Film Noir as Genre: Problems and Approaches

Attached below is a quick essay on film noir I wrote a couple of years ago. The list included is a combination of my favorite film noirs and the ones mentioned in this article.

Genre by it’s very definition is all together more simple to explain on it’s own than in the context of film; it’s defining features are not complicated by the use of images and narrative arcs that film lends to it. For years the challenge that comes from describing genre films has increased and decreased, simplified and intensified. It has constantly been changing and questioned. Genre isn’t just the aesthetics of cinema but...