film noir media n. (French: literally ‘black film’) a type of film-making, distinguished by style and subject matter, associated with a strand of Hollywood cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. Originally ‘noir’ tended to be shot in black and white, using low key lighting which plunged elements of a scene (including facial features) into dark shadow, ‘night-for-night’ shooting, a fondness for oblique lines and unsettling camera angles. In terms of content, there was an emphasis on corruption and despair, violence and crime, and they often revolved in plot terms around a femme fatale. Although film noir was dominant in the 40s and 50s there are later examples, such as Klute (1971) and Body Heat (1981), which re-work the theme and style of noir in color in the 70s and 80s. mmo
