30 March 2010
Another thing that caught my interest was the use of this French word “noir” ( literal means black) in some movie reviews. Interestingly, in the number of instances that the noir appears, it was observed that noir is always primed to collocate with the word film giving FILM NOIR!
I found this really strange because to call a film “film noir” because my intuition tells me that the implied meaning of the noir here seems to suggest that the film must be “dark, sinister and evil.” Anyway, that was my first guess based on intuition. I am not a movie addict so this is the reason why this word stikes as something novel for me. It is just like the previous post where I talked about Hitchcockian.
From the concordance sampler, I had numerous instances where the word noir is collocated with film (N-1).
Next, I proceeded to check the definition of the meaning of noir to check if my speculation of the definition of the word is right.
MW says:
Main Entry: film noir
Pronunciation: \-ˈnwär\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural film noirs \-ˈnwär(z)\ or films noir or films noirs\-ˈnwär\
Etymology: French, literally, black film
Date: 1958
: a type of crime film featuring cynical malevolent characters in a sleazy setting and an ominous atmosphere that is conveyed by shadowy photography and foreboding background music; also : a film of this type
Hmm, from here, it appears that my guess is partially correct.
However, this definition does not quite align with the another site that I visited. I managed to chance upon this site by coincidence because I was searching for a dictionary of cinematic terms. And miraculously, I managed to find out. According to this dictionary, it says that film noir is defined as :
a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching 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, while 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 Depression era.

The definition given by this dictionary is alot more detailed than the one given by Merriam Webster as there were details that was not present in the MW dictionary. Perhaps this is an obvious indication that the term film noir is very unique only to cinematic discourse and is not a pharse that we would usually hear and write unless our job is to write a movie –review. Just like linguistic terms, medical terms where jargons of these sorts are found only in dictionaries specially catered to a particular genre and topic. Anyway, this was certainly a very interesting phrase that I have come across and I’m glad to have picked up or learnt a new phrase today.