History of film noir

Film noir first started by a French critic named Nino Frank in 1946. He was the first to apply the term film noir to Hollywood films. After the war French film critics had noticed a change in films they were no longer of the sunny optimistic type of film which they were before the war the films seemed to be darker and more pessimistic in the outlook, it was as if Hollywood had broken up to the harsh realities of the world and the horrors of the war.

Film noir basically means black film in French. The term film noir describes a film that is very dark in its outlook.
In film noirs the lighting tends to be very dark which created a lot of shadows, the characters always seemed to be set in dark, smoke filled rooms.

The most famous film noirs were made between 1940- 1950
Such as ‘Double indemnity, Detour, and the Third man’.

Film noir has never officially been classed as its own genre, but is seen as a sub-genre of crime and gangster films.