"Film noir is not a genre...it is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone and mood." -Paul Schrader (1972)
Dictionary.com defines genre as "a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like."
Film noir's impact on cinematography is evident even today. Directors, writers, actors and others in hollywood are heavily influenced by this defining period in American movies. Development of film noir came from the post-war delusionment, need for realsim, German influence, and hard-boiled tradition. After watching both Out of the Past (1947) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) it seems apparent that these films do have different conflicts however the setting is in the city. Most of the film noir's take place in cities just like most of the western films take place in the open range. But, for the most part, the aspect that separates film noir's from the realm of the genre (as defined by Schrader) is conflicts. The conflicts of classical westerns is very clear, there is a protagonist or reluctant hero that must overcome a difficult conquest to rescue someone and/or get revenge on the antagonist characters. Oppositely, there is no one description that can describe the conflict of film noirs; not even one phase of noir. The way to describe a phase of film noir is by describing the visuals and mood of the films. The basic definition of genre from dictionary.com shows that film noir is considered a genre. And since I have complete faith in dictionary.com and its factuality; film noir is a genre! This argument, after all, has little meaning because of what was previously mentioned about film noir, regardless of whether it's a genre or simply a style, its impact on future generations of film is what really matters.
