The Struggles of Defining Noir

I know that the word “Noir” is French for “black” or “dark,” but that so does not help clarify the deeper feelings that noir evokes in its readers and viewers. The term noir might help explain the so-called “aesthetic” of Noir films in terms of visuals, but it still doesn’t bring you any closer to figuring how what noir really is all about. Having said that, I struggle in trying to understand and articulate what I feel its themes are, but I still want to give it a try.
There is a feeling or more like an idea of chasing the unattainable in Noir. In the Maltese Falcon, the chase for a statue of a bird ended with every character, Spade, Gutman, Cairo, Wilmer, and Briget, ending empty-handed. Well everyone but Spade ended worse where they started off. This creates a fantasy that the characters constantly chase to achieve another aspect that is included in Noir, which is: the motivations of the main characters. In Noir films and books the main characters have their own self-interest that pushes them into action creating the common theme of cynicism. Now, this can change depending on the character, but more than likely it has to do with their greed which coerces the characters to take a duplicitous stance on their relationships. The characters in noir can be characterized, as we said in class, as “a world of bad men and trashy women.”
I’m still not confident in myself when answering “What is Noir,” but I have learned that Noir isn’t a genre that can be chopped up into single words like crime, romance, thriller, action, or mystery. It’s all of those qualities, but something is lacking. When trying to define Noir I think it’s important to focus on what it’s not. The characters in Noir give the consumers of this genre a chance to see real-life human qualities without a rose-colored glass.