Film Noir

FN was coined by French movie critics in 1946 as they watched American films just after the war. FN translates to ‘black film’ because their mood is black. They are unsettling anxious films with dark, shadowy themes about life, and crime in the underworld of big cities.

Double meaning – the films were moody and bleak, but they were often filmed at night or indoors in shafts of light cast by venetian blinds. Noir often used pools of light emerging from blackness.

NF – involved detectives, private investigators or insurance agents. Often they began with a murder, and brutal, pessimistic and set in a world filled with loneliness.

Types of FN

Classic FN –Hollywood produced FN for only a short period of time- from the early 40s to 60s

Neo-noir-use either character or plot attributes or the visual style of FN (Chinatown or LA Confidential)

Context

WW1(1914-18) brought USA economic boom and a stock market that dizzying heights. In 1932 the markets lost 905 of its value. The Great Depression (1929-33) threw millions out of work around the world.

Among the German refugees were some of the country’s leading film directors, who brought with them a style of filmmaking called German expressionism. Known for its geometric set designs, stark lighting and bleak perspectives, expressionism influenced noir films.

During WW2 women became a vital part of the work force and it gave them a new power to women that some men found threatening. This social shift is reflected b the strong women characters of noir movies.

FN was produced by a bleak and disrupted world. One of the first classic noir is Touch of Evil (1958)

As many as 20% of the noir stories are based on the ‘hardboiled’ detective stories of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Many authors in30s and 40s wrote novels about ‘tough guy’ PI’sand they sold millions as cheap entertainment. A derogative name of ‘pulp fiction’ was given to them. (hence Quentin Taratino’s 1994 neo-noir film.

The classic period of film noir came to an end for three reasons. First in the 1950s and 1960s America experienced levels of prosperity it had never known before. The returned soldiers settled down and had families. ‘baby boom time’ and life no longer seemed bleak.

Second, the censorship of the Hays Code was relaxed somewhat, and what FN coyly suggested, newer films could show explicitly.

Third, TV almost totally destroyed the B-grade movie-making industry. Instead of FN, cheap production houses moved to TV police serials like Dragnet, sit comedies and games shows.

Features of FN – photocopy pages 256 – 257 for students

FN were often B-grade:wartime scarcity meant reduced budgets, making necessity the mother of invention.

Deep focus

Complex compositions

Complex mis-en-scene

Noir motifs

Low key lighting

Backlighting

Disorienting camera angles

First-person voice-over

Complex plots

Sense of entrapment

PLOT

Murder and sexual psychology are the most common plot concerns of noir films. The noir movies often begins with the planning or investigation of a murder. Violence begins the disequilibrium or disruption and will usually appear at the end of the film. Unlike gangster movies, in which violence is large scale and appears to threaten the order of societ, In noir films the violence is often restricted to one or two people. But the setting in a society in decay, lacking integrity and order.

Plot progress-

Features of FN is that often starts with the end of the story. The male protagonist has been defeated somehow. We find out how it happened as the movie retells the story. Then we return to the death scene we have seen at the start and we get the final resolution.

In FN is partly explained by the demands of the Hays Codes which prohibited the portrayal of crimes that escaped punishment. A last gasp confession at the end of the show to permit the guilt to be foregiven.

Plot discourse –

FN is noted for its witty dialogue and clichéd tough talk which come from the detective novels. The characters speak in a straight forward, streetwise style that is delivered in short, sharp, punchy sentences.

CHARACTER

SETTING

REPRESENTATION AND DISCOURCES

Women

Men

Families

Femme Fatale: means literally ‘deadly woman’ in French. She is a beautiful seductress, often referred to by critics as a ‘spider woman’ who ensnares men in her web of deceit and intrigue. She uses her sexual allure to enlist the male protagonist into some scheme that inevitably leads to his death.

Sometimes they are searching for independence or escape.