Tech noir is a hybrid genre of fiction, particularly film, combining

film noir Film noir (; ) is a style of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood Crime film, crime dramas that emphasizes cynicism (contemporary), cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of Ameri ...

and

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

, epitomized by

Ridley Scott Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He directs films in the Science fiction film, science fiction, Crime film, crime, and historical drama, historical epic genres, with an atmospheric and highly co ...

's ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Di ...

'' (1982) and

James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, who resides in New Zealand. He is a major figure in the post-New Hollywood era and often uses novel technologies with a Classical Hollywood cinema, classical filmmaking styl ...

's ''

The Terminator ''The Terminator'' is a 1984 American science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, written by Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd and produced by Hurd. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, a cybernetic assassin sent back in t ...

'' (1984). The tech-noir presents "technology as a destructive and dystopian force that threatens every aspect of our reality".

Terminology

It is also known as cyber noir, future noir, neo-noir science fiction and science fiction noir.

Origins

Cameron coined the term in ''The Terminator'', using it as the name of an underground

nightclub A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...

, but also to invoke associations with both the film noir genre and with futuristic sci-fi.

Precursors

The word ''noir'', from ''film noir'', is the French term (literally "black film" or "dark film") for American black-and-white films of the 1940s and 1950s, which always seemed to be set at night in an urban landscape, with a suitably dark subject-matter, although the treatment is often sexy and glamorous as well as stylized and violent. The genre was informed by a slew of crime novels, with

Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...

's '' The Big Sleep'' and '' Farewell, My Lovely'' being notable examples. Being often typified by crime thrillers with a private detective hero and a succession of attractive, deadly heroines, the classic noir style may also be called "detective noir". From this derive various related and subverted terms, such as

neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...

(resurgence of the form in 1960s and 1970s America); the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

noir (exploiting the tension and paranoia of the nuclear age);

blaxploitation In American cinema, Blaxploitation is the film subgenre of action movie derived from the exploitation film genre in the early 1970s, consequent to the combined cultural momentum of the black civil rights movement, the black power movement, ...

films, which some called black noir; Nordic noir, set in the stark landscape and apparently bland social environment of the Scandinavian countries, yet revealing a dark legacy of cruel misogyny, brutal sexual repression, and murder. From the same source comes cyber noir, also called tech noir, which may deal with intrigues and criminal enterprises in either the real world of computers and high technology, or in the virtual landscapes of a techno-generated underworld – and sometimes both.

Science fiction noir

Beginning in the 1960s, the most significant trend in film noir crossovers or hybrids has involved science fiction. In

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

's '' Alphaville'' (1965), Lemmy Caution is the name of the old-school private eye in the city of tomorrow. '' The Groundstar Conspiracy'' (1972) centers on another implacable investigator and an amnesiac named Welles. '' Soylent Green'' (1973), the first major American example, portrays a

dystopian A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmenta ...

, near-future world via a self-evidently noir detection plot; starring

Charlton Heston Charlton Heston (born John Charles Carter; October 4, 1923 – April 5, 2008) was an American actor. He gained stardom for his leading man roles in numerous Cinema of the United States, Hollywood films including biblical epics, science-fiction f ...

(the lead in ''

Touch of Evil ''Touch of Evil'' is a 1958 American film noir written and directed by Orson Welles, who also stars. The screenplay was loosely based on Whit Masterson's novel '' Badge of Evil'' (1956). The cast included Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Jose ...

''), it also features classic noir standbys

Joseph Cotten Joseph Cheshire Cotten Jr. (May 15, 1905 – February 6, 1994) was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original stage productions of '' The Philadelphia Story'' (1939) an ...

, Edward G. Robinson, and

Whit Bissell Whitner Nutting Bissell (October 25, 1909 – March 5, 1996) was an American character actor. Early life Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell and Helen Nutting Bissell. He was educated at the Allen-S ...

. The movie was directed by

Richard Fleischer Richard Owen Fleischer (; December 8, 1916 – March 25, 2006) was an American film director. His career spanned more than four decades, beginning at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood and lasting through the American New Wave. He was the ...

