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Film noir (; (:film nwaʁ)) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression. The term ''film noir'', French for "black film",〔See, e.g., Biesen (2005), p. 1; Hirsch (2001), p. 9; Lyons (2001), p. 2; Silver and Ward (1992), p. 1; Schatz (1981), p. 112. Outside the field of noir scholarship, "dark film" is also offered on occasion; see, e.g., Block, Bruce A., ''The Visual Story: Seeing the Structure of Film, TV, and New Media'' (2001), p. 94; Klarer, Mario, ''An Introduction to Literary Studies'' (1999), p. 59.〕 first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era.〔Naremore (2008), pp. 4, 15–16, 18, 41; Ballinger and Graydon (2007), pp. 4–5, 22, 255.〕 Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic ''films noirs'' were referred to as melodramas. Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre is a matter of ongoing debate among scholars. Film noir encompasses a range of plots: the central figure may be a private eye (''The Big Sleep''), a plainclothes policeman (''The Big Heat''), an aging boxer (''The Set-Up''), a hapless grifter (''Night and the City''), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime (''Gun Crazy''), or simply a victim of circumstance (''D.O.A.''). Although ''film noir'' was originally associated with American productions, films now so described have been made around the world. Many pictures released from the 1960s onward share attributes with ''film noir'' of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially. Some refer to such latter-day works as neo-noir. The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s. ==Problems of definition== The questions of what defines film noir, and what sort of category it is, provoke continuing debate.〔Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 3.〕 "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel": this set of attributes constitutes the first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book ''Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953'' (''A Panorama of American Film Noir''), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject.〔Borde and Chaumeton (2002), p. 2.〕 They emphasize that not every film noir embodies all five attributes in equal measure—one might be more dreamlike; another, particularly brutal.〔Borde and Chaumeton (2002), pp. 2–3.〕 The authors' caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship: in the more than five decades since, there have been innumerable further attempts at definition, yet in the words of cinema historian Mark Bould, film noir remains an "elusive phenomenon ... always just out of reach".〔Bould (2005), p. 13.〕 Though film noir is often identified with a visual style, unconventional within a Hollywood context, that emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions,〔See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 4; Bould (2005), p. 12; Place and Peterson (1974).〕 films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches, including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream.〔See, e.g., Naremore (2008), p. 167–68; Irwin (2006), p. 210.〕 Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres, from the gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture—any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s, now seen as noir's classical era, was likely to be described as a "melodrama" at the time.〔Neale (2000), p. 166; Vernet (1993), p. 2; Naremore (2008), pp. 17, 122, 124, 140; Bould (2005), p. 19.〕 While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing.〔For overview of debate, see, e.g., Bould (2005), pp. 13–23; Telotte (1989), pp. 9–10. For description of noir as a genre, see, e.g., Bould (2005), p. 2; Hirsch (2001), pp. 71–72; Tuska (1984), p. xxiii. For the opposing viewpoint, see, e.g., Neale (2000), p. 164; Ottoson (1981), p. 2; Schrader (1972); Durgnat (1970).〕 While noir is often associated with an urban setting, many classic noirs take place in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road; so setting cannot be its genre determinant, as with the Western. Similarly, while the private eye and the femme fatale are character types conventionally identified with noir, the majority of film noirs feature neither; so there is no character basis for genre designation as with the gangster film. Nor does film noir rely on anything as evident as the monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film, the speculative leaps of the science fiction film, or the song-and-dance routines of the musical.〔Ottoson (1981), pp. 2–3.〕 A more analogous case is that of the screwball comedy, widely accepted by film historians as constituting a "genre": the screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute, but by a general disposition and a group of elements, some—but rarely and perhaps never all—of which are found in each of the genre's films.〔See Dancyger and Rush (2002), p. 68, for a detailed comparison of screwball comedy and film noir.〕 However, because of the diversity of noir (much greater than that of the screwball comedy), certain scholars in the field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a "style".〔Schatz (1981), pp. 111–15.〕 Alain Silver, the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies, refers to film noir as a "cycle"〔Silver (1996), pp. 4, 6 passim. See also Bould (2005), pp. 3, 4; Hirsch (2001), p. 11.〕 and a "phenomenon",〔Silver (1996), pp. 3, 6 passim. See also Place and Peterson (1974).〕 even as he argues that it has—like certain genres—a consistent set of visual and thematic codes.〔Silver (1996), pp. 7–10.〕 Other critics treat film noir as a "mood",〔See, e.g., Jones (2009).〕 characterize it as a "series",〔See, e.g., Borde and Chaumeton (2002), pp. 1–7 passim.〕 or simply address a chosen set of films they regard as belonging to the noir "canon".〔See, e.g., Telotte (1989), pp. 10–11, 15 passim.〕 There is no consensus on the matter.〔For survey of the lexical variety, see Naremore (2008), pp. 9, 311–12 n. 1.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Film noir」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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