Film noir

Film noir is a term used to describe Hollywood crime dramas. Film noir became very popular in the early 1940s to the late 1950s. This was a popular thing because they was not a lot of money to spend on films after the war so they made small budget film noir films. Film noir films are normally crime films. Here are a few film noir films:
Out of the Past (1947)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
The Wrong Man (1956).

Film noir was the era that was associated with low key lighting. Low key lighting is a style of lighting used in photography, film and or television this creates a chiarosuro effect. Low key lighting is used to create shadows and evil effects. Low key lighting is also used to single out one person and to emphasize the person.

Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton said “We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel” They stated in there book ‘Panorama du film noir américain’ that not every film noir film has all 5 attributes.

Film Noir has 5 main themes
Death
Greed
Self indulgence
Self forgiveness
Crime

Film noir outside the United States.

Some people may believe that film noir didn’t start in America and that it actually started outside the USA for example the French film called Pépé le Moko (1937) is classed as a film noir film. The French have been none to create film noir films before film noir was actually created. Here are a few French film noir films:
Rififi (1955)
Les Diaboliques (1955)
Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

There were also a lot of films filmed in Britain classed as film noir films here are a few more:
Night and the City (1950)
Stolen Face (1952)
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)