Uwagi o filmie noir

Abstrakt

NOTES ON FILM NOIR

The classical essay by Paul Schrader contains some still inspiring and important observations, these and categorizations concerning film noir. According to the American great author film noir is not a genre nor a style but a film current like, for instance, German expressionism or French poetical realism. Its roots are in the war and postwar disappointment postwar realism, in the influence of the influx of some German artistic immigrants, in the hard-boiled prose by Hemingway, Chandler, Hammett and others. Schrader defines film noir also by pointing out seven characteristic film techniques of the current, by listing the typical noir topics especially unconscious anxiety, fear and nostalgia, and by mentioning the three phases of the stream the first war phase 1941–1945, the second – “postwar real ism” 1946–1949, the final phase of “psychotic action and suicidal impulse” – 1949–1953. Film noir played a great role in American cinema and also in American culture, especially because it “promoted style in a culture that valued themes.”