, who two decades before had directed several strong B noirs, including '' Armored Car Robbery'' (1950) and '' The Narrow Margin'' (1952).

Cyber noir

Cyber noir, also called tech noir, deals either with dark shenanigans in the world of computers and hi-tech supernerds; or the virtual landscapes of a techno-generated underworld; or both. The term is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

that describes the conjunction of technology and science fiction: cyber- as in

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberwa ...

and -noir as film noir. The related cyberpunk genre itself is another portmanteau: cyber- being the prefix used in

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

, the study of communication and control in living organisms, machines and organisations, although usually understood as the interface of man and machine; from Greek κυβερνήτης kubernétes, a helmsman. This, combined with punk, originally African-American slang for a young male prostitute, latterly an outsider in society, then the target and subject of

punk music Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

and subculture, where the keyword is alienation.

Development of tech-noir

The cynical and stylish perspective of classic film noir had a formative effect on the

genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1980s. The movie most directly influential on cyberpunk was ''

'' (1982), directed by

, which pays clear and evocative homage to the classic noir mode throughout the film. (Scott would subsequently direct the 1987 neo-noir crime melodrama '' Someone to Watch Over Me''.) Strong elements of tech-noir also feature in

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam ( ; born 22 November 1940) is an American-British filmmaker, comedian, collage film, collage animator, and actor. He gained stardom as a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Pa ...

's "dystopian satire" ''Brazil'' (1985) and ''

The City of Lost Children ''The City of Lost Children'' () is a 1995 science fantasy film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, written by Jeunet and Gilles Adrien, and starring Ron Perlman. An international co-production of companies from France, Germany, ...

'' (1995), one of two "Gilliamesque" films by

Jean-Pierre Jeunet Jean-Pierre Jeunet (; born 3 September 1953) is a French film director and screenwriter. His films combine fantasy, realism, and science fiction to create idealized realities or to give relevance to mundane situations. Jeunet debuted as a direc ...

and

Marc Caro Marc Caro (born 2 April 1956) is a French filmmaker and comics artist, best known for his projects with Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Biography Marc Caro was born in Nantes, the native town of Jules Verne, who made a great impact on him, influenced his ...

that were influenced by Gilliam's work in general and by ''Brazil'' in particular (the other one being ''

Delicatessen A delicatessen or deli is a grocery that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessens originated in Germany (contemporary spelling: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the mid-19th centur ...

''). Scholar Jamaluddin Bin Aziz has observed how "the shadow of Philip Marlowe lingers on" in such other "future noir" films as ''

12 Monkeys ''12 Monkeys'' is a 1995 American Science fiction film, science fiction thriller film directed by Terry Gilliam from a screenplay by David Peoples and Janet Peoples, based on Chris Marker's 1962 short film ''La Jetée''. It stars Bruce Willis, M ...

'' (Gilliam, 1995), '' Dark City'' (1998), and '' Minority Report'' (2002). The hero is subject to investigation in ''

Gattaca ''Gattaca'' is a 1997 American dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol in his List of directorial debuts, feature directorial debut. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Go ...

'' (1997), which fuses film noir motifs with a scenario indebted to ''

Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hier ...

''. ''

The Thirteenth Floor ''The Thirteenth Floor'' is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by Josef Rusnak and produced by Roland Emmerich’s Centropolis Entertainment. Loosely based on Daniel F. Galouye’s 1964 novel, '' Simulacron-3,'' it is a remake o ...

'' (1999), like ''Blade Runner'', is an explicit homage to classic noir, in this case involving speculations about

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...

. Science fiction, noir, and

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

are brought together in the Japanese films ''

Ghost in the Shell ''Ghost in the Shell'' is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized between 1989 and 1991, is set in mid-21st century Japan and tel ...

'' (1995) and '' Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence'' (2004), both directed by

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of acclaimed anime films, including ''Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer'' (1984), ''Angel's Egg'' (1985), '' ...

, and in films such as

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

's ''

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

'' (2006) and the Disney sequel '' Tron: Legacy'' (2010) from America.Subgenre – Tech Noir, AllMovie
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Terminology

Origins

Precursors

Science fiction noir

Cyber noir

Development of tech-noir

See also

References

Further reading