Film noir is a specifically American genre as far as I'm concerned (and I wouldn't include The Third Man in the genre). Historically, I think that's pretty clear in terms of how it was originally defined. And to me it's as territorially specific a genre as French Poetic Realism, Italian Neorealism or German Expressionism. You can see films from all over the world that adopted the tropes and principles of Neorealism, but if they're not Italian, they're not il neorealismo. There are maybe a few British examples that slip into film noir, like Night and the City, which is a film by a director of American films noirs that just happened to be made in London.TMDaines wrote:Aren't you contradicting yourself there? On one hand, you want to define noir films as being made unconsciously, but on the other you still wish to separate non-American films that were made in the same vein, even if they were not conscious of how they were to be defined. How can, say, Ossessione be a neo-noir?zedz wrote:Edit: And for the record, I'd personally classify non-English-language films influenced by American films noirs as neo-noirs, even if they were released before the curfew (e.g. Bob le flambeur).
I'm always puzzled by the want to define noir as purely American, yet hold The Third Man up as an example of the pinnacle of the genre. It's like those guys we had a good laugh at who got offended by the Western list that the forum drew up because it contained so many Italian spaghetti Westerns, yet the Leone films are arguably quintessential of the genre. Sure, Noir is most closely associated with Hollywood, but the films had their roots and influences in much of European cinema, thanks in large part to the influx of Europeans to Hollywood. The idea that a group of American films, in retrospect, had a number of characteristics that strictly set them apart from a number of contemporary European films never bears much scrutiny.
I always feel as if the attempt to more closely define film noir than simply being black and white crime (melo)dramas from a particular period is forced. As you say, film noir is very much a retrospective term — it was not an idea, movement or a set of principles that anybody held in mind at the time. At best films considered to be film noir have a general disposition and a group of elements, but is English-language or American truly a defining characteristic? It seems more prescriptive than descriptive.
But there are a lot of broadly similar films from all around the world that people like to tar with the noir brush, and I think that often disguises more natural and fruitful stylistic allegiances (with German Expressionism and 20s/30s crime melodrama, for example, or with French Poetic Realism). But Melville is a director who seems to me to be very clearly drawing inspiration specifically from American crime films of the 40s and 50s, just like later purveyors of neo-noir, so I don't see why he should be ruled out of neo-noir simply because he was ahead of the curve and French. Ossessione, on the other hand and for all its similarities, really can't be defined as any kind of noir without being historically bogus, but it does show that all the components of the genre were already floating around (e.g. a gritty, location-based, poetic realist crime film gets you a long way there).
By the way, defining film noir as simply "black and white crime (melo)dramas from a particular period" seems to me to be willfully ignorant. The genre has always been defined in terms of very particular stylistic and thematic characteristics (and some content ones, like 'crime'), so I don't know what purpose it serves to pretend that's not the case. The term you're looking for is 'crime film'. Just because a genre's boundaries might be ambiguous doesn't mean you have to throw away its core.
