What is film noir?
Q: What is film noir?
A: Film noir is a term used to describe crime drama movies from Hollywood that are often focused on sex, crime, and corruption.
Q: When were film noir movies made?
A: Film noir movies were mostly made from the early 1940s to the late 1950s in the United States.
Q: What does "film noir" mean?
A: The term "film noir" comes from the French term for "black film" or "dark film".
Q: What types of genres are included in film noir movies?
A: Film noir movies include many different genres of movies, such as gangster movies, police movies, and detective movies.
Q: How were these films shot?
A: Film noir movies were often filmed so that there were many dark shadows in the movie, even on characters' faces.
Q: Who influenced Hollywood's version of film noirs?
A: The Hollywood film noirs were influenced by German film directors such as Fritz Lang who used dramatic lighting techniques and 1930s French books or films about heroes who would die at the end of the story or stories with sad endings. They also drew influence from crime fiction such as detective and crime stories by Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler.
