Yeah, I would dispute this list. This is exactly why you can't call Noir a genre.

By those standards, I'm not sure you can call anything a genre.

So why limit one of these types of film to a specific time period?

Gangsters films were understood as a genre as they were being made. Those genre conventions can be used in different ways in different eras. If you say every Gangster movie is implicitly a critique of capitalism, then The Sopranos is (on one level) very much about upper middle class aspirations.

Noir, like the French New Wave, was not understood as a genre as it was being made. The studios were making melodramas and crime thrillers and detective stories. But because of the era in which they were made, many of these movies - across many genres - exhibited a commonality of tone and theme. Not their styles and forms, but the way they expressed the era.

A sense of fate or even predestination that transcends mere contrivance. Film noir characters exist in a closed world, even if they are fleeing cops over hundreds of miles. Their options are very limited.

No happy ending. If characters seek redemption, they either don't find it or find it only in death.

I always think these two are the elements most important to the *content* (if not form) of film noir. A sense of... spiritual nihilism, perhaps. The character may struggle to atone for their sin/distance themselves from the crime, but it never works. For example, I always think of "A Simple Plan" as fairly noirish, despite the fact that it's set in a rural area, not a city, and the predominant colour in the film is the white of the snow instead of the black of the night.

I also remember having a debate about this when I was discussing Veronica Mars with some folks online -- it gets called high school noir a lot, but despite a lot of noir elements, the show has a stubborn core of optimism and a genuinely loving, rewarding relationship between the protagonist (Veronica) and her father, which feels out of place for a noir.

Does any classic noir film have a happy ending? Hmmm. I guess "Laura" has a happy ending of a sort, but it always feels wrong to me.

Noir, like the French New Wave, was not understood as a genre as it was being made.

I really think this is apples and oranges, term-wise. The term New Wave emerged before NW directors even made films to describe the Zeitgeist of a new France emerging from the ashes of WWII. It described the directors (all from a new generation of filmmakers) rather than the films themselves.

Does any classic noir film have a happy ending?

The Big Sleep.

Bogie gets Bacall and the police sirens indicate they'll be rescued. Though it fudges a bit by leaving them in a moment of peril and anxiety.

While we're on the subject of what is and isn't noir, if no one else read the NYTimes Magazine's interview with James Ellroy yesterday, I can assure you that he's still a creepy, self-satisfied prick. What I learned from the interview is that he's a creepy, self-satisfied prick who thinks he's the best novelist since Tolstoy. 'Cause, say, Faulkner. Would have been better, if only. He'd stuck to sentences. Short. Facile. Blunt. Ugly. Uninspired. Instantly forgettable.

The term New Wave emerged before NW directors even made films to describe the Zeitgeist of a new France emerging from the ashes of WWII. It described the directors (all from a new generation of filmmakers) rather than the films themselves.

C'mon! All the directors from the French New Wave were film theorists and critcs. They were extremely conscious of what they were doing as a group/movement.

I think I understand what Hec is saying. The makers of Noir didn't realize at the time that they were making Noir in the sense that, say, the makers of Westerns or Musicals realized that they were making Westerns or Musicals. If they thought within the framework of genres, they probably thought in terms of Detective or Crime or Suspense or maybe even Gangster. Done in a mindset that would speak to 1940s audiences.

From today's perspective, we can identify Noir in the same way we can identify, say, a Backstage Musical or a Screwball Comedy.

I'm not sure the distinction is extremely meaningful from a 2006 viewpoint, though. Because many of the genres cover so much ground that a 2006 audience almost has to subdivide to wrap our minds around what's out there.

Bogie gets Bacall and the police sirens indicate they'll be rescued.

Is that so? Seriously, I remember watching that film at least twice, and while I have vivid memory of the manners convo that ends up with "... I grieve over them on long winter evenings" and that infamous horse race conversation between Bogie and Bacall, I remember next to nothing of the plot. Bacall had a slutty sister somewhere, if I recall. That's about all.

Man, before I clicked on the thread I thought "there's a Lebowski mini-fuffle going on in there."

On viewing one I was underwhelmed.

This is me. To be fair, I haven't rewatched. I should rewatch. Possibly while drinking.