title: Film noir

text: The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general. A prime example is "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955); based on a novel by Mickey Spillane, the best-selling of all the hardboiled authors, here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer. As described by Paul Schrader, "Robert Aldrich's teasing direction carries "noir" to its sleaziest and most perversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit' [which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb." Orson Welles's baroquely styled "Touch of Evil" (1958) is frequently cited as the last noir of the classic period. Some scholars believe film noir never really ended, but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir. A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside the classic era to be something other than genuine film noir. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion. These later films are often called neo-noir.


title: Film noir

text: While the inceptive noir, "Stranger on the Third Floor", was a B picture directed by a virtual unknown, many of the films noir still remembered were A-list productions by well-known film makers. Debuting as a director with "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), John Huston followed with "Key Largo" (1948) and "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950). Opinion is divided on the noir status of several Alfred Hitchcock thrillers from the era; at least four qualify by consensus: "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), "Notorious" (1946), "Strangers on a Train" (1951) and "The Wrong Man" (1956), Otto Preminger's success with "Laura" (1944) made his name and helped demonstrate noir's adaptability to a high-gloss 20th Century-Fox presentation. Among Hollywood's most celebrated directors of the era, arguably none worked more often in a noir mode than Preminger; his other noirs include "Fallen Angel" (1945), "Whirlpool" (1949), "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (1950) (all for Fox) and "Angel Face" (1952). A half-decade after "Double Indemnity" and "The Lost Weekend", Billy Wilder made "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) and "Ace in the Hole" (1951), noirs that were not so much crime dramas as satires on Hollywood and the news media respectively. "In a Lonely Place" (1950) was Nicholas Ray's breakthrough; his other noirs include his debut, "They Live by Night" (1948) and "On Dangerous Ground" (1952), noted for their unusually sympathetic treatment of characters alienated from the social mainstream.


title: Film noir

text: Orson Welles had notorious problems with financing but his three film noirs were well-budgeted: "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947) received top-level, "prestige" backing, while "The Stranger" (1946), his most conventional film, and "Touch of Evil" (1958), an unmistakably personal work, were funded at levels lower but still commensurate with headlining releases. Like "The Stranger", Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Window" (1945) was a production of the independent International Pictures. Lang's follow-up, "Scarlet Street" (1945), was one of the few classic noirs to be officially censored: filled with erotic innuendo, it was temporarily banned in Milwaukee, Atlanta and New York State. "Scarlet Street" was a semi-independent, cosponsored by Universal and Lang's Diana Productions, of which the film's co-star, Joan Bennett, was the second biggest shareholder. Lang, Bennett and her husband, the Universal veteran and Diana production head Walter Wanger, made "Secret Beyond the Door" (1948) in similar fashion.


title: Film noir

text: Before leaving the United States while subject to the Hollywood blacklist, Jules Dassin made two classic noirs that also straddled the major/independent line: "Brute Force" (1947) and the influential documentary-style "The Naked City" (1948) were developed by producer Mark Hellinger, who had an "inside/outside" contract with Universal similar to Wanger's. Years earlier, working at Warner Bros., Hellinger had produced three films for Raoul Walsh, the proto-noirs "They Drive by Night" (1940), "Manpower" (1941) and "High Sierra" (1941), now regarded as a seminal work in noir's development. Walsh had no great name during his half-century as a director but his noirs "White Heat" (1949) and "The Enforcer" (1951) had A-list stars and are seen as important examples of the cycle. Other directors associated with top-of-the-bill Hollywood films noir include Edward Dmytryk ("Murder, My Sweet" (1944), "Crossfire" (1947))—the first important noir director to fall prey to the industry blacklist—as well as Henry Hathaway ("The Dark Corner" (1946), "Kiss of Death" (1947)) and John Farrow ("The Big Clock" (1948), "Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (1948)).


title: Film noir

text: Most of the Hollywood films considered to be classic noirs fall into the category of the B movie. Some were Bs in the most precise sense, produced to run on the bottom of double bills by a low-budget unit of one of the major studios or by one of the smaller Poverty Row outfits, from the relatively well-off Monogram to shakier ventures such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). Jacques Tourneur had made over thirty Hollywood Bs (a few now highly regarded, most forgotten) before directing the A-level "Out of the Past", described by scholar Robert Ottoson as "the "ne plus ultra" of forties film noir". Movies with budgets a step up the ladder, known as "intermediates" by the industry, might be treated as A or B pictures depending on the circumstances. Monogram created Allied Artists in the late 1940s to focus on this sort of production. Robert Wise ("Born to Kill" [1947], "The Set-Up" [1949]) and Anthony Mann ("T-Men" [1947] and "Raw Deal" [1948]) each made a series of impressive intermediates, many of them noirs, before graduating to steady work on big-budget productions. Mann did some of his most celebrated work with cinematographer John Alton, a specialist in what James Naremore called "hypnotic moments of light-in-darkness". "He Walked by Night" (1948), shot by Alton though credited solely to Alfred Werker, directed in large part by Mann, demonstrates their technical mastery and exemplifies the late 1940s trend of "police procedural" crime dramas. It was released, like other Mann-Alton noirs, by the small Eagle-Lion company; it was the inspiration for the "Dragnet" series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and television in 1951.


title: Film noir

text: Several directors associated with noir built well-respected oeuvres largely at the B-movie/intermediate level. Samuel Fuller's brutal, visually energetic films such as "Pickup on South Street" (1953) and "Underworld U.S.A." (1961) earned him a unique reputation; his advocates praise him as "primitive" and "barbarous". Joseph H. Lewis directed noirs as diverse as "Gun Crazy" (1950) and "The Big Combo" (1955). The former—whose screenplay was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, disguised by a front—features a bank hold-up sequence shown in an unbroken take of over three minutes that was influential. "The Big Combo" was shot by John Alton and took the shadowy noir style to its outer limits. The most distinctive films of Phil Karlson ("The Phenix City Story" [1955] and "The Brothers Rico" [1957]) tell stories of vice organized on a monstrous scale. The work of other directors in this tier of the industry, such as Felix E. Feist ("The Devil Thumbs a Ride" [1947], "Tomorrow Is Another Day" [1951]), has become obscure. Edgar G. Ulmer spent most of his Hollywood career working at B studios and once in a while on projects that achieved intermediate status; for the most part, on unmistakable Bs. In 1945, while at PRC, he directed a noir cult classic, "Detour". Ulmer's other noirs include "Strange Illusion" (1945), also for PRC; "Ruthless" (1948), for Eagle-Lion, which had acquired PRC the previous year and "Murder Is My Beat" (1955), for Allied Artists.


title: Film noir

text: A number of low- and modestly-budgeted noirs were made by independent, often actor-owned, companies contracting with larger studios for distribution. Serving as producer, writer, director and top-billed performer, Hugo Haas made films like "Pickup" (1951), "The Other Woman" (1954) and Jacques Tourneur, "The Fearmakers (1958)". It was in this way that accomplished noir actress Ida Lupino established herself as the sole female director in Hollywood during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s. She does not appear in the best-known film she directed, "The Hitch-Hiker" (1953), developed by her company, The Filmakers, with support and distribution by RKO. It is one of the seven classic film noirs produced largely outside of the major studios that have been chosen for the United States National Film Registry. Of the others, one was a small-studio release: "Detour". Four were independent productions distributed by United Artists, the "studio without a studio": "Gun Crazy"; "Kiss Me Deadly"; "D.O.A." (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), directed by Alexander Mackendrick. One was an independent distributed by MGM, the industry leader: "Force of Evil" (1948), directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield, both of whom were blacklisted in the 1950s. Independent production usually meant restricted circumstances but "Sweet Smell of Success", despite the plans of the production team, was clearly not made on the cheap, though like many other cherished A-budget noirs, it might be said to have a B-movie soul.


title: Film noir

text: Perhaps no director better displayed that spirit than the German-born Robert Siodmak, who had already made a score of films before his 1940 arrival in Hollywood. Working mostly on A features, he made eight films now regarded as classic-era films noir (a figure matched only by Lang and Mann). In addition to "The Killers", Burt Lancaster's debut and a Hellinger/Universal co-production, Siodmak's other important contributions to the genre include 1944's "Phantom Lady" (a top-of-the-line B and Woolrich adaptation), the ironically titled "Christmas Holiday" (1944), and "Cry of the City" (1948). "Criss Cross" (1949), with Lancaster again the lead, exemplifies how Siodmak brought the virtues of the B-movie to the A noir. In addition to the relatively looser constraints on character and message at lower budgets, the nature of B production lent itself to the noir style for economic reasons: dim lighting saved on electricity and helped cloak cheap sets (mist and smoke also served the cause); night shooting was often compelled by hurried production schedules; plots with obscure motivations and intriguingly elliptical transitions were sometimes the consequence of hastily written scripts, of which there was not always enough time or money to shoot every scene. In "Criss Cross", Siodmak achieved these effects with purpose, wrapping them around Yvonne De Carlo, playing the most understandable of femme fatales; Dan Duryea, in one of his many charismatic villain roles; and Lancaster as an ordinary laborer turned armed robber, doomed by a romantic obsession.


title: Film noir

text: Some critics regard classic film noir as a cycle exclusive to the United States; Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, for example, argue, "With the Western, film noir shares the distinction of being an indigenous American form ... a wholly American film style." However, although the term "film noir" was originally coined to describe Hollywood movies, it was an international phenomenon. Even before the beginning of the generally accepted classic period, there were films made far from Hollywood that can be seen in retrospect as films noir, for example, the French productions "Pépé le Moko" (1937), directed by Julien Duvivier, and "Le Jour se lève" (1939), directed by Marcel Carné. In addition, Mexico experienced a vibrant film noir period from roughly 1946 to 1952, which was around the same time film noir was blossoming in the United States.


