What is Neo-Noir?

After the demise of film noir in the early 1960s a new breed of ‘hardboiled’ films emerged, encompassing the classic elements of film noir – neo-noir literally translated means ‘new black’, a name paying homage to its inspiration – but with more modern themes, style and visuals, to reflect current affairs, like the rise in technology and the problems they can cause, much like the classic 1982 neo noir, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott. Other themes commonly found within neo noirs include; identity crises, such as in David Fincher’s Fight Club, 1999; memory issues, seen in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, 2001; and subjectivity, displayed in James McTeigue's V for Vendetta, 2005.

The word ‘noir’ to describe films has always been very vague, especially since the end of it’s heyday in the latet1950s. That’s why the term ‘neo’ was brought in to use. Most people take neo noir to mean any film after the 1958 Orson Welles’ film Touch of Evil, which is generally agreed to be the last proper film noir. What makes up the definitions for a ‘neo noir’ has been a massive debate between fans and critics alike. In the book More Than Night, author James Naremore says that labelling a film as a noir is ‘a major signifier of sleekly commercial artistic ambition’. This enables some critics and fans alike to label abstract films such as Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien and James Cameron’s 1984 release The Terminator as a neo noirs due to their moody lighting and central themes about the danger of modern technology. In Alien the crew’s ship the Nostromo sets down on unknown planet LV426 for a reason unbeknown to them. Not only does this cause them to run into and subsequently be attacked by the planet’s other visitors, the aliens, but also during this time their onboard human synthetic goes haywire and tries to kill the crew. This anti technology message is also echoed in The Terminator whereby a man-made killing machine comes from the future to present day to kill the mother of Kyle Reese, the future leader of the human resistance to the machines that have taken over the world killing most of humankind.

However not everyone agrees on these types of films as being neo noirs, as they say that real neo noirs pay homage to their classic predecessor by being centred in and around crime, police and detectives, such as Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 release Reservoir Dogs, Curtis Hanson’s 1997 film L.A Confidential and Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s 2005 hit Sin City.