From Noir to Neo-Noir

Though the ‘official’ film noir period ended more than 60 years ago, the enigmatic allure of noir endures, lingering like the smoke from a femme fatale’s cigarette. IMDB defines the classic film noir period of American cinema as beginning with the film Underworld (1927) and ending with Touch of Evil (1958), while many consider that John Houston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), an adaptation of Dasheill Hammett’s hard-boiled detective novel, as launching the classic noir cycle. Classic noir is immediately recognisable for its characters: the brooding detective and sultry femme fatale; its themes of crime, corruption, and the seedy side of the big city; and its distinctive visual style, including a high-contrast black and white palette. With its categorisation – as genre/cycle/style – contested and argued over the ensuing years, noir nevertheless remains an essential part of our screen lexicon.

Neo-noir, a perceptible set of screen texts emerging after the classic noir era, has undergone its own rigorous contestation and evolution, with another distinct iteration, neon-noir, also emerging. Hybridisation of noir with other genres and styles has arguably always been around, and the range of texts that emerged beyond the classic era blend noir with everything from horror in Psycho (1960), science fiction in Blade Runner (1982), dark comedy in Fargo (1996), to the Western in Mystery Road (2013).

Whilst the visual features of noir are an integral part of its appeal, we must not forget that its literary roots run deep and have continued to proliferate; classic film noir arose from the novels of Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Nordic Noir had its literary roots in books from Henning Mankell and Stieg Larssen, and Australian (or ‘Outback’) Noir has emerged as a crime fiction juggernaut, with several adaptations making their way to big and small screens.