title: Film noir

text: During the classic period, there were many films produced in Europe, particularly in France, that share elements of style, theme, and sensibility with American films noir and may themselves be included in the genre's canon. In certain cases, the interrelationship with Hollywood noir is obvious: American-born director Jules Dassin moved to France in the early 1950s as a result of the Hollywood blacklist, and made one of the most famous French film noirs, "Rififi" (1955). Other well-known French films often classified as noir include "Quai des Orfèvres" (1947) and "Les Diaboliques" (1955), both directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. "Casque d'Or" (1952), "Touchez pas au grisbi" (1954), and "Le Trou" (1960) directed by Jacques Becker; and "Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" (1958), directed by Louis Malle. French director Jean-Pierre Melville is widely recognized for his tragic, minimalist films noir—"Bob le flambeur" (1955), from the classic period, was followed by "Le Doulos" (1962), "Le deuxième souffle" 1966), "Le Samouraï" (1967), and "Le Cercle rouge" (1970). In the 1960s, Greek films noir ""The Secret of the Red Mantle"" and ""The Fear"" allowed audience for an anti-ableist reading which challenged stereotypes of disability. .


title: Film noir

text: Scholar Andrew Spicer argues that British film noir evidences a greater debt to French poetic realism than to the expressionistic American mode of noir. Examples of British noir from the classic period include "Brighton Rock" (1947), directed by John Boulting; "They Made Me a Fugitive" (1947), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti; "The Small Back Room" (1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; "The October Man" (1950), directed by Roy Ward Baker; and "Cast a Dark Shadow" (1955), directed by Lewis Gilbert. Terence Fisher directed several low-budget thrillers in a noir mode for Hammer Film Productions, including "The Last Page" (a.k.a. "Man Bait"; 1952), "Stolen Face" (1952), and "Murder by Proxy" (a.k.a. "Blackout"; 1954). Before leaving for France, Jules Dassin had been obliged by political pressure to shoot his last English-language film of the classic noir period in Great Britain: "Night and the City" (1950). Though it was conceived in the United States and was not only directed by an American but also stars two American actors—Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney—it is technically a UK production, financed by 20th Century-Fox's British subsidiary. The most famous of classic British noirs is director Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (1949), from a screenplay by Graham Greene. Set in Vienna immediately after World War II, it also stars two American actors, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, who had appeared together in "Citizen Kane".


title: Film noir

text: Elsewhere, Italian director Luchino Visconti adapted Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice" as "Ossessione" (1943), regarded both as one of the great noirs and a seminal film in the development of neorealism. (This was not even the first screen version of Cain's novel, having been preceded by the French "Le Dernier Tournant" in 1939.) In Japan, the celebrated Akira Kurosawa directed several films recognizable as films noir, including "Drunken Angel" (1948), "Stray Dog" (1949), "The Bad Sleep Well" (1960), and "High and Low" (1963). Spanish author Mercedes Formica's novel "La ciudad perdida" (The Lost City) was adapted into film in 1960.


title: Film noir

text: Among the first major neo-noir films—the term often applied to films that consciously refer back to the classic noir tradition—was the French "Tirez sur le pianiste" (1960), directed by François Truffaut from a novel by one of the gloomiest of American noir fiction writers, David Goodis. Noir crime films and melodramas have been produced in many countries in the post-classic area. Some of these are quintessentially self-aware neo-noirs—for example, "Il Conformista" (1969; Italy), "Der Amerikanische Freund" (1977; Germany), "The Element of Crime" (1984; Denmark), and "El Aura" (2005; Argentina). Others simply share narrative elements and a version of the hardboiled sensibility associated with classic noir, such as "Castle of Sand" (1974; Japan), "Insomnia" (1997; Norway), "Croupier" (1998; UK), and "Blind Shaft" (2003; China).


title: Film noir

text: The neo-noir film genre developed mid-way into the Cold War. This cinematological trend reflected much of the cynicism and the possibility of nuclear annihilation of the era. This new genre introduced innovations that were not available to earlier noir films. The violence was also more potent.


title: Film noir

text: While it is hard to draw a line between some of the noir films of the early 1960s such as "Blast of Silence" (1961) and "Cape Fear" (1962) and the noirs of the late 1950s, new trends emerged in the post-classic era. "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer, "Shock Corridor" (1963), directed by Samuel Fuller, and "Brainstorm" (1965), directed by experienced noir character actor William Conrad, all treat the theme of mental dispossession within stylistic and tonal frameworks derived from classic film noir. "The Manchurian Candidate" examined the situation of American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War. Incidents that occurred during the war as well as those post-war functioned as an inspiration for a "Cold War Noir" subgenre. The television series "The Fugitive" (1963–67) brought classic noir themes and mood to the small screen for an extended run.


title: Film noir

text: In a different vein, films began to appear that self-consciously acknowledged the conventions of classic film noir as historical archetypes to be revived, rejected, or reimagined. These efforts typify what came to be known as neo-noir. Though several late classic noirs, "Kiss Me Deadly" in particular, were deeply self-knowing and post-traditional in conception, none tipped its hand so evidently as to be remarked on by American critics at the time. The first major film to overtly work this angle was French director Jean-Luc Godard's "À bout de souffle" ("Breathless"; 1960), which pays its literal respects to Bogart and his crime films while brandishing a bold new style for a new day. In the United States, Arthur Penn (1965's "Mickey One", drawing inspiration from Truffaut's "Tirez sur le pianiste" and other French New Wave films), John Boorman (1967's "Point Blank", similarly caught up, though in the "Nouvelle vague'"s deeper waters), and Alan J. Pakula (1971's "Klute") directed films that knowingly related themselves to the original films noir, inviting audiences in on the game.


title: Film noir

text: A manifest affiliation with noir traditions—which, by its nature, allows different sorts of commentary on them to be inferred—can also provide the basis for explicit critiques of those traditions. In 1973, director Robert Altman flipped off noir piety with "The Long Goodbye". Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler, it features one of Bogart's most famous characters, but in iconoclastic fashion: Philip Marlowe, the prototypical hardboiled detective, is replayed as a hapless misfit, almost laughably out of touch with contemporary mores and morality. Where Altman's subversion of the film noir mythos was so irreverent as to outrage some contemporary critics, around the same time Woody Allen was paying affectionate, at points idolatrous homage to the classic mode with "Play It Again, Sam" (1972). The "blaxploitation" film "Shaft" (1971), wherein Richard Roundtree plays the titular African-American private eye, John Shaft, takes conventions from classic noir.


title: Film noir

text: The most acclaimed of the neo-noirs of the era was director Roman Polanski's 1974 "Chinatown". Written by Robert Towne, it is set in 1930s Los Angeles, an accustomed noir locale nudged back some few years in a way that makes the pivotal loss of innocence in the story even crueler. Where Polanski and Towne raised noir to a black apogee by turning rearward, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the noir attitude crashing into the present day with "Taxi Driver" (1976), a crackling, bloody-minded gloss on bicentennial America. In 1978, Walter Hill wrote and directed "The Driver", a chase film as might have been imagined by Jean-Pierre Melville in an especially abstract mood.


title: Film noir

text: Hill was already a central figure in 1970s noir of a more straightforward manner, having written the script for director Sam Peckinpah's "The Getaway" (1972), adapting a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson, as well as for two tough private eye films: an original screenplay for "Hickey & Boggs" (1972) and an adaptation of a novel by Ross Macdonald, the leading literary descendant of Hammett and Chandler, for "The Drowning Pool" (1975). Some of the strongest 1970s noirs, in fact, were unwinking remakes of the classics, "neo" mostly by default: the heartbreaking "Thieves Like Us" (1974), directed by Altman from the same source as Ray's "They Live by Night", and "Farewell, My Lovely" (1975), the Chandler tale made classically as "Murder, My Sweet", remade here with Robert Mitchum in his last notable noir role. Detective series, prevalent on American television during the period, updated the hardboiled tradition in different ways, but the show conjuring the most noir tone was a horror crossover touched with shaggy, "Long Goodbye"-style humor: "" (1974–75), featuring a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating strange, usually supernatural occurrences.


title: Film noir

text: The turn of the decade brought Scorsese's black-and-white "Raging Bull" (1980, cowritten by Schrader). An acknowledged masterpiecein 2007 the American Film Institute ranked it as the greatest American film of the 1980s and the fourth greatest of all timeit tells the story of a boxer's moral self-destruction that recalls in both theme and visual ambiance noir dramas such as "Body and Soul" (1947) and "Champion" (1949). From 1981, "Body Heat", written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, invokes a different set of classic noir elements, this time in a humid, erotically charged Florida setting. Its success confirmed the commercial viability of neo-noir at a time when the major Hollywood studios were becoming increasingly risk averse. The mainstreaming of neo-noir is evident in such films as "Black Widow" (1987), "Shattered" (1991), and "Final Analysis" (1992). Few neo-noirs have made more money or more wittily updated the tradition of the noir double entendre than "Basic Instinct" (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas. The film also demonstrates how neo-noir's polychrome palette can reproduce many of the expressionistic effects of classic black-and-white noir.


title: Film noir

text: Like "Chinatown", its more complex predecessor, Curtis Hanson's Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" (1997), based on the James Ellroy novel, demonstrates the opposite tendency—the deliberately retro film noir; its tale of corrupt cops and femmes fatale is seemingly lifted straight from a film of 1953, the year in which it is set. Director David Fincher followed the immensely successful neo-noir "Seven" (1995) with a film that developed into a cult favorite after its original, disappointing release: "Fight Club" (1999), a "sui generis" mix of noir aesthetic, perverse comedy, speculative content, and satiric intent.


title: Film noir

text: Working generally with much smaller budgets, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the most extensive oeuvres influenced by classic noir, with films such as "Blood Simple" (1984) and "Fargo" (1996), the latter considered by some a supreme work in the neo-noir mode. The Coens cross noir with other generic traditions in the gangster drama "Miller's Crossing" (1990)—loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels "Red Harvest" and "The Glass Key"—and the comedy "The Big Lebowski" (1998), a tribute to Chandler and an homage to Altman's version of "The Long Goodbye". The characteristic work of David Lynch combines film noir tropes with scenarios driven by disturbed characters such as the sociopathic criminal played by Dennis Hopper in "Blue Velvet" (1986) and the delusionary protagonist of "Lost Highway" (1997). The "Twin Peaks" cycle, both the TV series (1990–91) and a film, "" (1992), puts a detective plot through a succession of bizarre spasms. David Cronenberg also mixes surrealism and noir in "Naked Lunch" (1991), inspired by William S. Burroughs' novel.


