Film Noir Features in Blade Runner and The Matrix
“The Matrix” has a main science fiction theme but also includes
features of film noir films. It is directed and written by Andy and
Larry Wachowski. Other than Science Fiction and film noir the film can
also be classed as a Hybrid.
“Blade Runner” is more of a film noir film than “The Matrix”. Although
it does include action and fighting scenes but these have film noir
features in them. Most ideas about the film are connected with film
noir such as the mystery, the low key lighting and symbolic objects.
It was directed by Ridley Scott and written by Phillip K. Dick,
Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples.
The main characters in “The Matrix” are Laurence Fishburne as
Morpheus, Keanu Reeves as Thomas A. Anderson or Neo and Carry-Anne
Moss as Trinity. In Blade Runner the main characters were Harrison
Ford as Rick Deckard, Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty and Sean Young as
Rachael.
Film noir comes from the French term, ‘A Black Film’ or a ‘Dark Film’.
It was noticed in America during the forties and fifties by a French
film critic who saw how quite a lot of films made had dark looks and
themes. These appeared to be mainly in American Crime and Detective
films released during World War 2.
Typical features of film noir include feelings of fatalistic
pessimism, incidents of treachery, and a sense of a corrupt and
violent society threatening the hero and other hero – like characters.
Other features are darkness, secretive and mysterious people and
mystery. A reason for the low lighting in film noir films is that in
Hollywood studios, after the war they could not afford expensive
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being real and being able to tell the difference and also if
technology is a good thing to evolve e.g. artificial intelligence but
the ideas that “The Matrix” has made me consider are things like what
rather than who in the world are real and if the world that we live in
is real or not, could we be made to think that this is the real world.
The film that I enjoyed the most out of the two is “The Matrix”. This
is because it involves more special effects and fighting scenes than
“Blade Runner” also because I feel that “Blade Runners” story line is
not as complex and as challenging to follow as “The Matrix”, “The
Matrix” made me think about reality and what it is, it also made me
think as the film was evolving, when were the characters in the real
world or the matrix and how they were doing the things that they were.
"The way to find the 'real' world is not merely to measure and observe what is
It’s a dark and rainy night. Our hero is hiding behind a wall with a revolver in hand. A crack of light, illuminates half of his face. He’s shaking nervously because he only has one bullet left. He turns the corner, and a sudden gunshot hits our hero. Who shot him? None other than his partner, who’s secretly in love with the very same dame that our hero fell for. You can consider this an example of a classic film noir ending. Film noir is a term used in cinema to describe a visually styled crime drama. Where did it come from? What are the key elements in a film noir? Why did this kind of cinema emerge when it did? What affect did it have in the film world? And finally, where is film noir now?
...tands the test of time, thanks only to its screenplay; the effects, score and sets can all be outdated, but a good script will never date until dealt with. Many of the influential screenplays, hence films, have risen from the sci-fi genre and they will undoubtedly continue to do so as long as the genre keeps re-inventing itself visually. This is something the Wachowski bros have done; they’ve started a new chapter in the history of cinema and sci-fi, one which has already spawned the likes of ‘Pitch Black’ ( Ian Thorburn and David N. Twohy , 2000), ‘Minority Report’ ( Steven Spielberg , 2002) and of course, the next two Matrix sequels.
The Matrix modernizes the originality of the Allegory of the cave and adds a more feelings towards the question of reality and how others interperts it. The film and the Allegory have many similarities and differnces but they revolve around the same metaphysical question. Even thought they have many similarities and differnces but the important ones for me are: the film and the allegory's view on reality to others, Neo and the freed man are controlled and the final, the difference between Neo and the freed man are the experince of life.
Fate and freewill remain two ongoing themes in this movie having major significance throughout. The Matrix directed by the Wachowski brother’s developed in 1999, became world famous due to its unique structure and unusual visual effects known as ‘bullet time’ as well as the ‘green tinge’.
