Film Noir

Film noir was also highly urban, underscoring the economic and moral tensions of the postwar city Warehouses, waterfronts,rift gold nightclubs and dangerous streets set the stage, although directors also used monumental architecture like train stations, skyscrapers and bridges. New York City, NY, Chicago, IL, and Los Angeles, CA became key noir cities, while “sunny sites” like amusement parks (Strangers on a Train, 1951) or California beaches took on destructive meanings (Kïss Me Deadly, 1955). Women evidenced new power in film noir. While often duplicitous or even villainous, they moved the action along at the expense of men who were lost, confused or ignorant (Barbara Stanwyck versus Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity). The femme fatale’s slinky costumes, posture and inevitable cigarette identified her as openly sexual—the antithesis of the bright, cheerful suburban housewife. Men, by contrast, were baggysuited detectives, reporters, lawyers, insurance agents or policemen—trapped and destroyed rather than liberated.

Although film noir is identified with B-movies, Orson Welles produced one of the last great noir films in Touch of Evil (1958),rift gold while Hitchcock shared elements of noir style. Moreover, noir continues to fascinate audiences and film-makers as diverse as Godard, John Woo and Wim Wenders. Both the style and the moral ambiguity of noir are used in later American movies like Chinatown (1974), Blade Runner (1982) and LA. Confidential (1997).