Film Noir

[Bannanachair]

I was having a conversation with my mother and found out that she doesn't know what film noir movies are. I figured that that was ridiculous and asked my brother who's twelve years old if he knows what film noir movies are just to prove my point that it's ridiculous not to know about such an influential genre that remained popular for twenty years and influenced the media for years to come and he didn't know what it was either. That left me with three scenarios - either I'm so obsessed with early postwar culture that I thought that everyone should know what film noir movies are even though it requires knowledge of my specific niches, I'm so obsessed with film history and cinematography that I think everyone should know what film noir movies are even though it requires knowledge of my specific niches (this one's unlikely though, I think) or I'm right and my family's just a weird exception.

For those of you who somehow don't know what film noir movies are, lots of them are available on the public domain and therefore on YouTube. Here's DOA, one of my favourites in the genre and in fact the first that I've seen. If you have a few spare minutes please watch it, it is a masterpiece of cinema.

[sk8]

They might just not know the term. It's quite common for me to find people who know what something is, but not what it's called. Personally, I also don't see how they do not know what it is. Now, I haven't seen any (and I can't watch any right now as my school blocks YouTube), but I know what Film Noir is, and I might watch some later.

[Deleted]

Where's the option for "I've never heard that before but I can guess what it means"?

[Duck14]

I know what it means, mainly because I was part of a mock one in school a couple of years back and I'm quite interested in cinematography. However, it makes sense why people wouldn't exactly know the term. Sure, there are still select films which could be defined as part of the genre (though some call them neo-noir/) but for the most part the modern day audience have not been as openly exposed to it as the audience of the 40's and 50's. It makes sense though that your family, particularly your brother, wouldn't know of the genre.