What do all these terms mean?

[Poggle]

"Populist" "Art-house" "Film noir" and several others mentioned to categorize films.

[SeanSeanSean]

"Populist" "Art-house" "Film noir" and several others mentioned to categorize films.

Ok, I'll go for it:
Populist: Indiana Jones= mass appeal for $$$
Art-house: Last Tango, Fellini etc...
Film noir: mystery, moody, usually '30 '40s, like Bogart movies: Maltese Falcon, Big sleep...more recently Chinatown

[redyred]

A bit more on film noir - A movement in cinema during the 40s and 50s, heavily influenced by German expressionism and French Poetic realism (cue more confused questions... sorry) as well as post war pessimism and new techniques developed during the war itself. Mainly contemporary thrillers, typical themes include criminal psychology, character flaws, trust and betrayal, corruption of the respectable and so on. Also, contrary to the usual Hollywood black and white good vs evil view of morality there are infinate shades of grey. Sometimes bad characters come out on top while the characters with good intentions end up losing.

It's also worth noting that few film noirs actually referred to themselves as such at the time - the term only became widely used when film historians began referring to that period in cinematic history.

[grandpa_chum]

spielberg is a really good populist director as a whole... all of his movies are made to make to money, to get people in the seats and to appeal to a wide audience

art house just basically refers to films made with artistic intent... it's very subjective.

film noir, simply put in my own words, is a dark film(in fact it tranlsates to "black film") usually involving the world of crime, with a large emphasis usually put on the introspective...

[Poggle]

So, would the Godfather and Scarface(With Pacino) be considered "noir" films?

[cigar joe]

I'd consider them if we paint the term film noir with a broad brush.

I'd also consider Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Wild At Heart, and Fire Walks With Me by David Lynch as film noir,  also Fargo, Body Heat, Angel Heart, and A Simple Plan too as film noir.

[redyred]

I'd say films like that could be considered film noir in the same way Rodriguez and Tarantino's films sometimes get called modern day spaghetti westerns.

[grandpa_chum]

i agree with redyred, they can be compared to film-noir but i don't think they actually can be called film-noir... but out of all of those i'd say fargo and blue velvet are the closest to noir.

[dave jenkins]

"Neo-noir" is the term often used for films exhibiting noir qualities that were produced after the classic film noir period (1941-1955).

[cigar joe]

thanks for clearing that up 

[grandpa_chum]

ah yes... that slipped my mind... but i'd still say of the 11 mentioned above, only fargo and blue velvet qualify even as neo-noir films.... i think the perfect example of a neo-noir film is insomnia.

[cigar joe]

Memento fits in there to somewhere.

[dave jenkins]

Here's a pretty good page on both film noir and neo noir. It's by a guy who really knows his stuff:

http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/noir.jsp

Next time they update it, though, they'll probably want to add _Sin City_.

[redyred]

I'd say Taxi Driver is very much a neo-noir.

Another point to remember about noir is that it isn't just about themes, it's also about the look - low level lighting, cramped, claustrophobic sets etc.