"But I can't think of any film with noir style but not noir
content. Can anybody out there think of an example?"
Given how much noir style draws on German Expressionism, I'd
say several of those predecessors, such as Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari and Nosferatu, contain most of the same stylist
traits, but in service of horror, not noir. I'm not very
familiar with horror films, but I wouldn't be surprised if
they still overlap noir in style, both going for that sense
of foreboding.
I'd also call Fight Club, by the same director of Seven, noir
in style, but not in content. Same for Coppola's adaptation
of Rumblefish (which pretty slavishly apes German
Expressionist style, down to painting shadows on
walls).
And while I agree with Jim that film noir once referred only
to a visual style, I'd say its common usage has expanded
well-beyond that, in much the same way that "pulp fiction" is
no longer limited in most people's mind to the literal
meaning of that term. Language evolves (and I'd say that
hardboiled/noir, with its heavy use of vernacular helps fuel
this).
And in the neo-noir film movement, the word definitely refers
to content, not style. While many present stories like those
of Jim Thompson (in many cases direct adaptations), David
Goodis, Jim Cain, etc, few recreate the mise-en-scene of
Samuel Fuller, Fritz Lang or Robert Aldrich.
I asked just this question in a movie review of Wild Things
in the latest issue of www.handheldcrime.com:
Film noir. Does "noir" refer to the darkness of the setting
or the darkness of the human soul? In most classic films
noirs, you didn't have to make a choice. Gloomy people did
shady things on dimly lit streets of dark cities. . . .
But can a film be noir if it's set in bright, sun-drenched
Florida? . .
.
Wherever there are people with large sums of money, there
will be other people trying to take it away from them. And no
matter how bright the sun, it still can't cast away all of
the shadows within the darkness of the human soul.
Mark
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