I'm sure a lot of people would agree with you about Cape Fear and of course it's totally fine for us to have a different viewpoint on what is and isn't noir...The more noir I watch the more I realize that the noir definition is ambiguous at best and my opinion is just that an opinion and open to change. BTW what Cape Fear were you talking about? I just remembered there was a remake of that movie.
I've never seen the Scorsese remake, only the original.
I should probably actually watch the remake at some point, I suspect it probably wouldn't be too bad given the people involved. I suspect that one would probably play more as a thriller-horror.
The most coherent summary of defining classic noir I've heard is less of a genre and more of a general film trend of the nihilism, fatalism, and seedy underside of America or the American dream that Americans felt after coming back from WW2, often in spite of being told we lived a great new world. It conveyed this by heavy usage of light and shadow (influence heavily by German Expressionism on that front, partially because of the German filmmakers who fled Germany came to America - which also influenced the horror movies of the 30s). This stands in contrast the general trend of escapist musicals that were popular during the Depression era preceding it. Then generalize this general vibe and fatalism to other countries, not just America. Entries in it can vary from dark melodramas like Sunset Blvd (but for some reason not All About Eve, which seems correct, but also confusing because they're seem very similar categorically otherwise) to mystery-thrillers (and not all, but it's tough for me to figure out why) to general crime (such as mob and/or detective) movies. Then factor in general looseness, and be broad with the crime/mob movies of the 40s and 50s, and I think we get about there.
In retrospect, I think I've finally come around on Vertigo, and partly because of this noir (and the neo-noir) countdown. Because I think it only makes sense to view it as a noir akin to In a Lonely Place - as a dark night of the soul/god's lonely man type of movie.
Neo-noir... when you take the neo-noir subcategory of modern noirs, where it's an update of noirs to the modern era (as opposed to retro-noirs which are period pieces that fetishize the classic noir films (I'm stealing these definitions/contrast from some site I googled during the countdown, but I can't remember which)), it gets really confusing on what's an updated version of a classic-noir crime film vs just a crime film in my mind. Though I am keeping in mind the difference between a neo-western (e.g. No Country for Old Men) vs a modern western (Unforgiven) as reference point for that definition. For the record, I included both neo-noirs and retro-noirs on my ballot for Thief. I also just buried my head on guessing how much I considered a movie a neo-noir. I kind of just gave up after a point and felt nothing definite.
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