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

and many, if not most, films would come under two headings, since interbreeding is
intrinsic to motif processes” (Durgnat 1970:51). Robert Porfirio sees it as “a series of
historical frames or contexts”, but he adds that “(...) yet we must ground the term in some
sort of adequate working definition if it is to warrant serious consideration as an object of
either film or cultural history” (in Silver 1996:77).
Globally, my declared difference of opinion from some critics (who persist in
referring to film noir as a film genre) is an attempt to generate debate but, unlike Robert
Aldrich’s noir Kiss Me Deadly, this project is an endeavour to (re-)open Pandora’s box,
and suggests just how wide the definition of the noir aesthetic might reasonably be. Apart
from (but more important than) tracing the affiliations attached to film noir, I expect to
establish the idea that film noir is the result of a many-sided interaction between
developments within particular genres. With my analysis I want to support the notion that
noir is a misleading term, and that the multicultural and social features, as well as the
historical context in which these films prospered, are the issues worthy of investigation. As
I said at the beginning, I am fully aware that consensus might never be reached regarding
what film noir is. In the end, though, it is expected that this thesis will have shed some
further light on the fundamental attributes of film noir and will have explicated a way to
integrate film noir into the operations of cine-semiotics.
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