fatale

• Veronica Lake
  • The Blue Dahlia (1946)
• Barbara Stanwyck
  • Double Indemnity (1944)
• Joan Bennett
  • The Woman On The Window (1944) / Scarlet Street (1945)
• Lana Turner
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
• Ava Gadner
  • The Killers (1946)
• Jane Greer
  • Out of Past (1947)

---

Films

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Double Indemnity (1944)

Laura (1944)

The Big Sleep (1946)

The Killers (1946)

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

The Third Man (1949)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

---

Literature

• Dickos, Andrew: “Street with no name. A History of the Classic American Film Noir”. The University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
  Hirsch, Foster: “Film Noir. The Dark Side of the Screen”. Da Capo Press, 1981.
  Dimendberg, Edward: “Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity” Harvard University Press, 2004.
  Film Noir Online portal