9 February 2021
When is a noir film not a noir film? When are we allowed to say “Yes, this is noir” or “This is not noir”? In my opinion, Dear Reader, this question is as pointless as a debate between Jansenists and Calvinists on the theological implications of free will. Yet, the point comes up again and again among film buffs, as though there’s a prize.
In a sense, there is. As long as “film noir” is now a marketable genre, it pays when a studio or company can claim it, as opposed to just calling the thing a thriller or crime film or gloomy drama. What matters is that the film is almost always worth watching under any label.