The Arc of National Confidence and the Birth of Film Noir, 1929–1941

• Published in: Journal of American studies Vol. 42; no. 3; pp. 387 - 414
• Main Author: HANSON, PHILIP
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01-12-2008
• Subjects: American history; American studies; Cinema; Conservatism; Criminals; Cultural history; Desire; Economic crisis; Film noir; Great Depression; Historical analysis; Liberalism; Mental depression; Modernist art; Motion picture criticism; Motion picture industry; Movies; Nervous system disorders; New Deal; Social history; U.S.A; World wars; United States > US
• ISSN: 0021-8758; 1469-5154
• DOI: 10.1017/S0021875808005501

Early in the Great Depression, Gerald W. Johnson remarked on the “fathomless pessimism” that had overtaken the American People: “The energy of the country has suffered a strange paralysis … We are in the doldrums, waiting not even hopefully for the wind which never comes.” Film developments of the decade were entwined with the ongoing economic crisis. This article offers an analysis of the extreme shifts in confidence in this period and argues for their relationship with the evolution of film noir, which had its roots in two film genres prominent in the period, the gangster and fallen-woman films, but which breaks with these genres, not after the onset of World War II, which has long been believed, but in the closing years of the 1930s.