On The Typical Image Of The Film Noir

Film noir is an American film movement that emerged in the 1940s and 1950s. By the late stages of World War II, film noir began to develop fully and then flourished in the immediate post-War years. The structure of American society changed greatly after the War. Film noir reflects those mental crises people experienced during the period of societal variation. On the one hand, as a result of the War women had moved into the workforce and had expanded their horizons beyond the domestic sphere. The men's return to peacetime was a period of maladjustment. Women were led back to the roles they played before the War, and men tried to reconfirm their masculine identity. On the other hand, the post-War American moved towards an era of economic boom. In corporate life big business grew bigger, and this had an effect on the workingman. The alienated mood in film noir can be seen as a reaction to the large, impersonal, dehumanizing cooperation's of the new consumer society. In this thesis, I try to expatiate on the main style and the development trend of film noir through the analysis of two personage models, namely 'femme fatale' and hard-boiled detective. Film noir centers on a world of darkness, greed, lust, and violence, but also filled with fear, where independent and self-centered 'femme fatale' with a past, while cynical and lonely hard-boiled detective with no future. Film noir is a kind of film themed around crimes. Though this film movement only lasted for over ten years, lots of great film noirs were made in this period of time. Film noir has a high position and great influence in the film history. But in our country, since Chinese cinema lacks of the tradition of film noir, very few systemic treatises have been written in Chinese. And some of them even made distorted misunderstandings. This thesis is responsible for bringing forth the true style and features of film noir.