Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep is commonly referred to as hard-boiled detective fiction, but this falls under a larger genre in film and literature: noir. Film noir, literally meaning "black film", was a type of cinema that began in the mid-forties and ended in the late-fifties. Noir is famous for its morally dubious characters, dark story lines, and pessimistic perspective on life. The question remains, how does a genre so cynical become so popular?
In order to answer this question, we need to look at the time period in which this genre was celebrated. Noir started in literature a decade or so earlier than on film, circa 1930. Quite obviously, the biggest historical event we associate with the thirties was the stock market crash in 1929. Millions of people worldwide were pushed into poverty, and for many, the future looked bleak.
Noir was a style that reflected this sentiment. People down on their luck found someone to identify with; someone equally as downtrodden as they were. Noir was a manifestation of the time period. Because of this, it rose in popularity, continuing through World War II, and making its way onto film and into the cinemas.
This is the most famous period of noir, and its cinematography is instantly recognizable, even to those uneducated in the genre. High-contrast frames, actors in shadows, and fog are hallmarks of this era. Into the fifties, film noir remained popular in Europe, as the continent attempted to rebuild after the war that destroyed it.
However, it lost popularity in the United States. The dark morals and messages of noir could not compete with American idealism, which, after the war, was on the rise. American tastes changed, and it seemed that all the American people wanted out of their movies was their own optimism. Similarly, hard-boiled detective fiction saw it's heyday from the thirties to the fifties, ending when things began to get better.
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