Film Noir Counterpart

Davide Horn
Com 210DC
Neil Goldstein
Term Paper

Film Noir and its Modern Counterpart

Film Noir, literally meaning black cinema or film. It was introduced in the 1940's being one of the most influential genres of film. It was a very creative period in Hollywood, if not the most creative period. As Paul Schrader says “Film Noir seemed to bring out the best in everyone: directors, cameramen, screenwriters, actors. Again and again, a film Noir will make the high point on an artist’s career graph. Some directors, for example, did their best work in Film Noir.” It is a widely recognized style of and developed as a response to increasing costs to make Hollywood films. They were usually low budget. Using black and white film and less cast member, to reduce costs. Very dark shadows are essential for any conventional Film Noir, playing upon a chiaroscuro effect.
Typically Film Noir has a protagonist that is either some type of investigator or cop. He isn’t necessarily “by the book” and will delve deep, sometimes even severing friendships to get to the truth. He is often a witty and smooth talker as well. The films usually deal with some form of theme in terms of corruption in a city scape. They also feature young girls who end up catching the protagonist’s eye in a dangerous way. Typically very attractive

Though the entire movie is shot in color, for the most party, the colors are very dull. The natural saturation and vivaciousness has been toned down drastically, giving a very grey overtone to the whole mise-en-scene of the film. Scorsese used natural, somewhat oversaturated colors and light for the aspects of the movie which are memories. When the protagonist is recalling something or dreaming, when he wakes, the colors change back to the original gray overtone Noir style of