Film Noir

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Translation Black Cinema USA 1940s
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Style

• Use of deep shadows and extreme angles to create
  a sense of dread and anxiety
• Voice-overs and flashbacks
• Stylised visuals

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Mise-en-scene

• Placement of figures
• Characters confined within oppressive
  décor-fatalism
• Strong inter-relation between characters and sets

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Lighting

• Direction- frequent side lighting with little
  fill light
• Quantity- much low key lighting
• Quality- frequent use of hard lighting
• Used to create sense of turmoil/alienation and
  danger.

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Settings

• City bound
• Extreme weather
• Surreal and exotic (Ferris Wheel)
• Used to create a sense of claustrophobia

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Characters

• The lonely shady detective
• The Femme Fatale. Translation The fatal
  attraction of women

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Films Noir Themes

• Violence
• The underworld the city as a jungle of
  corruption and terror
• The dark side of life
• Some criminal activity e.g
• murder, betrayal

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Film Noir Themes(Cont)

• Representations of extreme psychological states
• Loneliness and alienation
• Women as predators ( femme fatale)

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Films

• Manhunt (Lang, 1941)
• The Big Heat (Lang, 1953)
• The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941)
• Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett, 1946)
• Murder My Sweet (Dymtryk, 1944)
• The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
• 39 Steps (Hitchcock, 1935)

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Modern Films

• The Last Seduction
• Minority Report (Speilberg, 2002)
• LA Confidential
• Mullholland Dr.
• Blade Runner (Scott, 1982)