Film Noir

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Film Noir

• Guy, Mica , Sam, Shanel

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Origin

• Classic film noir started after the second world
  war. Much of the fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss
  of innocence, despair and paranoia were put into
  film noir as these were the feelings felt by many
  at that time. Later the cold war played a big
  role in re affirming fear that was then put into
  more film noir.

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Codes and conventions
Moods of classic film noir

• Alienation
• Bleakness
• Disillusionment
• Disenchantment
• Pessimism
• Ambiguity
• Moral corruption
• Evil
• Guilt
• Desperation
• paranoia

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Storyline

• Storylines were often non-linear and twisting.
  Narratives were frequently complex and
  convoluted.
• Typically told with foreboding background music,
  flashbacks, witty, razor-sharp and acerbic
  dialogue, and reflective and confessional,
  first-person voice-over narration.
• Amnesia suffered by the protagonist was a common
  plot device, as was the downfall of an innocent
• Everyman who fell victim to temptation or was
  framed.
• Revelations regarding the hero were made to
  justify the hero's own cynical perspective on
  life.

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Men and women

• Very often, a film noir story was developed
  around a cynical, hard-hearted, disillusioned
  male character who encountered a beautiful but
  promiscuous, amoral, double-dealing and seductive
  femme fatale. She would use her feminine wiles
  and come-hither sexuality to manipulate him into
  becoming the fall guy - often following a murder.
  After a betrayal or double-cross, she was
  frequently destroyed as well, often at the cost
  of the hero's life. As women during the war
  period were given new-found independence and
  better job-earning power in the homeland during
  the war.

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The Set

• Film noir films (mostly shot in gloomy grays,
  blacks and whites) thematically showed the dark
  and inhumane side of human nature with cynicism
  and doomed love, and they emphasized the brutal,
  unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic
  sides of the human experience.

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Atmosphere

• An oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism,
  anxiety, suspicion that anything can go wrong,
  dingy realism, futility, fatalism, defeat and
  entrapment were stylized characteristics of film
  noir.

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Creating the mood in film noir

• Using 3 point lighting to create shadows on the
  subject and unveil a dark personality.
• Smoke is used to create a mysterious atmosphere.
  Smoking was socially acceptable when film noir
  was popular and so smoking would great a more
  intimate atmosphere.

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Dated

• Film noir is black and white. Shadows have more
  of a dominance in this contrast and be more
  evocative of the audience.
• Black and white shooting allows for a more dated
  feel. Part of film noir is creating and old
  atmosphere that runs parallel with an intricate
  storyline rather than using special effects, the
  effect is created with lighting, sound, dialogue
  acting and the film noir atmosphere on screen.

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