Film Noir-LA Confidential

There was a time that the label ‘noir’ could legitimately be applied only to a specific cycle of post-World War II Hollywood films. In recent years, however, there has been increasing acceptance of a much more flexible use of the term –both to draw in pre-World War II examples and, more importantly, to expand the category sufficiently to include the phenomenon of “Neo-Noir.”

This widening of the term, of course, complicates one of the questions that critics continue to debate. That is, what kind of classification is 'noir'? Is it a visual style, a tone, a genre, a generic field, a movement, a cycle, a series - or just a helpful category? Rather, it is a ‘network of ideas’ that can be borrowed from and played with. Therefore, a “Neo-Noir” is a film that harkens back to the original genre, but also re-invents itself for more modern sensibilities.

The transformations of the genre in Neo-Noir have helped to clarify some of the constant, recognizable elements of 'the noir vision', most importantly the moral ambivalence of the protagonist and his (or her) ill-fated relationship with a wider society that itself is guilty of corruption and criminality.

L.A. Confidential is one such film.