Post – war disillusionment

“The disillusionment many soldiers , small businessmen and housewife/ factory employees felt in returning to a peacetime economy was directly mirrored in the sordidness of urban crime film”

The hardboiled tradition

“… created the “tough” a cynical way of acting and thinking which separated one from the world of everyday emotions – romanticism with a protective shell”

“when the movies of the Forties turned to the American “tough” moral understrata , the hardboiled school was writing with preset conventions”.

Noir conventions

“The majority of the scenes are lit for night. Gangsters sit in the offices at midday with the shade pulled and the lights off”

“in film noir , the central character is likely to be standing in the shadow”

“it , of course creates a fatalistic , hopeless mood”

“the rainfall tends to increase in direct proportion to the drama

“there is a love of romantic narration”

“the narration creates a mood of temps perdu : an irretrievable past , a predetermined fate and an all – enveloping hopelessness”

“it is obvious there is no hope for any future : one can only take pleasure in reliving a doomed past”

“A typical film noir would rather move the scene cinematographically around the actor than have the actor control the scene by physical action”

Themes of film noir

“the private eye had quit the police force in disgust”

“the over – riding noir theme : a passion for the past of present , but also a fear of the future”

“Thus film noir’s techniques emphasize loss nostalgia , lack of clear priorities”