film noir city . com : film noir art, culture, style

Film noir art and characteristics are best described by imagining walking the streets of a typical film noir film.  You would taste dry cigarette smoke through your nostrils.  The taste of rich film noir history.  Your spit-polished leather shoes,  or deep red high-heels, would clap against a pavement littered with yesterday’s newspaper,  trash,  bottles of liquor and intoxicated muscle.  Long glances would follow you from dark shadows overcast in  and around dim lightposts.

Yet,  somehow,  I imagine you would feel a sense of strong beauty and romanticism.  Order in the discordant chaos that organises the streets.  Intoxicating sensations.  This is the definition of the film noir genre.

Welcome to Film Noir City.

What is Film Noir City about?

I couldn’t help but feel,  you know,  that while there was great information online about the film noir genre – nothing really captured the imagination the same way that the films did,  taking us out of our context and making us feel – with no prior experience whatsoever – what it’s like for a city that’s known what world war is like.  Nothing that gives us that connection we got when our mothers or fathers talked excitedly over black and white photos of old cinemas about what it was like… film noir history involves both the films and the people who watch them.

For me, a film noir definition is beyond a cinematic technique,  great lines,  and predictable themes.  It’s about an expression of humanity, and its dichotomy between the dark and the beautiful, both existing within a whole.  The acquiescence of imperfection and solemness being part of human existence,  and just rolling with it.  The subtleties in structural aspects of the genre and the perfection of its expression leaves most modern Hollywood blockbusters cold.

I think it’s time modern media and community took this genre further and we should really explore what it means to each of us,  individually,  in a modern world.  Why are we attracted to something that may have occurred before our time?  Can some people share with us what it was like during their time?

Film noir city is about an expression of humanity in structures of the genre – to understand and integrate sensations within the genre in our modern world.  Whether through designs or  articulate but unprofessional writing from yours truly…

I want the readers to have an experience beyond stagnant definitions and descriptions of a genre which,  really,  you know it when you see it. You can read film noir articles, watch some film noir video, view film noir pictures, film noir photos, and use this as a general film noir guide.

Take a walk, take a stroll.  Fall in love,  see things that leave a bitter taste in your mouth,  and go looking for something, like a film noir detective – anything – and discover “how big this city is all over again…”