Brief History of Film Noir

Film Noir was mainly influenced by German expressionism in terms of aesthetics. German expressionism was an artistic movement, originating in Germany, in the 1910s and was a result of the isolation that Germany experienced due to the First World War. Foreign films were banned in Germany so the demand for cinema greatly increased which led the domestic production of films, which started in 1914. Moreover, inflation was increasing which meant that the value of German citizen's money was diminishing. Because of this, Germans were attending films much more freely.

Naturally, the films became very popular in Germany as they acknowledge the huge demand for film. However, by 1922, they became widely popular on an international scale and were appreciated quite well. Also, there was less negativity felt towards Germany as the end of World War One came around.

Early  expressionist films didn't  have a great budget which made for fairly surreal set design, often consisting of geometric patterns, and obscure camera angles. However, an interesting notion of these films was that lights and shadows had to be painted on the sets as the low budgets limited the ability of using technical equipment to create realistic lighting. The plots dealt with overtly emotional themes, mainly that of madness and insanity.

Film Noir adopted this gloomy style of German expressionism. Noir Films had low budgets and often had to reuse sets, this meant that filmmakers had to rely on shadows to mask various elements that would give these inconsistencies away. Also, as done in expressionist cinema, obscure camera angles were used to convey the heavy emotional themes of the films.