Many theorists have termed film noir a genre in itself, the same as say horror films or a westerns, however this isn’t completely true of film noir as with a traditional genre you are guaranteed a particular concept for example, the western will always be set in the wild west and certain paradigmatic elements will be included cowboys, horses, good guys and bad guys, whether its John Ford’s ‘Stagecoach’ or the Clint Eastwood film ‘Unforgiven.’ There is no overriding concept or setting that is truly film noir. Film noir can be about a woman’s rise to commercial success and her struggle to care for her family for example ‘Mildred Pierce’ or a detective story such as ‘The Lady In The Lake’ With film noir there is no one set location or paradigms. ‘Film noir has no paraphernalia that it can truly call its own’. (Hagopian 2001) Film noir borrows its paraphernalia from other forms, usually from the crime and detective genres, but often overlapping into thrillers, horror and even science fiction’

He believes it is an ‘self contained reflection of American culture and its preoccupations at a point in time. As such it is the unique example of a wholly American style.’ (Silver and Ward 1979)

The French critic Vernet believes that the European directors that are the chief influence upon film noir, ‘film noir is the triumph of European artists even as it presents American actors’ (Vernet 2001) suggesting that the praise should be placed at the hands of those directors and writers that left Germany known as émigrés like Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang. That theorists should look at the political and historical situation in Europe to get a stronger understanding of the origins of film noir. Paul Schrader criticizes this warning that ‘There is a danger of over-emphasizing the German influence in Hollywood’. Silver also criticizes this stating that the statement is ‘Euro centric bias’ and ‘typifies many recent attempts to both break down the “myth” of film noir and relocate its origins’ Silver believes that it is despite the influence of the Europeans an ‘indigenous American form’ (Silver and Ward 1979)

We are taken through a world of corruption, deceit and mistrust. This is exemplified in the ‘The Maltese Falcon’ Everybody is lying, manipulating each other and double-crossing everybody else. Telotte sees this connection of themes stating that ‘thematically these films were concerned with the underworld of crime and corruption and with the individuals who struggled against fate and obbsession’ (Telotte 1989)

Some topics in this essay:
Silver Ward, Encyclopedic Reference’, Humprey Bogarts, Maltese Falcon’, Alain Silver, Dorothy Jones, Crowd’ American, Billy Wilder’s, Fred MacMurray, LS Peterson, film noir, ‘film noir, telotte 1989, silver 2001, ‘film noir’, ‘the sleep’, post war, visual style, french critics, makes film, silver ward 1979, define film noir, ‘the maltese falcon’, term ‘film noir’, film noir defined,