title: Film noir

text: Perhaps no American neo-noirs better reflect the classic noir B movie spirit than those of director-writer Quentin Tarantino. Neo-noirs of his such as "Reservoir Dogs" (1992) and "Pulp Fiction" (1994) display a relentlessly self-reflexive, sometimes tongue-in-cheek sensibility, similar to the work of the New Wave directors and the Coens. Other films from the era readily identifiable as neo-noir (some retro, some more au courant) include director John Dahl's "Kill Me Again" (1989), "Red Rock West" (1992), and "The Last Seduction" (1993); four adaptations of novels by Jim Thompson—"The Kill-Off" (1989), "After Dark, My Sweet" (1990), "The Grifters" (1990), and the remake of "The Getaway" (1994); and many more, including adaptations of the work of other major noir fiction writers: "The Hot Spot" (1990), from "Hell Hath No Fury", by Charles Williams; "Miami Blues" (1990), from the novel by Charles Willeford; and "Out of Sight" (1998), from the novel by Elmore Leonard. Several films by director-writer David Mamet involve noir elements: "House of Games" (1987), "Homicide" (1991), "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997), and "Heist" (2001). On television, "Moonlighting" (1985–89) paid homage to classic noir while demonstrating an unusual appreciation of the sense of humor often found in the original cycle. Between 1983 and 1989, Mickey Spillane's hardboiled private eye Mike Hammer was played with wry gusto by Stacy Keach in a series and several stand-alone television films (an unsuccessful revival followed in 1997–98). The British miniseries "The Singing Detective" (1986), written by Dennis Potter, tells the story of a mystery writer named Philip Marlow; widely considered one of the finest neo-noirs in any medium, some critics rank it among the greatest television productions of all time.


title: Film noir

text: Among big-budget auteurs, Michael Mann has worked frequently in a neo-noir mode, with such films as "Thief" (1981) and "Heat" (1995) and the TV series "Miami Vice" (1984–89) and "Crime Story" (1986–88). Mann's output exemplifies a primary strain of neo-noir, or as it is affectionately called, "neon noir", in which classic themes and tropes are revisited in a contemporary setting with an up-to-date visual style and rock- or hip hop-based musical soundtrack.


title: Film noir

text: Neo-noir film borrows from and reflects many of the characteristics of the film noir: the presence of crime and violence, complex characters and plot-lines, mystery, and moral ambivalence, all of which come into play in the neon-noir sub-genre. But more than just exhibiting the superficial traits of the genre, neon-noir emphasizes the socio-critique of film noir, recalling the specific socio-cultural dimensions of the interwar years when noirs first became prominent; a time of global existential crisis, depression and the mass movement of the rural population to cities. Long shots or montages of cityscapes, often portrayed as dark and menacing, are suggestive of what Dueck referred to as a ‘bleak societal perspective’, providing a critique on global capitalism and consumerism. Other characteristics include the use of highly stylized lighting techniques such chiaroscuro, and neon signs and brightly lit buildings that provide a sense of alienation and entrapment.


title: Film noir

text: Accentuating the use of artificial and neon lighting in the films-noir of the '40s and '50s, neon-noir films accentuate this aesthetic with electrifying color and manipulated light in order to highlight their socio-cultural critiques and their references to contemporary and pop culture. In doing so, neon-noir films present the themes of urban decay, consumerist decadence and capitalism, existentialism, sexuality, and issues of race and violence in the contemporary culture, not only in America, but the globalized world at large.


title: Film noir

text: Neon-noirs seek to bring the contemporary noir, somewhat diluted under the umbrella of neo-noir, back to the exploration of culture: class, race, gender, patriarchy, and capitalism. Neon-noirs present an existential exploration of society in a hyper-technological and globalized world. Illustrating society as decadent and consumerist, and identity as confused and anxious, neon-noirs reposition the contemporary noir in the setting of urban decay, often featuring scenes set in underground city haunts: brothels, nightclubs, casinos, strip bars, pawnshops, laundromats.


title: Film noir

text: Neon-noirs were popularized in the '70s and '80s by films such as "Taxi Driver" (1976), "Blade Runner" (1982), and films from David Lynch, such as "Blue Velvet" (1986) and later, "Lost Highway" (1997). Other titles from this era included Brian De Palma's "Blow Out" (1981) and the Coen Brothers' debut "Blood Simple" (1984). More currently, films such as Harmony Korine’s highly provocative "Spring Breakers" (2012), and Danny Boyle’s "Trance" (2013) have been especially noted for their neon-infused rendering of film noir; while "Trance" was celebrated for ‘shak(ing) the ingredients (of the noir) like colored sand in a jar’, "Spring Breakers" notoriously produced a slew of criticism referring to its ‘fever-dream’ aesthetic and ‘neon-caked explosion of excess’ (Kohn). Another neon-noir endowed with the 'fever-dream' aesthetic is "The Persian Connection", expressly linked to Lynchian aesthetics as a neon-drenched contemporary noir.


title: Film noir

text: Neon-noir can be seen as a response to the over-use of the term neo-noir. While the term neo-noir functions to bring noir into the contemporary landscape, it has often been criticized for its dilution of the noir genre. Author Robert Arnett commented on its "amorphous" reach: "any film featuring a detective or crime qualifies". The neon-noir, more specifically, seeks to revive noir sensibilities in a more targeted manner of reference, focalizing socio-cultural commentary and a hyper-stylized aesthetic.


title: Film noir

text: The Coen brothers make reference to the noir tradition again with "The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001); a black-and-white crime melodrama set in 1949; it features a scene apparently staged to mirror one from "Out of the Past". Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" (2001) continued in his characteristic vein, making the classic noir setting of Los Angeles the venue for a noir-inflected psychological jigsaw puzzle. British-born director Christopher Nolan's black-and-white debut, "Following" (1998), was an overt homage to classic noir. During the new century's first decade, he was one of the leading Hollywood directors of neo-noir with the acclaimed "Memento" (2000) and the remake of "Insomnia" (2002).


title: Film noir

text: Director Sean Penn's "The Pledge" (2001), though adapted from a very self-reflexive novel by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, plays noir comparatively straight, to devastating effect. Screenwriter David Ayer updated the classic noir bad-cop tale, typified by "Shield for Murder" (1954) and "Rogue Cop" (1954), with his scripts for "Training Day" (2001) and, adapting a story by James Ellroy, "Dark Blue" (2002); he later wrote and directed the even darker "Harsh Times" (2006). Michael Mann's "Collateral" (2004) features a performance by Tom Cruise as an assassin in the lineage of "Le Samouraï". The torments of "The Machinist" (2004), directed by Brad Anderson, evoke both "Fight Club" and "Memento". In 2005, Shane Black directed "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", basing his screenplay in part on a crime novel by Brett Halliday, who published his first stories back in the 1920s. The film plays with an awareness not only of classic noir but also of neo-noir reflexivity itself.


title: Film noir

text: With ultra-violent films such as "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002) and "Thirst" (2009), Park Chan-wook of South Korea has been the most prominent director outside of the United States to work regularly in a noir mode in the new millennium. The most commercially successful neo-noir of this period has been "Sin City" (2005), directed by Robert Rodriguez in extravagantly stylized black and white with splashes of color. The film is based on a series of comic books created by Frank Miller (credited as the film's codirector), which are in turn openly indebted to the works of Spillane and other pulp mystery authors. Similarly, graphic novels provide the basis for "Road to Perdition" (2002), directed by Sam Mendes, and "A History of Violence" (2005), directed by David Cronenberg; the latter was voted best film of the year in the annual "Village Voice" poll. Writer-director Rian Johnson's "Brick" (2005), featuring present-day high schoolers speaking a version of 1930s hardboiled argot, won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the Sundance Film Festival. The television series "Veronica Mars" (2004–07) and the movie "Veronica Mars" (2014) also brought a youth-oriented twist to film noir. Examples of this sort of generic crossover have been dubbed "teen noir".


title: Film noir

text: Neo-noir films released in the 2010s include Kim Jee-woon’s "I Saw the Devil" (2010), Fred Cavaye’s "Point Blank" (2010), Na Hong-jin’s "The Yellow Sea" (2010), Nicolas Winding Refn’s "Drive" (2011), Claire Denis' "Bastards" (2013) and Dan Gilroy's "Nightcrawler" (2014).


title: Film noir

text: The Science Channel broadcast the 2021 science documentary series "Killers of the Cosmos" in a format it describes as "space noir." In the series, actor Aidan Gillen in animated form serves as the host of the series while portraying a private investigator who takes on "cases" in which he "hunts down" lethal threats to humanity posed by the cosmos. The animated sequences combine the characteristics of film noir with those of a pulp fiction graphic novel set in the mid-20th century, and they link conventional live-action documentary segments in which experts describe the potentially deadly phenomena.


title: Film noir

text: In the post-classic era, a significant trend in noir crossovers has involved science fiction. In Jean-Luc Godard'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, near-future world via a noir detection plot; starring Charlton Heston (the lead in "Touch of Evil"), it also features classic noir standbys Joseph Cotten, Edward G. Robinson, and Whit Bissell. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer, who two decades before had directed several strong B noirs, including "Armored Car Robbery" (1950) and "The Narrow Margin" (1952).


title: Film noir

text: The cynical and stylish perspective of classic film noir had a formative effect on the cyberpunk genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1980s; the film most directly influential on cyberpunk was "Blade Runner" (1982), directed by Ridley Scott, which pays evocative homage to the classic noir mode (Scott subsequently directed the poignant 1987 noir crime melodrama "Someone to Watch Over Me"). Scholar Jamaluddin Bin Aziz has observed how "the shadow of Philip Marlowe lingers on" in such other "future noir" films as "12 Monkeys" (1995), "Dark City" (1998) and "Minority Report" (2002). Fincher's feature debut was "Alien 3" (1992), which evoked the classic noir jail film "Brute Force".


