Tech noir is a hybrid genre of fiction, particularly film, combiningfilm noir andscience fiction, epitomized byRidley Scott'sBlade Runner (1982)[1] andJames Cameron'sThe Terminator (1984).[2] The tech-noir presents "technology as a destructive and dystopian force that threatens every aspect of our reality".[3]
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It is also known ascyber noir,future noir,neo-noir science fiction andscience fiction noir.
Cameron coined the term inThe Terminator, using it as the name of anundergroundnightclub, but also to invoke associations with both the film noir genre and with futuristic sci-fi.[4]
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The wordnoir, fromfilm 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, withRaymond Chandler'sThe Big Sleep andFarewell, 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 asneo-noir (resurgence of the form in 1960s and 1970s America); theCold War noir (exploiting the tension and paranoia of the nuclear age);blaxploitation 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.
Beginning in the 1960s, the most significant trend in film noir crossovers or hybrids has involved science fiction. InJean-Luc Godard'sAlphaville (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 adystopian, near-future world via a self-evidently noir detection plot; starringCharlton Heston (the lead inTouch of Evil), it also features classic noir standbysJoseph Cotten,Edward G. Robinson, andWhit Bissell. The movie was directed byRichard Fleischer, who two decades before had directed several strong B noirs, includingArmored Car Robbery (1950) andThe Narrow Margin (1952).
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 aportmanteau that describes the conjunction of technology and science fiction: cyber- as incyberpunk and -noir as film noir.
The related cyberpunk genre itself is another portmanteau: cyber- being the prefix used incybernetics, 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 ofpunk music and subculture, where the keyword is alienation.
The cynical and stylish perspective of classic film noir had a formative effect on thecyberpunk genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1980s. The movie most directly influential on cyberpunk wasBlade Runner (1982),[5] directed byRidley Scott, which pays clear and evocative homage to the classic noir mode throughout the film. (Scott would subsequently direct the 1987 neo-noir crime melodramaSomeone to Watch Over Me.)
Strong elements of tech-noir also feature inTerry Gilliam's "dystopian satire"Brazil (1985) andThe City of Lost Children (1995), one of two "Gilliamesque" films byJean-Pierre Jeunet andMarc Caro that were influenced by Gilliam's work in general and byBrazil in particular (the other one beingDelicatessen). Scholar Jamaluddin Bin Aziz has observed how "the shadow of Philip Marlowe lingers on" in such other "future noir" films as12 Monkeys (Gilliam, 1995),Dark City (1998), andMinority Report (2002).[6] The hero is subject to investigation inGattaca (1997), which fuses film noir motifs with a scenario indebted toBrave New World.The Thirteenth Floor (1999), likeBlade Runner, is an explicit homage to classic noir, in this case involving speculations aboutvirtual reality. Science fiction, noir, andanimation are brought together in the Japanese filmsGhost in the Shell (1995) andGhost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), both directed byMamoru Oshii, and in films such asFrance'sRenaissance (2006) and the Disney sequelTron: Legacy (2010) from America.[7]
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