Film Noir’s exact definition is a point of contention among a great deal of the people who study, analyze, and write about film. For most it occupies a nebulous territory between style and genre. Despite this problem there are several similar elements found throughout the films classified as noir that help to identify them. Thematically these films explore the darker side of humanity, including murder, failed love, moral ambiguity, and a desire for profit. Visual characteristics that establish a film noir consist of low-key lighting, oblique camera angles, and use of shadows. Carol Reed’s The Third Man is an excellent example of British film noir that incorporates a dark thematic message and expressionist visual elements. The Third Man’s …show more content…
At the heart of these challenges is the triangle between Holly, Anna, and Lime. Lime, the charismatic mysterious criminal is causing real harm to hundreds of people through his selfish black market dealings. The main female lead Anna torn between her love for the supposedly dead Lime and a potential romance with Holly id doomed to end up with neither. Holly’s central struggle between his loyalty to his best friend Lime and the horrifying results of Lime’s actions is a difficult challenge. Clearly this is a morally ambiguous conflict and it is only made more complicated by Lime’s conspiracy to fake his death. In the typical film noir style there is a strong thread of doomed love, whether between Holly and Anna or Lime and Anna. In either case all three characters have far too many problems for hope of a happy …show more content…
Specifically Reed makes use of oblique angles throughout the film to help emphasize the tension and ambiguity of plot points. Some examples of these tilted angles takes places throughout the climactic final chase through the sewers. In this extended chase sequence the limited space of the tunnels is heightened by the dutch angles. Harry is trapped like a rat in the sewers which once held an escape and is framed abnormally to emphasize this. One especially powerful tilted shot is when Holly approaches the spiral staircase and kills Lime. This oblique angle compliments and actually helps create the tense, anxious feeling for the audience. Another component that solidifies the film as noir is the powerful use of light and dark from the low key lighting. A vast majority of the story takes place at night throughout the city of Vienna and as a result of this there is minimal lighting. The Venetian streets are lighted only by street lights so when the protagonist Holly wanders this foreign city his face is often covered in darkness and shadow. The lighting matches the plot as Holly struggles through a blackmarket underworld searching for the truth but generally just finding more darkness obscuring the facts and his face. Again that final chase through the sewers is a perfect example of the understated lighting. One of the main ideas of the noir style is to embrace darkness in shots
For this essay I will briefly describe what film noir is and I will also be critically analysing the film noir “Sunset Boulevard” by Billy Wilder. I will be exploring character themes, thematic concerns and visual style. Film noir originally comes from the French language, it means black film/dark film, this could be referring to the fact that film noir are traditionally black and white as they are from the 1940s to around the late 1950s or because film noir has a dark story line and generally have dark shadowy scenes and shady characters. The story in a film noir is almost always an American crime involving a very stereotypical, average man who lives a boring, routine life and seems to be becoming bored of his 9 to 5 job who stumbles upon
Film Noir is a genre of distinct and unique characteristics. Mostly prominent in the 40s and 50s, the genre rarely skewed from the skeletal plot to which all Film Noir pictures follow. The most famous of these films is The Big Sleep (1946) directed by Howard Hawks. This film is the go to when it comes to all the genre’s clichés. This formula for film is so well known and deeply understood that it is often a target for satire. This is what the Coen brothers did with 1998’s The Big Lebowski. This film follows to the T what Film Noir stands for.
During the 1940’s and 1950’s, a new film genre called Film Noir became popularized. Film Noir translated from French means “black film” which is what these movies were. Some of the characteristics movies in this genre shared were that they were shot in black and white, there was no happy ending, the protagonist was often a war veterans, the plot was ruled on fate, emotions were usually raw, and the theme dealt with the darker side of human nature.
Janey Place and Lowell Peterson article “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir” establishes noir as a visual style and not a ...
Classic film noir originated after World War II. This is the time where post World War II pessimism, anxiety, and suspicion was taking the world by storm. Many films that were released in the U.S. Between 1939s and 1940s were considered propaganda films that were designed for entertainment during the Depression and World War II. During the 1930s many German and Europeans immigrated to the U.S. and helped the American film industry with powerf...