title: Film noir

text: David Cronenberg's "Crash" (1996), an adaptation of the speculative novel by J. G. Ballard, has been described as a "film noir in bruise tones". The hero is the target of investigation in "Gattaca" (1997), which fuses film noir motifs with a scenario indebted to "Brave New World". "The Thirteenth Floor" (1999), like "Blade Runner", is an explicit homage to classic noir, in this case involving speculations about virtual reality. Science fiction, noir, and anime are brought together in the Japanese films of 90s "Ghost in the Shell" (1995) and "" (2004), both directed by Mamoru Oshii. "The Animatrix" (2003), based on and set within the world of "The Matrix" film trilogy, contains an anime short film in classic noir style titled "A Detective Story". Anime television series with science fiction noir themes include "Noir" (2001) and "Cowboy Bebop" (1998).


title: Film noir

text: The 2015 film "Ex Machina" puts an understated film noir spin on the Frankenstein mythos, with the sentient android Ava as a potential "femme fatale", her creator Nathan embodying the abusive husband or father trope, and her would-be rescuer Caleb as a "clueless drifter" enthralled by Ava.


title: Film noir

text: Film noir has been parodied many times in many manners. In 1945, Danny Kaye starred in what appears to be the first intentional film noir parody, "Wonder Man". That same year, Deanna Durbin was the singing lead in the comedic noir "Lady on a Train", which makes fun of Woolrich-brand wistful miserablism. Bob Hope inaugurated the private-eye noir parody with "My Favorite Brunette" (1947), playing a baby-photographer who is mistaken for an ironfisted detective. In 1947 as well, The Bowery Boys appeared in "Hard Boiled Mahoney", which had a similar mistaken-identity plot; they spoofed the genre once more in "Private Eyes" (1953). Two RKO productions starring Robert Mitchum take film noir over the border into self-parody: "The Big Steal" (1949), directed by Don Siegel, and "His Kind of Woman" (1951). The "Girl Hunt" ballet in Vincente Minnelli's "The Band Wagon" (1953) is a ten-minute distillation of—and play on—noir in dance. "The Cheap Detective" (1978), starring Peter Falk, is a broad spoof of several films, including the Bogart classics "The Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca". Carl Reiner's black-and-white "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982) appropriates clips of classic noirs for a farcical pastiche, while his "Fatal Instinct" (1993) sends up noir classic ("Double Indemnity") and neo-noir ("Basic Instinct"). Robert Zemeckis's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988) develops a noir plot set in 1940s L.A. around a host of cartoon characters.


title: Film noir

text: Noir parodies come in darker tones as well. "Murder by Contract" (1958), directed by Irving Lerner, is a deadpan joke on noir, with a denouement as bleak as any of the films it kids. An ultra-low-budget Columbia Pictures production, it may qualify as the first intentional example of what is now called a neo-noir film; it was likely a source of inspiration for both Melville's "Le Samouraï" and Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". Belying its parodic strain, "The Long Goodbye"s final act is seriously grave. "Taxi Driver" caustically deconstructs the "dark" crime film, taking it to an absurd extreme and then offering a conclusion that manages to mock every possible anticipated ending—triumphant, tragic, artfully ambivalent—while being each, all at once. Flirting with splatter status even more brazenly, the Coens' "Blood Simple" is both an exacting pastiche and a gross exaggeration of classic noir. Adapted by director Robinson Devor from a novel by Charles Willeford, "The Woman Chaser" (1999) sends up not just the noir mode but the entire Hollywood filmmaking process, with each shot seemingly staged as the visual equivalent of an acerbic Marlowe wisecrack.


title: Film noir

text: In other media, the television series "Sledge Hammer!" (1986–88) lampoons noir, along with such topics as capital punishment, gun fetishism, and Dirty Harry. "Sesame Street" (1969–curr.) occasionally casts Kermit the Frog as a private eye; the sketches refer to some of the typical motifs of noir films, in particular the voiceover. Garrison Keillor's radio program "A Prairie Home Companion" features the recurring character Guy Noir, a hardboiled detective whose adventures always wander into farce (Guy also appears in the Altman-directed film based on Keillor's show). Firesign Theatre's Nick Danger has trodden the same not-so-mean streets, both on radio and in comedy albums. Cartoons such as "Garfield's Babes and Bullets" (1989) and comic strip characters such as Tracer Bullet of "Calvin and Hobbes" have parodied both film noir and the kindred hardboiled tradition—one of the sources from which film noir sprang and which it now overshadows.


title: Film noir

text: In their original 1955 canon of film noir, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton identified twenty-two Hollywood films released between 1941 and 1952 as core examples; they listed another fifty-nine American films from the period as significantly related to the field of noir. A half-century later, film historians and critics had come to agree on a canon of approximately three hundred films from 1940 to 1958. There remain, however, many differences of opinion over whether other films of the era, among them a number of well-known ones, qualify as films noir or not. For instance, "The Night of the Hunter" (1955), starring Robert Mitchum in an acclaimed performance, is treated as a film noir by some critics, but not by others. Some critics include "Suspicion" (1941), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, in their catalogues of noir; others ignore it. Concerning films made either before or after the classic period, or outside of the United States at any time, consensus is even rarer.


title: Film noir

text: To support their categorization of certain films as noirs and their rejection of others, many critics refer to a set of elements they see as marking examples of the mode. The question of what constitutes the set of noir's identifying characteristics is a fundamental source of controversy. For instance, critics tend to define the model film noir as having a tragic or bleak conclusion, but many acknowledged classics of the genre have clearly happy endings (e.g., "Stranger on the Third Floor," "The Big Sleep", "Dark Passage", and "The Dark Corner"), while the tone of many other noir denouements is ambivalent. Some critics perceive classic noir's hallmark as a distinctive visual style. Others, observing that there is actually considerable stylistic variety among noirs, instead emphasize plot and character type. Still others focus on mood and attitude. No survey of classic noir's identifying characteristics can therefore be considered definitive. In the 1990s and 2000s, critics have increasingly turned their attention to that diverse field of films called neo-noir; once again, there is even less consensus about the defining attributes of such films made outside the classic period.


title: Film noir

text: The low-key lighting schemes of many classic films noir are associated with stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning—a style known as chiaroscuro (a term adopted from Renaissance painting). The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods, cast upon an actor, a wall, or an entire set, are an iconic visual in noir and had already become a cliché well before the neo-noir era. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness—a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood filmmaking. While black-and-white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir, the color films "Leave Her to Heaven" (1945) and "Niagara" (1953) are routinely included in noir filmographies, while "Slightly Scarlet" (1956), "Party Girl" (1958), and "Vertigo" (1958) are classified as noir by varying numbers of critics.


title: Film noir

text: Film noir is also known for its use of low-angle, wide-angle, and skewed, or Dutch angle shots. Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects (such as during the strangulation scene in "Strangers on a Train"), and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature. Night-for-night shooting, as opposed to the Hollywood norm of day-for-night, was often employed. From the mid-1940s forward, location shooting became increasingly frequent in noir.


title: Film noir

text: In an analysis of the visual approach of "Kiss Me Deadly", a late and self-consciously stylized example of classic noir, critic Alain Silver describes how cinematographic choices emphasize the story's themes and mood. In one scene, the characters, seen through a "confusion of angular shapes", thus appear "caught in a tangible vortex or enclosed in a trap." Silver makes a case for how "side light is used ... to reflect character ambivalence", while shots of characters in which they are lit from below "conform to a convention of visual expression which associates shadows cast upward of the face with the unnatural and ominous".


title: Film noir

text: Films noir tend to have unusually convoluted story lines, frequently involving flashbacks and other editing techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence. Framing the entire primary narrative as a flashback is also a standard device. Voiceover narration, sometimes used as a structuring device, came to be seen as a noir hallmark; while classic noir is generally associated with first-person narration (i.e., by the protagonist), Stephen Neale notes that third-person narration is common among noirs of the semidocumentary style. Neo-noirs as varied as "The Element of Crime" (surrealist), "After Dark, My Sweet" (retro), and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (meta) have employed the flashback/voiceover combination.


title: Film noir

text: Bold experiments in cinematic storytelling were sometimes attempted during the classic era: "Lady in the Lake", for example, is shot entirely from the point of view of protagonist Philip Marlowe; the face of star (and director) Robert Montgomery is seen only in mirrors. "The Chase" (1946) takes oneirism and fatalism as the basis for its fantastical narrative system, redolent of certain horror stories, but with little precedent in the context of a putatively realistic genre. In their different ways, both "Sunset Boulevard" and "D.O.A." are tales told by dead men. Latter-day noir has been in the forefront of structural experimentation in popular cinema, as exemplified by such films as "Pulp Fiction", "Fight Club", and "Memento".


title: Film noir

text: Crime, usually murder, is an element of almost all films noir; in addition to standard-issue greed, jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation—by a private eye, a police detective (sometimes acting alone), or a concerned amateur—is the most prevalent, but far from dominant, basic plot. In other common plots the protagonists are implicated in heists or con games, or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs. False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements, as are betrayals and double-crosses. According to J. David Slocum, "protagonists assume the literal identities of dead men in nearly fifteen percent of all noir." Amnesia is fairly epidemic—"noir's version of the common cold", in the words of film historian Lee Server.


