Keeping it in the Family; Why Noir is a Genre - E.Bailey

Emma Bailey

Professor Sinowitz

HONR 101C

18 October 2017

Keeping it in the Family: Why Noir is a Genre

Spreading across decades and mediums, there is no argument that noir is an important part of American entertainment. The difficulty with noir is defining exactly what it is. Some rely on the visual components of the films to define its structure. The people who use the visual strategy rely on the lighting and angles to place films in noir. Other people interested in defining noir believe that noir can be categorized by the mood it gives off. Often those who believe in the mood of noir note that noir reflects American ideologies of the time it is created. These people are not exactly wrong, but they aren’t right either. Let me explain; noir cannot be categorized like an animal nor food; it is much more complicated to find a way that embodies all the elements of noir into one single label. This is not to say that noir cannot be categorized, but that Wittgenstein’s definition of genre as a family resemblance is the best way to categorize noir as it allows for multiple ideas to be correct. Noir is complicated and intertwined in so many different ideologies that it is impossible to define noir by just one construct. Instead, as Wittgenstein suggests, “there are no essential defining features, but only a set of family resemblances” (Abrams). Noir is not the lighting, the characters, the actions, nor the ideologies of the time; instead, noir is a mixture of all of these in which noir novels or films share a combination of these in common, but not all. James Naremore, who researched and wrote about noir, cites Raymond Borde and Étienne Chaumeton, authors of “Paranorma du film noir américain,” with introducing noir as “…five adjectives of surrealism: ‘oneiric, bizarre, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel’” (Naremore 19). Naremore goes on to say that “Sometimes one of these qualities is dominate…” (Naremore 19). In addition to the qualities found by Borde and Chaumeton, there are commonalities between character types and the intricacy of the narrative. The amalgamation of the elements involved in noir is not set in stone, nor is there a recipe for how much of each element must be included to create a noir. Much like how not everyone in the family tree contains the same exact DNA, not all noirs contain every trait in the same structure.

 Intricate plots seem to be very common within the noir genre. All of the means of noir we have familiarized ourselves with thus far contain a convoluted and not easily understood overarching storyline. In many ways, noir is a genre that relies on thought provoking content in its works. If we look at noir as a family tree, a complex plot would be the head of the family with everything else branching from it. While it cannot be argued that these films have simple plots, one could argue that the plots are not confusing in the same way. For example, Gloria Swanson’s character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard makes the story dense because of her freaky mannerisms and tendency toward obsessive behavior, but not in the same way we are confused by Frank’s description of the Greek as a nice man followed by his decision to kill the Greek in The Postman Always Rings Twice. Additionally, the novel and film The Big Sleep by Ramond Chandler is a complicated story involving the Sternwood family and murders that surround them. Amongst critics, this both mediums of The Big Sleep are hard to understand. Noirs are notoriously confusing, but not all for the same way. Which is to say that they have something in common but are not identical; that noirs are related.

Another branch on the family tree of noir is a disgruntled and nontraditional hero that arises from the depths of America’s cynicism of people in power. This is also an established theme noted by Borde and Chuameton as part of noir’s tendency to be “corrupt” (Naremore 20). Walter Neff from Double Indemnity is the best example of the nontraditional hero in that he is both “passive” and “morbidly curious” which are characteristics of the “ideal noir hero” (Naremore 20). Neff works alongside femme fatale Phyllis to rob the corrupt insurance company for which he works. By fighting back against a company that essentially cheats common people, Neff makes himself the perfect criminal hero. A similar commentary of the American dream to defeat the powerful can be found in The Postman Always Rings Twice, in which the main character Frank and his partner in crime Cora develop the “perfect crime” as a get rich quick scheme. In both Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice the director/author comments on the American dream by glorifying it or satirizing it. However, not all noirs are careful to make this same commentary. For example, Laura does not reflect the American Dream, but rather tells the story of a supposed dead woman and the men who are in love with her. In the case of Laura, the film is categorized as noir more likely for its intricate plot rather than its attempt to create a message on society’s view of the American Dream.

