Film Noir: Illuminating the Movies and their Contexts
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

Film Noir existed in classic from between 1940-1960, with a legacy of neo-noir and neon-noir that continues today. Film noir surprisingly creates stylish cinema with morally ambiguous protagonists, femme fatales, and an inescapable corruption, revealing disillusionment, hidden behind post-war buoyant economic posterity, baby boom, and increasing suburbanization of America. These Hollywood B movies displayed a loss of faith in individual autonomy, the efficacy of social systems, and the likelihood of achieving the American Dream. And, later, revealed the emerging anxiety about atomic weapons, Communism, and the Cold War. Their dark world with seemingly inescapable fate is elegant, visually and narratively expressed. Films will include: The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston) with Humphrey Bogart; Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder), with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray; Murder my Sweet (1944, Edward Dmytrk) with Robert Mitchum and Clair Trevor; Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur) with Robert Mitchum and Jane Geer; and the neo-noir Chinatown (1974) with Jack Nicolson, Fay Dunaway, and John Huston.