title: Film noir

text: Films noir tend to revolve around heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm, often fall guys of one sort or another. The characteristic protagonists of noir are described by many critics as "alienated"; in the words of Silver and Ward, "filled with existential bitterness". Certain archetypal characters appear in many film noirs—hardboiled detectives, femme fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, intrepid claims adjusters, and down-and-out writers. Among characters of every stripe, cigarette smoking is rampant. From historical commentators to neo-noir pictures to pop culture ephemera, the private eye and the femme fatale have been adopted as the quintessential film noir figures, though they do not appear in most films now regarded as classic noir. Of the twenty-six National Film Registry noirs, in only four does the star play a private eye: "The Maltese Falcon", "The Big Sleep", "Out of the Past", and "Kiss Me Deadly". Just four others readily qualify as detective stories: "Laura", "The Killers", "The Naked City", and "Touch of Evil". There is usually an element of drug or alcohol use, particularly as part of the detective's method to solving the crime, as an example the character of Mike Hammer in the 1955 film "Kiss Me Deadly" who walks into a bar saying "Give me a double bourbon, and leave the bottle". Chaumeton and Borde have argued that film noir grew out of the "literature of drugs and alcohol".


title: Film noir

text: Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular—are the location of many of the classic films. In the eyes of many critics, the city is presented in noir as a "labyrinth" or "maze". Bars, lounges, nightclubs, and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action. The climaxes of a substantial number of film noirs take place in visually complex, often industrial settings, such as refineries, factories, trainyards, power plants—most famously the explosive conclusion of "White Heat", set at a chemical plant. In the popular (and, frequently enough, critical) imagination, in noir it is always night and it always raining.


title: Film noir

text: A substantial trend within latter-day noir—dubbed "film soleil" by critic D. K. Holm—heads in precisely the opposite direction, with tales of deception, seduction, and corruption exploiting bright, sun-baked settings, stereotypically the desert or open water, to searing effect. Significant predecessors from the classic and early post-classic eras include "The Lady from Shanghai"; the Robert Ryan vehicle "Inferno" (1953); the French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley", "Plein soleil" ("Purple Noon" in the United States, more accurately rendered elsewhere as "Blazing Sun" or "Full Sun"; 1960); and director Don Siegel's version of "The Killers" (1964). The tendency was at its peak during the late 1980s and 1990s, with films such as "Dead Calm" (1989), "After Dark, My Sweet" (1990), "The Hot Spot" (1990), "Delusion" (1991), "Red Rock West" (1993) and the television series "Miami Vice".


title: Film noir

text: Film noir is often described as essentially pessimistic. The noir stories that are regarded as most characteristic tell of people trapped in unwanted situations (which, in general, they did not cause but are responsible for exacerbating), striving against random, uncaring fate, and are frequently doomed. The films are seen as depicting a world that is inherently corrupt. Classic film noir has been associated by many critics with the American social landscape of the era—in particular, with a sense of heightened anxiety and alienation that is said to have followed World War II. In author Nicholas Christopher's opinion, "it is as if the war, and the social eruptions in its aftermath, unleashed demons that had been bottled up in the national psyche." Films noir, especially those of the 1950s and the height of the Red Scare, are often said to reflect cultural paranoia; "Kiss Me Deadly" is the noir most frequently marshaled as evidence for this claim.


title: Film noir

text: Film noir is often said to be defined by "moral ambiguity", yet the Production Code obliged almost all classic noirs to see that steadfast virtue was ultimately rewarded and vice, in the absence of shame and redemption, severely punished (however dramatically incredible the final rendering of mandatory justice might be). A substantial number of latter-day noirs flout such conventions: vice emerges triumphant in films as varied as the grim "Chinatown" and the ribald "Hot Spot".


title: Film noir

text: The tone of film noir is generally regarded as downbeat; some critics experience it as darker still—"overwhelmingly black", according to Robert Ottoson. Influential critic (and filmmaker) Paul Schrader wrote in a seminal 1972 essay that ""film noir" is defined by tone", a tone he seems to perceive as "hopeless". In describing the adaptation of "Double Indemnity," noir analyst Foster Hirsch describes the "requisite hopeless tone" achieved by the filmmakers, which appears to characterize his view of noir as a whole. On the other hand, definitive film noirs such as "The Big Sleep", "The Lady from Shanghai", "Scarlet Street" and "Double Indemnity" itself are famed for their hardboiled repartee, often imbued with sexual innuendo and self-reflexive humor.


title: Film noir

text: The music of film noir was typically orchestral, per the Hollywood norm, but often with added dissonance. Many of the prime composers, like the directors and cameramen, were European émigrés, e.g., Max Steiner ("The Big Sleep", "Mildred Pierce"), Miklós Rózsa ("Double Indemnity", "The Killers", "Criss Cross"), and Franz Waxman ("Fury", "Dark City", "Night and the City"). "Double Indemnity" is a seminal score, initially disliked by Paramount's music director for its harshness but strongly endorsed by director Billy Wilder and studio chief Buddy DeSylva. There is a widespread popular impression that "sleazy" jazz saxophone and pizzicato bass constitute the sound of noir, but those characteristics arose much later, as in the late-1950s music of Henry Mancini for "Touch of Evil" and television's "Peter Gunn".


title: Orange County, California

text: Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 American states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second-most-densely-populated county in the state behind San Francisco County. The county's three most-populous cities are Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County are on the Pacific coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente.


title: Orange County, California

text: Orange County is included in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county has 34 incorporated cities. Older cities like Old Town Tustin, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Orange, and Fullerton have traditional downtowns dating back to the 19th century, while newer commercial development or "edge cities" stretch along I-5 between Disneyland and Santa Ana and between South Coast Plaza and the Irvine Business Complex, and cluster at Irvine Spectrum. Although single-family homes make up the dominant landscape for most of the county, Northern and Central Orange County is relatively more urbanized and dense as compared to those areas south of Irvine, which are less dense, though still contiguous and primarily suburban rather than exurban.


title: Orange County, California

text: The county is a tourist center, with attractions like Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, Mission San Juan Capistrano, Modjeska House, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Yost Theater, Bowers Museum, Balboa Island, Angel Stadium, Downtown Santa Ana, Crystal Cove Historic District, the Honda Center, the Old Orange County Courthouse, the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks, and several popular beaches along its more than of coastline. It is also home to a major research university, the University of California, Irvine (UCI), along with a number of other notable colleges and universities such as Chapman University and Cal State Fullerton.


title: Orange County, California

text: The northern areas of what is now Orange County were primarily inhabited by the Tongva, while the southern areas of the county, below Aliso Creek, were primarily inhabited by the Acjachemen. Both groups lived in villages throughout the area. Large villages were sometimes multiethnic and multilingual, such as Genga, located in what is now Newport Beach. The village was shared by the Tongva and Acjachemen and was believed to be over 9,500 years old. The village of Puhú was located in what is now Black Star Canyon and was shared by multiple groups, including the Tongva, Acjachemen, Serrano and Payómkawichum.


title: Orange County, California

text: The mother village of the Acjachemen was Putiidhem and is now located in San Juan Capistrano underneath Junipero Serra Catholic High School. For the Tongva, north Orange County was at the southern extent of their village sites. In coastal villages like Lupukngna, at least 3,000 years old located in what is now Huntington Beach, villagers likely used te'aats or plank boats to navigate the coastline, with fish and shellfish being more central to the diet. In inland villages such as Hutuknga, rabbit and mule deer were more central, in addition to acorns from oak trees and seeds from grasses and sage bushes common everywhere.


title: Orange County, California

text: After the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolà, a Spanish expedition led by Junipero Serra named the area Valle de Santa Ana (Valley of Saint Anne). On November 1, 1776, Mission San Juan Capistrano became the area's first permanent European settlement. Among those who came with Portolá were José Manuel Nieto and José Antonio Yorba. Both these men were given land grants—Rancho Los Nietos and Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, respectively.


title: Orange County, California

text: The Nieto heirs were granted land in 1834. The Nieto ranches were known as Rancho Los Alamitos, Rancho Las Bolsas, and Rancho Los Coyotes. Yorba heirs Bernardo Yorba and Teodosio Yorba were also granted Rancho Cañón de Santa Ana (Santa Ana Canyon Ranch) and Rancho Lomas de Santiago, respectively. Other ranchos in Orange County were granted by the Mexican government during the Mexican period in Alta California.


title: Orange County, California

text: Saint Junípero Serra y Ferrer and the early components of the Portolá Expedition arrived in modern-day San Diego, south of the present-day Orange County, in mid-late 1769. During these early Mission years, however, the early immigrants continued to rely on imports of both Mexican-grown and Spanish-grown wines; Serra repeatedly complained of the process of repeated, labored import. The first grape crop production was produced in 1782 at San Juan Capistrano, with vines potentially brought through supply ships in 1778.


title: Orange County, California

text: Viticulture became an increasingly important crop in Los Angeles and Orange Counties through the subsequent decades. By the 1850s, the regions supported more than 100 vineyards. In 1857, Anaheim was founded by 50 German-Americans (with lineage extending back to Franconia) in search of a suitable grape-growing region. This group purchased a 1,165 acres (4.71 km2) parcel from Juan Pacifico Ontiveros's Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana for $2 per acre and later formed the Anaheim Vineyard Company. With surveyor George Hansen, two of the wine colony's founders, John Frohling and Charles Kohler, planted 400,000 grapevines along the Santa Ana River; by 1875, "there were as many as 50 wineries in Anaheim, and the city’s wine production topped 1 million gallons annually." Despite later afflictions of both Phylloxera and Pierce's Disease, wine growing is still practiced.


title: Orange County, California

text: A severe drought in the 1860s devastated the prevailing industry, cattle ranching, and much land came into the possession of Richard O'Neill Sr. James Irvine and other land barons. In 1887, silver was discovered in the Santa Ana Mountains, attracting settlers via the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroads. High rates of Anglo migration gradually moved Mexicans into "colonias", or segregated ethnic enclaves.


title: Orange County, California

text: After several failed attempts in previous sessions, the California legislature passed a bill authorizing the portion of Los Angeles County south of Coyote Creek to hold a referendum on whether to remain part of Los Angeles County or to secede and form a new county to be named “Orange” as directed by the legislature. Such referendum required a 2/3 vote for secession to take place, and subsequently on June 4, 1889, the residents south of Coyote Creek voted 2,509 to 500 in favor of secession. After such referendum, Los Angeles County filed three lawsuits in the courts to stall and stop the secession from occurring, but such attempts were futile.


