Entry 1: What Defines Film Noir?

Dark and gloomy senses derive from film noir. This type of hollywood movies deal with '40s-'50s crime, very grim settings, and characters of mischief and violence. "The Neo-Noir '90s" article says that noir film "invites us to glamorously rebel against an age of abstinence and political correctness," and that is clearly seen and expressed in these type of films. It follows complex plots where our hero/ protagonist is not the good-guy archetype that we are used to, but instead has conflicts of his own, both internal and external, and may possibly be misunderstood both by the other characters in the film, and even the audience watching the film. The directors creating these films make sure their characters have depth and are not linear, that there is plenty of distrust amongst the characters to keep a challenging theme in the story. Noir films are also about tragic events occuring with these criminal characters, some of which we as the audience may have liked despite the characters' questionable intentions. The article mentions that prior to the noir films era in Hollyood, it "had diverted a besieged nation with escapist entertainments and patriotic cheer," because that was what the nation as a whole needed at the time was for them to escape a depressing reality. Then it goes on to say that with our nation's victory, "our storytellers let down their psychic guard, and what poured out was dark and troubling fantasies of a dangerous, corrupt new world where the lines between good and evil got crossed." The noir stories are corrupt; where criminals and rebels of the law could quite possibly be considered the good guys and characters we care about despite their ethics, and the bad guys could be considered those who oppose our main characters, whether it be other criminal enemies or the authorites. Film Noir is very interesting storytelling, and its defining properties have everything to do with that.