In this futuristic film, Harrison Ford is a Bladerunner, a man who by using an eye scanning machine and asking questions can determine if a person is really human or is rather genetically created. In the meantime, three of these non-humans find out they only have a four year lifespan and try to find a way, through foul means more than fair, to extend their lives. This culminates in a rather disturbing fight between the leader of these non-humans and Harrison Ford’s character.
"BR: In every sense we create our own reality, and this goes much further than most people aware of or are willing to admit. The reason most people can't see this is because everyone is creating their own reality, but 99.9% of them are creating the same one-using
...le to actually say its real. There are three reasons why we study Realism: (1) for the historical significance: (2) for its popularity as a commonsense, or naïve, way of knowing: (3) for its educational importance (Gutek, 2004). The reason we use realism in school is so that we can show the students the five senses and so they can actually have a first hand of what realism actually is. Even though we are thought this in school about things not being real we yet somehow always manage to make things up in our heads and actually make things appear real. One of the things that the schools have been doing for a very long time is something called “show and tell”. This is great for the younger kids to actually understand the concept of what show and tell is really all about because you actually involve the students and they can actually see all the five senses.
The Matrix is a science fiction movie about artificial intelligence computers replacing mankind. I believe that this movie is a common type of display from the media is common paranoia so that they can get a reaction from people and sell their story. In the case of The Matrix, the movie dazzles people with awesome special effects using modern computer technology, which I find ironic. I find it self-conflicting and hypocritical for the media to use modern computer technology for their own good to show people how bad technology is. Amy Bruckman and Howard Rheingold would probably find this movie interesting in that it disagrees and agrees with certain aspects about their beliefs about the use of computers.
Stimulating deep philosophical thought, The Matrix depicts a world in which all human brains are programmed to believe a fabricated reality. Some humans, like the protagonist of the film, Neo, were recused from this mirage and shown the truth about their perceived reality. Some found great discomfort and refused to live with the truth and they returned to live in the illusion. Others however, chose truth over comfort and happiness. After watching this film I soon began to question many aspects of my own life. Is it possible that the world I deem real is a fabricated dream? What if everything around me was designed and that my actuality is simply a perception? These looped questions consume my though and lead me to realize that my reality to
The Matrix. Dir. The Wachowski Brothers. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne. 20th Century Fox, 1991.
Color is a powerful tool in film making. What once was only black and white is now a full spectrum of vibrancy. But monochromatism is still an integral artistic choice in film. Blacks and whites in movies and television tend to represent the dark nature of scenes: death, evil, sadness, the macabre. Deep blacks, rich grays, and harsh whites tend to illustrate the Gothic influence of the piece as well as its tone. Adam Barkman, a writer famous for his analysis of films, explains the impact of color in film in his book A Critical Companion to Tim Burton “When we see a particular color, we immediately attach a particular set of meanings to it that is triggered by either our instincts or our memories” (Barkman
Film Noir was extremely trendy during the 1940’s. People were captivated by the way it expresses a mood of disillusionment and indistinctness between good and evil. Film Noir have key elements; crime, mystery, an anti-hero, femme fatale, and chiaroscuro lighting and camera angles. The Maltese Falcon is an example of film noir because of the usage of camera angles, lighting and ominous settings, as well as sinister characters as Samuel Spade, the anti-hero on a quest for meaning, who encounters the death of his partner but does not show any signs of remorse but instead for his greed for riches.
...t” (310). The reasons you cannot exist with your ‘real’ I suggest is the idea that the real exists beyond so many things such as language and symbolism, which are arguably a majority of the world we inhabit.
The Matrix is a sci-fi action film about a computer hacker named Neo that has been brought into another world deemed “the matrix.” The Matrix is a prime example of cinematography. The film uses many different types of cinematography such as mise-en-scene, special effects, and camera shots to make it interesting and entertaining to the audience guiding their attention to the important aspects of the film.