title: Orange County, California

text: On July 17, 1889, a second referendum was held south of the Coyote Creek to determine if the county seat of the to-be county to be in either Anaheim or Santa Ana, along with an election for every county officer. In the end, Santa Ana defeated Anaheim in such referendum. With the referendum having taken place, the County of Orange was officially incorporated on August 1, 1889, as prescribed by state law. Since the date of the incorporation of the county, the only geographical changes to have occurred which affected Orange County was when the County and Los Angeles County agreed to trade land around Coyote Creek to adjust the border of the two counties to conform with city blocks.


title: Orange County, California

text: The county is said to have been named for the citrus fruit in an attempt to promote immigration by suggesting a semi-tropical paradise – a place where anything could grow.


title: Orange County, California

text: Other citrus crops, avocados, and oil extraction were also important to the early economy. Orange County benefited from the July 4, 1904, completion of the Pacific Electric Railway, a trolley connecting Los Angeles with Santa Ana and Newport Beach. The link made Orange County an accessible weekend retreat for celebrities of early Hollywood. It was deemed so significant that Pacific City changed its name to Huntington Beach in honor of Henry E. Huntington, president of the Pacific Electric and nephew of Collis Huntington. Transportation further improved with the completion of the State Route and U.S. Route 101 (now mostly Interstate 5) in the 1920s.


title: Orange County, California

text: In the 1910s, agriculture in Orange County was largely centered on grains, hay, and potatoes by small farmers, accounting for 60% of the county's exports. However, by 1920, fruit and nut exports exploded, which led to the increase of industrialized farming and the decline of family farms. For example, by 1917, William Chapman came to own 350,000 acres in northeastern Orange County from the Valencia orange. Around the 1910s and 1920s, most of the "barrios" of Orange County, such as in Santa Ana, further developed as company towns of Mexican laborers, who worked in the industrial orange groves. Poor working conditions resulted in the Citrus Strike of 1936, in which more than half of the orange industry's workforce, largely Mexican, demanded better working conditions. The strike was heavily repressed, with forced evictions and state-sanctioned violence being used as tactics of suppression. Carey McWilliams referred to the suppression as "the toughest violation of civil rights in the nation."


title: Orange County, California

text: The Los Angeles flood of 1938 devastated some areas of Orange County, with most of the effects being in Santa Ana and Anaheim, which were flooded with six feet of water. As an eight-foot-high rush of water further spilled out of the Santa Ana Canyon, forty-three people were killed in the predominately Mexican communities of Atwood and La Jolla in Placentia. The devastation from this event, as well as from the 1939 California tropical storm, meant that Orange County was in need of new infrastructure, which was supported by the New Deal. This included the construction of numerous schools, city halls, post offices, parks, libraries, and fire stations, as well as the improvement of road infrastructure throughout Orange County.


title: Orange County, California

text: School segregation between Mexican and white students in Orange County was widespread in the mid 1940s, with 80% of Mexican students attending 14 segregated schools. These schools taught Mexican children manual education – or gardening, bootmaking, blacksmithing, and carpentry for Mexican boys and sewing and homemaking for girls – while white schools taught academic preparation. The landmark case Mendez vs. Westminster (1947) desegregated Orange County schools, after the Mendez family were denied enrollment into the 17th Street School in Westminster in 1944, despite their cousins with lighter skin being admitted, and were instead told to enroll at the Hoover Elementary School for Mexican children.


title: Orange County, California

text: In the 1950s, agriculture, such as that involving the boysenberries made famous by Buena Park native Walter Knott, began to decline. However, the county's prosperity soared during this time. The completion of Interstate 5 in 1954 helped make Orange County a bedroom community for many who moved to Southern California to work in aerospace and manufacturing. Orange County received a further economic boost in 1955 with the opening of Disneyland.


title: Orange County, California

text: In 1969, Yorba Linda-born Orange County native Richard Nixon became the 37th President of the United States.


title: Orange County, California

text: In the 1980s, Orange County had become the second most populous county in California as the population topped two million for the first time.


title: Orange County, California

text: In 1994, an investment fund meltdown led to the criminal prosecution of treasurer Robert Citron. The county lost at least $1.5 billion through high-risk investments in bonds. The loss was blamed on derivatives by some media reports. On December 6, 1994, the County of Orange declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy, from which it emerged on June 12, 1996. The Orange County bankruptcy was at the time the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.


title: Orange County, California

text: Land use conflicts arose between established areas in the north and less developed areas in the south. These conflicts were over issues such as construction of new toll roads and the repurposing of a decommissioned air base. El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was designated by a voter measure in 1994 to be developed into an international airport to complement the existing John Wayne Airport. But subsequent voter initiatives and court actions have caused the airport plan to be permanently shelved. It has developed into the Orange County Great Park and housing.


title: Orange County, California

text: In the 21st century, the social landscape of Orange County has continued to change. The opioid epidemic saw a rise in Orange County, with unintentional overdoses becoming the third highest contributor of deaths by 2014. As in other areas, the deaths disproportionately occurred in the homeless population. However, deaths were widespread among affluent and poorer areas in Orange County, with the highest at-risk group being Caucasian males between the ages of 45-55. A 2018 study found that supply reduction was not sufficient to preventing deaths.


title: Orange County, California

text: Following the 2016 presidential election, Santa Ana become a sanctuary city for immigrants. This created an intense debate in Orange County surrounding politics toward immigration, with many cities opposing pro-immigration policies.


title: Orange County, California

text: The COVID-19 pandemic in Orange County disproportionately affected lower income and Latino residents.


title: Orange County, California

text: Implementation of renewable energy and climate change awareness in Orange County increased, with the city of Irvine pledging to be a zero-carbon economy by 2030 and Buena Park, Huntington Beach, and Fullerton pledging to move to 100% clean energy. Residential solar panel installation has rapidly increased, even among middle-income families, as a result of the state's residential solar program which began in 2006.


title: Orange County, California

text: In the 2010s, campaigns to conserve remaining natural areas gained awareness. By the early 2020s, some success was found, with the conservation of 24 acres in the West Coyote Hills of a total 510 acres and the Genga/Banning Ranch project moving forward, conserving some 385 acres, which was part of the Tongva village area of Genga. In 2021, the commemorative 1.5 acre Putuidem village opened after years of delays and campaigning by the Acjachemen.


title: Orange County, California

text: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (16.6%) is water. It is the smallest county by area in Southern California, being just over 40% the size of the region's next smallest county, Ventura. The average annual temperature is about .


title: Orange County, California

text: Orange County is bordered on the southwest by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Los Angeles County, on the northeast by San Bernardino County, on the east by Riverside County, and on the southeast by San Diego County.


title: Orange County, California

text: The northwestern part of the county lies on the coastal plain of the Los Angeles Basin, while the southeastern end rises into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. Most of Orange County's population reside in one of two shallow coastal valleys that lie in the basin, the Santa Ana Valley and the Saddleback Valley. The Santa Ana Mountains lie within the eastern boundaries of the county and of the Cleveland National Forest. The high point is Santiago Peak (), about east of Santa Ana. Santiago Peak and nearby Modjeska Peak, just shorter, form a ridge known as Saddleback, visible from almost everywhere in the county. The Peralta Hills extend westward from the Santa Ana Mountains through the communities of Anaheim Hills, Orange, and ending in Olive. The Loma Ridge is another prominent feature, running parallel to the Santa Ana Mountains through the central part of the county, separated from the taller mountains to the east by Santiago Canyon.


title: Orange County, California

text: The Santa Ana River is the county's principal watercourse, flowing through the middle of the county from northeast to southwest. Its major tributary to the south and east is Santiago Creek. Other watercourses within the county include Aliso Creek, San Juan Creek, and Horsethief Creek. In the North, the San Gabriel River also briefly crosses into Orange County and exits into the Pacific on the Los Angeles-Orange County line between the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach. Laguna Beach is home to the county's only natural lakes, Laguna Lakes, which are formed by water rising up against an underground fault.


title: Orange County, California

text: Orange County is sometimes divided into northern and southern regions. There are significant political, demographic, economic and cultural distinctions between North and South Orange County. A popular dividing line between the two regions is the Costa Mesa Freeway.


title: Orange County, California

text: North Orange County, including Anaheim, Fullerton, Garden Grove and Santa Ana, was the first part of the county to be developed and is culturally closer to neighboring Los Angeles County. This region is more Hispanic (mostly Mexican) and Asian (predominantly Vietnamese and Korean), more densely populated (Santa Ana is the fifth most densely-populated city in the United States with a population of over 200,000), younger, less wealthy and with higher unemployment. It has more renters and fewer homeowners and generally votes Democratic. There are notable exceptions to these general trends, such as strongly Republican Yorba Linda and affluent Anaheim Hills, North Tustin, and Villa Park. North Orange County is predominantly flat, giving way to the Santa Ana Mountains in the Northeast.


title: Orange County, California

text: South Orange County is wealthier, more residential, more Republican, predominantly non-Hispanic white and more recently developed. Irvine, the largest city in the region, is an exception to some of these trends, being not only a major employment center, but also a major tech hub and education center with UCI. Furthermore, the city is an Asian plurality (both South and East Asian), and votes reliably Democratic in recent years. South Orange County almost always includes Irvine, Newport Beach, and the cities to their southeast, including Lake Forest, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo, and San Clemente. Alternatively, Irvine and Newport Beach are sometimes seen as Central Orange County, acting as a transition zone between north and south; when this viewpoint is taken Tustin is also considered to be in central Orange County. Costa Mesa is sometimes included in South County, although it is located predominantly to the west of the Costa Mesa Freeway and is part of the even street grid network of north Orange County. Irvine is located in a valley defined by the Santa Ana Mountains and the San Joaquin Hills, while much of South Orange County is very hilly.


title: Orange County, California

text: Another region of Orange County is the Orange Coast, which includes the six cities bordering the Pacific Ocean. These are, from northwest to southeast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point and San Clemente, although Seal Beach is sometimes viewed as an extension of neighboring Long Beach in Los Angeles County.