Adapted from the novella written by James M. Cain, Double Indemnity is a melodramatic film noir that highlights the conflict its characters face through adultery and murder which develops from the dissatisfaction and alienation that arose in the era of modernity as shown in most noir films. Unlike most noir films, Double Indemnity set the bar in terms of structural themes to follow and elements that eventually came to be considered essential in the noir genre. The film was seen to be a full embodiment of what the genre should be. Double Indemnity is an archetypal noir film, which portrays noir elements through its style, the characters, its writers’ backstory and the history of Los Angeles, the city in which it is set. This essay will examine how Los Angeles is integrated not only into the location but also into the storyline of the characters and their motivations but also the filmmakers’ lives. It does this through characteristic noir motifs like “the urban cultural landscape, the lack of rootedness of the characters, and the self-deceptions that center their world” (p. 437) affect the protagonists in the film. Double Indemnity’s use of Los Angeles as its primary location exposes the innate decadence and decay of the city through film noir stylistic elements. Billy Wilder directed Double Indemnity and the film became the archetypal noir film because it embodied all the characteristics of a typical noir film, which include “claustrophobia, paranoia, despair and nihilism” (Place and Peterson, p. 327) course kit source. Los Angeles, the city used primarily as the location in the film becomes not merely a backdrop but a character in the film through its physical and implied characteristics. The context through the stories of Wild...
The film stays in line with classic noir in many ways. The usage of dark sets and high contrast lighting, which creates heavy shadows on the actors faces, makes the movie feel like it all happens at night and in dark alley ways. The story focuses on the inhumane parts of human nature. Each of the main characters experiences some kind of tragedy. For Vargas his tragedy was in dealing with Quinlin who has set out to frame him and his wife. For Quinlin his entire life represented a man consumed with darkness who lives his life with a “Touch of Evil.” Menzies was a hopeful man who looked up to Quinlin but was let down. For the viewer, film noir represents truth, even if it is not a truth that all people would like to hear.
Film Noir, a term coined by the French to describe a style of film characterized by dark themes, storylines, and visuals, has been influencing cinematic industries since the 1940’s. With roots in German expressionistic films and Italian postwar documentaries, film noir has made its way into American film as well, particularly identified in mob and crime pictures. However, such settings are not exclusive to American film noir. One noteworthy example is Billy Wilder’s film Sunset Boulevard, which follows the foreboding tale of Joe Gillis, the desperate-for-success protagonist, who finds himself in the fatal grips of the disillusioned femme fatale Norma Desmond. Not only does the storyline’s heavy subject matter and typical character structure suggest the film noir style, but also Wilder’s techniques of photography and empty, worn-down settings make for a perfect backdrop for this dark approach at filmmaking.
illustrated through looking at the parallels of the intertwined relationships between three separate individuals. Miss Amelia Evans, Cousin Lymon Willis, and Marvin Macy, are the players involved in this grotesque love triangle. The feelings they respectively have for each other are what drives the story, and are significant enough that the prosperity of entire town hinges upon them.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
The Rebirth to a Genre Conventional film noir has been disputed since its establishment of whether it is a genre, a period of films, or just aesthetic elements in certain scenes. These disputes have come to no avail, as no consensus has ever been reached. During the 1940’s film noir was a core audience draw and produced majority of the titles until the mid 1950’s. Writers and directors such as Paul Schrader and Raymond Borde suggest that film noir “fulfilled its role in 1955” and ultimately “died in 1959” (EBSCO WILL.) I will argue that neo-noir is a collection of films, post 1964, that replicate the themes found in investigative crime films previously known as noir.
story is going or ’who dun it’ until very near the end. There will be
Film Noir 1. The historical setting a. Futuristic Los Angeles, that is familiar, however extremely crowded and corrupted. The corruption stemming from an overpowered government/business, like the Replicant brain-hub, and symbolized through the constant rain and gloominess. It’s understandable that the ‘Dream’ is to leave Earth to join another planet colony.
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.
Roman Polanski's 1974 film, 'Chinatown', revolutionized the film noir genre. Aside from the absense of voice-over, the film shares all the same characteristics with earlier noirs. That is, of course, except for the fact that ?Chinatown? is filmed in color. Because of this, it is more difficult upon the first viewing to immediately classify the movie to this genre. In movies such as ?Double Indemnity? even scenes that take place during the daytime are dark, and since it is a black and white film, this is easy to do. However, in a film with color it is much harder to create this dark effect, especially in scenes that are filmed outdoors. Polanski makes references to symbols that remind the audience that although ?Chinatown? is in color, it still belongs in the genre. For example, one of the first lines in the movie is, ?I just had [the venetian blinds] installed on Wednesday.? Venetian blinds are often seen in the genre, and the reference immediately makes the connection between this...