The early films noir (before being considered noir) were influenced by pulp stories and hard-boiled fiction by authors such as Hammett, Chandler and Caine, whose novels were often a base for the films; as a matter of fact, many of their novels were adapted to films.
The attempts to explain film noir were often challenged by the fact that there is no official explanation instead various scholars have formed their own view on what film noir is starting by identifying it either as a genre, cycle, style or movement.
As example, Mayer and McDonnell introduce different statements by different scholars in the preface of their book to illustrate how complex it is to discuss the film noir, as each of them has a different opinion.
They add that the term is a discursive construct created by critics and scholars of the time but also a cultural phenomenon that changed the previous cinema.
When talking about noir in the Italian context, it has to be noted that it does not exist in the same form as in Hollywood. Italian genres are traditionally more flexible and can share the same elements, so we have different trends. As example, Riso Amaro and Ossessione are usually considered to be neorealist films, but they contain many noir elements and for …show more content…
According to author Mark Shiel, neorealism was a moment of transition in the aftermath of the world war, which contributed a stylistically and philosophically distinctive cinema popular from mid-Forties until early/late Fifties. The author also sees it as a movement of certain directors, writers and other workers of the film industry who were loosely connected to each other by sharing political (anti-fascist) and leftist views and who also produced most of the recognized films of