title: Orange County, California

text: Older cities like Santa Ana, Anaheim, and Fullerton have traditional downtowns dating back to the 19th century, with Downtown Santa Ana being the home of the county, state and federal institutions. However, far more commercial activity is concentrated in clusters of newer commercial development are found in the county's edge cities, the three largest being


title: Orange County, California

text: A contiguous strip of commercial development (an edge city) stretches from Disneyland through to MainPlace Mall along the I-5 Santa Ana Freeway, straddling the city limits of Anaheim, Garden Grove, Orange, and Santa Ana, and in fact stretching between the original downtowns of those four cities.


title: Orange County, California

text: Entertainment and cultural facilities include Disneyland Resort, Angel Stadium, Christ Cathedral (formerly Crystal Cathedral), City National Grove of Anaheim - a live concert venue, Discovery Cube Orange County, the Honda Center - home to the Anaheim Ducks of the NHL (National Hockey League), and the Anaheim Convention Center. Health care facilities include CHOC (Children's Hospital of Orange County), Kaiser Permanente Health Pavilion (Anaheim), St. Joseph Hospital (Orange), and the UCI Medical Center.


title: Orange County, California

text: Retail complexes include Anaheim GardenWalk, Anaheim Marketplace (claiming to be the largest indoor swap meet in Orange County with more than 200 vendors), MainPlace Mall, Orange Town & Country, and The Outlets at Orange, originally a mall named "The City" which was the centerpiece of a planned, 1970s mixed-use development by the same name. There is commercial strip-style development including big box retailers along West Chapman Avenue in Orange (Marshalls, Ralphs), along Harbor Boulevard in Garden Grove (Burlington, Ross Dress for Less), and around Harbor Blvd. and Chapman Ave. in Anaheim (Target).


title: Orange County, California

text: Major hotels line Harbor Boulevard from Disneyland south to Garden Grove: Grand Legacy at the Park, Hilton, Marriott, Courtyard, DoubleTree Suites, Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, Embassy Suites, Residence Inn, Hyatt Regency, Marriott Suites, Sheraton, and the Great Wolf Lodge. The Orange County Transit Authority studied the corridor as the possible route for a streetcar, a proposal that was dropped in 2018 due to opposition from Anaheim and other city governments.


title: Orange County, California

text: In addition to suburban-style apartment complexes, Anaheim's Platinum Triangle is undergoing transformation from a low-density commercial and industrial zone into a more urban environment with high-density housing, commercial office towers, and retail space. Anaheim envisions it as a "downtown for Orange County". The area undergoing this large-scale redevelopment includes the city's two major sports venues, the Honda Center and Angel Stadium of Anaheim.


title: Orange County, California

text: "Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race."


title: Orange County, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Orange County had a population of 3,010,232. The racial makeup of Orange County was 1,830,758 (60.8%) White (44.0% non-Hispanic white), 50,744 (1.7%) African American, 18,132 (0.6%) Native American, 537,804 (17.9%) Asian, 9,354 (0.3%) Pacific Islander, 435,641 (14.5%) from other races, and 127,799 (4.2%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1,012,973 persons (33.7%).


title: Orange County, California

text: The Hispanic and Latino population is predominantly of Mexican origin; this group accounts for 28.5% of the county's population, followed by Salvadorans (0.8%), Guatemalans (0.5%), Puerto Ricans (0.4%), Cubans (0.3%), Colombians (0.3%), and Peruvians (0.3%). Santa Ana with its population reportedly 75 percent Hispanic/Latino, is among the most Hispanic/Latino percentage cities in both California and the U.S., esp. of Mexican-American descent.


title: Orange County, California

text: Among the Asian population, 6.1% are Vietnamese, followed by Koreans (2.9%), Chinese (2.7%), Filipinos (2.4%), Indians (1.4%), Japanese (1.1%), Cambodians (0.2%) Pakistanis (0.2%), Thais (0.1%), Indonesians (0.1%), and Laotians (0.1%). According to KPCC in 2014, Orange County has the largest proportion of Asian Americans in Southern California, where one in five residents are Asian American. There is also a significant Muslim population in the county.


title: Orange County, California

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 2,846,289 people, 935,287 households, and 667,794 families living in the county, making Orange County the second most populous county in California. The population density was 1,392/km (3,606/sq mi). There were 969,484 housing units at an average density of 474/km (1,228/sq mi). The racial makeup of the county was 64.8% White, 13.6% Asian, 1.7% African American, 0.7% Native American, 0.3% Pacific Islander, 14.8% from other races, and 4.1% from two or more races. 30.8% were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 8.9% were of German, 6.9% English and 6.0% Irish ancestry according to Census 2000. 58.6% spoke only English at home; 25.3% spoke Spanish, 4.7% Vietnamese, 1.9% Korean, 1.5% Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) and 1.2% Tagalog.


title: Orange County, California

text: In 1990, still according to the census there were 2,410,556 people living in the county. The racial makeup of the county was 78.6% White, 10.3% Asian or Pacific Islander, 1.8% African American, 0.5% Native American, and 8.8% from other races. 23.4% were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Orange County, California

text: Out of 935,287 households, 37.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.9% married couples were living together, 10.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.6% were non-families. 21.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.00 and the average family size was 3.48.


title: Orange County, California

text: Ethnic change has been transforming the population. By 2009, nearly 45 percent of the residents spoke a language other than English at home. Whites now comprise only 45 percent of the population, while the numbers of Hispanics grow steadily, along with Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. The percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970. The mayor of Irvine, Sukhee Kang, was born in Korea, making him the first Korean-American to run a major American city. “We have 35 languages spoken in our city,” Kang observed. The population is diverse age-wise, with 27.0% under the age of 18, 9.4% from 18 to 24, 33.2% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to 64, and 9.9% 65 years of age or older. The median age is 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 99.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.7 males.


title: Orange County, California

text: The median income for a household in the county was $61,899, and the median income for a family was $75,700 (these figures had risen to $71,601 and $81,260 respectively as of a 2007 estimate). Males had a median income of $45,059 versus $34,026 for females. The per capita income for the county was $25,826. About 7.0% of families and 10.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.2% of those under age 18 and 6.2% of those age 65 or over.


title: Orange County, California

text: Orange County is the headquarters of many Fortune 500 companies including Ingram Micro (#62) and First American Corporation (#476) in Santa Ana, Broadcom (#150) in Irvine, Western Digital (#198) in Lake Forest, and Pacific Life (#269) in Newport Beach. Irvine is the home of numerous start-up companies and also is the home of Fortune 1000 headquarters for Allergan, Edwards Lifesciences, Epicor, and Sun Healthcare Group. Other Fortune 1000 companies in Orange County include Beckman Coulter in Brea, Quiksilver in Huntington Beach and Apria Healthcare Group in Lake Forest. Irvine is also the home of notable technology companies like TV and sound bar company VIZIO, router manufacturer Linksys, video/computer game creator Blizzard Entertainment, and in-flight product manufacturer Panasonic Avionics Corporation. Also, the prestigious Mercedes-Benz Classic Center USA is located in the City of Irvine. Many regional headquarters for international businesses reside in Orange County like Mazda, Toshiba, Toyota, Samsung, Kia, in the City of Irvine, Mitsubishi in the City of Cypress, Kawasaki Motors in Foothill Ranch, and Hyundai in the City of Fountain Valley. Fashion is another important industry to Orange County. Oakley, Inc. is headquartered in Lake Forest. Hurley International is headquartered in Costa Mesa. Both the network cyber security firm Milton Security Group and the shoe company Pleaser USA, Inc. are located in Fullerton. St. John is headquartered in Irvine. Tustin, is home to Ricoh Electronics, New American Funding, and Safmarine. Wet Seal is headquartered in Lake Forest. PacSun is headquartered in Anaheim. Restaurants such as Taco Bell, El Pollo Loco, In-N-Out Burger, Claim Jumper, Marie Callender's, Wienerschnitzel, have headquarters in the city of Irvine as well. Del Taco is headquartered in Lake Forest. Gaikai also has its headquarters in Orange County.


title: Orange County, California

text: Shopping in Orange County is centered around regional shopping malls, big box power centers and smaller strip malls. South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa is the largest mall in California, the third largest in the United States, and 31st largest in the world. Other regional shopping malls include (from north to south): Brea Mall, The Village at Orange, The Outlets at Orange, MainPlace Santa Ana, Westminster Mall, Bella Terra in Huntington Beach, The Market Place straddling Tustin and Irvine, Irvine Spectrum Center, Fashion Island in Newport Beach, Five Lagunas and The Shops at Mission Viejo. Downtown Disney and Anaheim GardenWalk are specialized shopping and entertainment centers aimed at visitors. Power centers include La Habra Marketplace, Anaheim Plaza, and Anaheim Town Square. There is one major outlet mall, The Outlets at San Clemente.


title: Orange County, California

text: Tourism remains a vital aspect of Orange County's economy. Anaheim is the main tourist hub, with the Disneyland Resort's Disneyland being the second most visited theme park in the world. Also, Knotts Berry Farm gets about 7 million visitors annually and is located in the city of Buena Park. The Anaheim Convention Center holds many major conventions throughout the year. Resorts within the Beach Cities receive visitors throughout the year due to their close proximity to the beach, biking paths, mountain hiking trails, golf courses, shopping and dining.


title: Orange County, California

text: As recently as the 1990s, award-winning restaurants in Orange County consisted mostly of national chain restaurants with traditional American or Tex-Mex comfort food. In the late 1990s, Tim and Liza Goodell with chef Florent Marneau, and David Wilhelm, established culinary restaurant groups featuring nouvelle cuisine, gourmet burgers and more. The Orange County Register states that the "tipping point" came in 2007 when Marneaus founded Marché Moderne (since moved to Crystal Cove), and "Top Chef" chef Amar Santana opened a branch of Charlie Palmer (closed 2015), both at South Coast Plaza. Santana followed opening restaurants Broadway in Laguna Beach and Vaca in Costa Mesa. Other Top Chef chefs followed with their own restaurants including Brian Huskey (Tackle Box), Shirley Chung (Twenty Eight), Jamie Gwen of "Cutthroat Kitchen", and from "The Great Food Truck Race", Jason Quinn (Playground), who also opened three stands at the 4th Street Market food hall in Downtown Santa Ana in 2016.