Using the theme of eroticism from the five qualities assigned to noir by Borde and Chaumeton, we can establish femme fatales as an important part of the noir genre. The femme fatale is an essential role to many of the films and novels with which we have engaged and is often considered a staple of the noir label, notorious for complicating the plot. However, using Wittgenstein’s definition of genre, it is notable that not all noirs must contain a femme fatale to continue to share the label (Abrams). Movies such as Laura and Touch of Evil did not have a femme fatale and the eroticism that accompanies that role in the same way that The Maltese Falcon and Out of the Past do. While movies with the erotic female character make noir more alluring, they are only part of the noir genre. Even though they do not contain traditional femme fatales, films such as Laura and Touch of Evil can be labeled as a noir because they have other characteristics in common with the noir family. The oneiric, or dreamy, qualities of the plot and narration of Laura are similarly found in the narration of The Killing, yet these qualities are not as visible as in The Maltese Falcon. Simply put, noir movies must contain a combination of the elements brought to mind by noir, but do not need to contain all of them. Like all genres, the movies within noir are related, but not the same.

Another thing most classical noirs have in common is the lighting and other effects. As noted by Naremore, “The visual style of film noir is often associated with low-key lighting, unbalanced compositions, vertiginous angles, night-for night exteriors, extreme deep focus, and wide-angle lenses” (167). In class we have often discussed the low-key lighting as a way to dramatize a critical part of a scene. There is a part of Laura in which the main character Mark McPherson rests in a chair while a picture of her hangs above the mantle next to him. The lighting of the scene creates an eerie vibe, but it also makes the scene more dramatic and forces the viewer to look at the important parts of the scene.  In addition to the lighting, angles are also used in noir to send messages. In the movie Out of the Past, femme fatale Kathie is positioned in a way that makes her more commanding than her male counterpart Jeff. The Maltese Falcon attempts a similar effect while shooting the scene so that hard detective Samuel Spade seems taller and more powerful than the ever-feminine villain Cairo. Using visual effects as a mark of noir is not to say that these effects don’t exist outside the genre, but rather to note that they are used in a more extreme and necessary way. Without the angles, lighting, and other visual aspects, noir movies would not be as strongly part of the genre.

Despite what plotlines, characters, and angles may tell us, there is a certain feeling that comes with engaging with noir. When we described noirs in class, we used terms like corruption, suspense, and betrayal. While these characteristics are less quantifiable, they are qualifiable feelings that we recognized as noir. The corruption stems from the hard-boiled detectives who work outside of the law to create justice, but it also stems from a consistent distrust for authorities in noir. The suspense is drawn in partly due to angles and lighting, but also due to the large number of crime in noir. Betrayal is a general theme between characters. Often the femme fatale and the man in the detective role manipulate and betray each other by the end of the text. While examples of corruption, suspense, and betrayal can be found in the noirs, they are best described as feelings that come from reading/watching noirs.

To be classical noir is to encompass the general feelings of an era and combine them with visual effects, characters, Borde and Chaumeton’s characteristics all within an intricate plot.  Wittgenstein’s definition of genre as a family tree tells us that the genre noir consists of novels and films that are related, but not identical (Abrams). Suggesting that a failure to contain a few commonalities makes a novel or film unrelated to the genre is ridiculous. We recognize romantic-comedies as a genre despite the fact that not every movie is the exact same story. The same can be said for noir. The films and novels that are classical noir are part of a genre because they share similarities and are related to one another. Historical Noir is a genre that, like a tree, has many different branches; each of the branches plays an important role in making the tree the way it is, but the branches can not stand alone. Noir, and its many facets is a complex and interesting concept that becomes a genre when Wittgenstein’s theory of genre is applied.

Works Cited

Naremore, James. More Than Night. University of California Press, 2008.

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Woodsworth Press, 2012.