Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

I. Introduction: Paving the Way for Film Noir
For many students, particularly mine, the ultimate
question is not what noir was, but what it might be.
They see film noir as an open-ended experience. Of
course, with the short-sightedness of the young,
they also see their own times – where slow internet
access can be a most grievous fate – a more angstridden
than any previous. The encapsulation effect,
a selective view of the 1940s and 1950s through a
noir filter, is not an easy read for those whose
parents were not yet born when The Maltese Falcon
was released. Still the through-line of film noir is
undeniable and, in what may be the greatest irony,
can be exhilarating (...). (Silver 1968:7)
This study proposes a critical interpretation of the evolution of film noir, bearing in
mind that it is a much contested term, especially when picking through the large number of
readings and views generated by a plurality of critics. Decades of definition and debate
around this issue endorse how notoriously difficult it is to present a coherent, well-argued
and unified designation of film noir. My intent is to shed light on this particularly
problematical area of classical Hollywood cinema and review how it has been considered
over the years. I want to stress that film noir is “a self-contained reflection of American
cultural preoccupations in film form” (Silver & Ward 1992:1), and indeed was revived by
American directors in the seventies. In fact, it has since become once again (if in a
somewhat different form) a staple of entertainment cinema. My discussion will hopefully
contribute to a better understanding of this field and its development, though I am aware
that no matter how lengthy my description the conclusion will always be open-ended.
The work contained in this thesis brings together the diverse theoretical, historical
and cultural issues which are raised by the phenomenon of film noir. Therefore, I discuss
the subject with respect to its roots in the classical German cinema of the period following
World War I, its trace elements in the French cinema antedating WWII, and the manner in
which it has prospered in American cinema since. I also seek to explore the social and
political circumstances and other film industry-related developments leading up to film
noir, setting out the main historical background, and I examine it within certain cultural
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