title: Orange County, California

text: Food halls with gourmet vendors include the Anaheim Packing District, the 4th Street Market in Downtown Santa Ana, Lot 579 in Huntington Beach, Trade Food Hall in Irvine, OC Mix in Costa Mesa, and The Source OC in Buena Park.


title: Orange County, California

text: In 2019, the Michelin Guide awarded stars for the first time to Orange County restaurants, awarding Hana Re and Taco Maria one star each. In 2021, Knife Pleat in Costa Mesa was awarded one Michelin star as well.


title: Orange County, California

text: The area's warm Mediterranean climate and of year-round beaches attract millions of tourists annually. Huntington Beach is a hot spot for sunbathing and surfing; nicknamed "Surf City, U.S.A.", it is home to many surfing competitions. "The Wedge", at the tip of The Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, is one of the most famous body surfing spots in the world. Southern California surf culture is prominent in Orange County's beach cities. Another one of these beach cities being Laguna Beach, just south of Newport Beach. A few popular beaches include A Thousand Steps on 9th Street, Main Street Beach, and The Montage. Other "local" beaches that are worth a visit are Tablerock Beach and West Street Beach, both located in South Laguna Beach.


title: Orange County, California

text: Other tourist destinations include the theme parks Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim and Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park. Due to the 2022 reopening of Wild Rivers in Irvine, the county is home to two water parks along with Soak City in Buena Park. The Anaheim Convention Center is the largest such facility on the West Coast. The old town area in the City of Orange (the traffic circle at the middle of Chapman Avenue at Glassell Street) still maintains its 1950s image, and appeared in the movie "That Thing You Do!".


title: Orange County, California

text: Little Saigon is another tourist destination, home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese people outside Vietnam. There are also sizable Taiwanese, Chinese, and Korean communities, particularly in western Orange County. This is evident in several Asian-influenced shopping centers in Asian American hubs like Irvine. Popular food festival 626 Night Market has a location at OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa and is a popular attraction for Asian and fusion food, as well as an Art Walk and live entertainment.


title: Orange County, California

text: Historical points of interest include Mission San Juan Capistrano, the renowned destination of migrating swallows. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is in Yorba Linda and the Richard Nixon Birthplace, on the grounds of the Library, is a National Historic Landmark. John Wayne's yacht, the "Wild Goose" or USS YMS-328, is in Newport Beach. Other notable structures include the home of Madame Helena Modjeska, in Modjeska Canyon on Santiago Creek; Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, the largest building in the county; the historic Balboa Pavilion in Newport Beach; and the Huntington Beach Pier. The county has nationally known centers of worship, such as Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, the largest house of worship in California; Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, one of the largest churches in the United States; and the Calvary Chapel.


title: Orange County, California

text: In 2014, the county had 1,075 religious organizations, the sixth-highest total among all US counties (matching its status as the sixth-most-populous county in the US).


title: Orange County, California

text: Huntington Beach annually plays host to the U.S. Open of Surfing, AVP Pro Beach Volleyball and "Vans World Championship of Skateboarding". It was also the shooting location for Pro Beach Hockey. USA Water Polo, Inc. has moved its headquarters to Irvine, California. Orange County's active outdoor culture is home to many surfers, skateboarders, mountain bikers, cyclists, climbers, hikers, kayaking, sailing and sand volleyball.


title: Orange County, California

text: The Major League Baseball team in Orange County is the Los Angeles Angels. The team won the World Series under manager Mike Scioscia in 2002. In 2005, new owner Arte Moreno wanted to change the name to "Los Angeles Angels" in order to better tap into the Los Angeles media market, the second largest in the country. However, the standing agreement with the city of Anaheim demanded that they have "Anaheim" in the name, so they became the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. This name change was hotly disputed by the city of Anaheim, but the change stood, which prompted a lawsuit by the city of Anaheim against Arte Moreno, won by the latter. Prior to the 2016 Moreno and the club officially dropped the Anaheim moniker now simply going by the Los Angeles Angels.


title: Orange County, California

text: The county's National Hockey League team, the Anaheim Ducks, won the 2007 Stanley Cup beating the Ottawa Senators. They also came close to winning the 2003 Stanley Cup finals after losing in Game 7 against the New Jersey Devils.


title: Orange County, California

text: The Toshiba Classic, the only PGA Champions Tour event in the area, is held each March at The Newport Beach Country Club. Past champions include Fred Couples (2010), Hale Irwin (1998 and 2002), Nick Price (2011), Bernhard Langer (2008) and Jay Haas (2007). The tournament benefits the Hoag Hospital Foundation and has raised over $16 million in its first 16 years.


title: Orange County, California

text: Orange County SC is a United Soccer League team and are the only professional soccer club in Orange County. The team's first season was in 2011 and it was successful as Charlie Naimo's team made it to the quarter-finals of the playoffs. With home games played at Championship Soccer Stadium in Orange County Great Park the team looks to grow in the Orange County community and reach continued success. Former and current Orange County SC players include Richard Chaplow, Bright Dike, Maykel Galindo, Carlos Borja, and goalkeeper Amir Abedzadeh.


title: Orange County, California

text: The National Football League left the county when the Los Angeles Rams relocated to St. Louis in 1995.


title: Orange County, California

text: The National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Clippers played some home games at The Arrowhead Pond, now known as the Honda Center, from 1994 to 1999, before moving to Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena), which they share with the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Orange County, California

text: The elected offices of the county government consist of the five-member Board of Supervisors, Assessor, Auditor-Controller, Clerk-Recorder, District Attorney-Public Administrator, Sheriff-Coroner, and Treasurer-Tax Collector. Except for the Board of Supervisors, each of these elected officers are elected by the voters of the entire county and oversee their own County departments.


title: Orange County, California

text: A seventh countywide elected officer, the County Superintendent of Schools (jointly with an independently elected County Board of Education) oversees the independent Orange County Department of Education.


title: Orange County, California

text: Each of the five members of the Board of Supervisors is elected from a regional district, and together, the board oversees the activities of the county's agencies and departments and sets policy on development, public improvements, and county services. At the beginning of each calendar year, the Supervisors select a Chair and Vice Chair amongst themselves. The Chair presides over board meetings, and the Vice Chair presides when the Chair is not present. The Board appoints the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors, the County Counsel, the Performance Audit Director, and the Director of the Office of Independent Review. The Board also appoints the County Executive Officer to act as the chief administrative officer of the county and the manager of all agencies and departments not under the sole jurisdiction of an elected county official nor the sole jurisdiction of one of the four aforementioned officers appointed by the Board.


title: Orange County, California

text: The County Department of Education is wholly separate from the County government and is jointly overseen by the elected County Superintendent of Schools and the five-member Orange County Board of Education, whose trustees are popularly elected from five separate trustee areas.


title: Orange County, California

text: On July 12, 2010, it was revealed that former Sheriff Mike Carona received over $215,000 in pension checks in 2009, despite his felony conviction. A 2005 state law denied a public pension to public officials convicted of wrongdoing in office, however, that law only applied to benefits accrued after December 2005. Carona became eligible for his pension at age 50, and is also entitled, by law, to medical and dental benefits. It was noted that the county's retirement system faces a massive shortfall totaling $3.7 billion unfunded liabilities, and Carona was one of approximately 400 retired Orange County public servants who received more than $100,000 in benefits in 2009. Also on the list of those receiving extra-large pension checks is former treasurer-tax collector Robert Citron, whose investments, which were made while consulting psychics and astrologers, led Orange County into bankruptcy in 1994.


title: Orange County, California

text: Citron, a Democrat, funneled billions of public dollars into questionable investments, and at first the returns were high and cities, schools and special districts borrowed millions to join in the investments. But the strategy backfired, and Citron's investment pool lost $1.64 billion. Nearly $200 million had to be slashed from the county budget and more than 1,000 jobs were cut. The county was forced to borrow $1 billion.


title: Orange County, California

text: The California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility filed a lawsuit against the pension system to get the list. The agency had claimed that pensioner privacy would be compromised by the release. A judge approved the release and the documents were released late June 2010. The release of the documents has reopened debate on the pension plan for retired public safety workers approved in 2001 when Carona was sheriff.


title: Orange County, California

text: Called "3 percent at 50," it lets deputies retire at age 50 with 3 percent of their highest year's pay for every year of service. Before it was approved and applied retroactively, employees received 2 percent. "It was right after Sept. 11," said Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach. "All of a sudden, public safety people became elevated to god status. The Board of Supervisors were tripping over themselves to make the motion." He called it "one of the biggest shifts of money from the private sector to the public sector." Moorlach, who was not on the board when the plan was approved, led the fight to repeal the benefit. A lawsuit, which said the benefit should go before voters, was rejected in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2009 and is now under appeal. Carona opposed the lawsuit when it was filed, likening its filing to a "nuclear bomb" for deputies.


title: Orange County, California

text: During most of the 20th century and up until 2016, Orange County was known for its political conservatism and for being a bastion for the Republican Party, with a 2005 academic study listing three Orange County cities as among America's 25 most conservative. However, the county's changing demographics have coincided with a shift in political alignments. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first Democrat since 1936 to carry Orange County in a presidential election and in the 2018 midterm elections the Democratic Party gained control of every Congressional seat in the county. Although Democrats controlled all congressional districts in Orange County at the time, Republicans maintained a lead in voter registration numbers (although it shrunk to less than a percentage point as of February 10, 2019, as compared with over 10% on February 10, 2013). The number of registered Democrats surpassed the number of registered Republicans in the county in August 2019. As the number of Democrats increased, the number of voters not aligned with a political party increased to comprise 27.4% of the county's voters in 2019. Republicans hold a 3-2 majority on the county Board of Supervisors. Seven out of the 12 state legislators from Orange County are also Republicans.