The term "noir" was already used to describe the poetic
realist films of the thirties (and in retrospect, they have
lots of noir elements). The term was picked up again by a
French critic (Nino Frank?) when he was writing about the
fourties' Hollywood crime movies.
Marcel Duhamel was one of the Surrealists, hence his
enthusiasm about pessimistic and nihilistic aspects of the
books he selected for Série Noire.
(By the way, it is appropriate for Hubert Cornfield to have
used his Lionel White adoption as an homage to Magritte, who
also was one of the Surrealists.)
Juri
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