What Is Film Noir?

"Raymond Chandler defined it best. He described the Film Noir hero as a knight in dirty armor. He is a knight, he just doesn’t look like one. And he’s never rewarded for what he does. He’s this lonely character who’s out there and he’s just bugged by stuff."

"I can tell you I know it when I see it but I don’t know how to define it. Almost every element you name as the definition of a Noir film would apply to Casablanca but you would not call Casablanca a Noir film."

"Film noir is not a genre. It is not defined, as are the western and ganster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood."

"Noir is premised on the audience's need to see failure risked, courted, and  sometimes won; the American dreams becomes a nightmare, one strangely more seductive and euprohic than the optimisim it repudiates... Noir provided losing with a mystique."