The Encyclopedia Brittanica defines film noir as a "film genre that offers dark or fatalistic interpretations of reality." In French film noir literally means "black film". The style originated in France and soon came to America in the 1940's. In our unit on film noir in class however, we focused on more modern examples of the genre. We watched L.A. Confidential, Fargo, Momento, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Usual Suspects, and Traffic. As we discussed in class, all of these movies - as film noirs - had some characteristics in common. All of them were set in dark, corrupt atmospheres. None of the films had a true hero, and often the protagonist turns out to be a bad character or anti-hero. The ploAnother facet of the noir style is the twisted storyline. In none of the movies does the viewer know what is actually going on until the very end. Perhaps the best example of this is in Usual Suspects. Verbal, the seemingly harmless cripple turns out to be a crime lord in the last 10 seconds of the movie. In Momento the whole story is told backwards, and in Traffic the story is told in four sub-stories that come together at the end. This plan works great to keep the viewer involved until the last minute of the movie, and to emphasize the dark scheming theme behind the noirs.
             ts each had strange twists, and often the viewer is left ignorant of the true nature of the story until the very end.
             As the philosophy of the genre is so dark and pessimistic, none of the characters in these films are entirely virtuous. The motives of the characters are always questionable. With a few exceptions like the pregnant policewoman in Fargo, there are not characters without flaws. According to the film noir philosophy, people are not inherently good. In fact they are inherently prone to greed, lust, wrath, jealousy, pride, sloth, gluttony, and vanity. This makes the world of the noir characters an unfriendly, realistic place.
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