Film Noir
Film noir is motion picture term that is used to describe a modish Hollywood crime drama, especially those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. However today film noir invokes the visually stylish but morally cynical black-and-white films of classic Hollywood crime melodramas featuring down-and-out detectives, mysterious femme fatales, shady conmen and lovers on the run.
Usually people think of film noir as an American genre, the cinematic version of hard-boiled crime fiction, but the best way to categorize film noir is to place them with the original film noir period, generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, with it's chiaroscuro lighting distorted camera angles and symbolic designs was probably the single most important influence on the look of film noir.
Usually people think of film noir as an American genre, the cinematic version of hard-boiled crime fiction, but the best way to categorize film noir is to place them with the original film noir period, generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, with it's chiaroscuro lighting distorted camera angles and symbolic designs was probably the single most important influence on the look of film noir.
Below is some examples of how film noir was used to capture the essence of lighting and create the genre.
The other key iconic figure of noir is the fetal women know was femme fatale, who poses suductively both on the film posters and on hundreds of mid-twentieth century pupl covers. The elements of the image are a kind of visual shorthand for perilous attraction and stemy corruption. Sometimes the dangerous woman is simply a sexual predator who tempts and weakens a male protagonist.
On the poster or pulp cover the femme fatale would perhaps hold only a cocktail glass and a smouldering cigarette, or she might hold a gun to create the narrative and meaning of the posters. Hollywood tended to package the femme fatale narrative in ways that ensured the defeat of the independent female, but such was the power of the image of the sexual, aggressive, strong woman that she in many ways, in the minds of audiences resisted the formulaic reassertion of male control.
Summary
Film noir often centres on visual and specifically cinematic elements on things like low-key lighting, chiaroscuro effects, deep focus photography, extreme camera angles and expressionist distortion. But it is essential as well to take account of themes, mood, characterisation, point of view and narrative pattern. Both literary and cinematic noir are defined by the subjective point of view, the shifting toles of the protagonist, the ill-fated relationship between the protagonist and society (generating the themes of alienation and entrapment) and finally the way in which film noir functions.
Film noir was created to emphasize on the genre and create this similar bond between the characters and the audience, and to have a connection with the use of mise-en-scene. The best way to describe and define film noir is to look at the lighting in a film, and an example of this is the image below, which was created in the 1950s which showed two silhouetted figures in The Big Combo film (1955).
Summary
Film noir often centres on visual and specifically cinematic elements on things like low-key lighting, chiaroscuro effects, deep focus photography, extreme camera angles and expressionist distortion. But it is essential as well to take account of themes, mood, characterisation, point of view and narrative pattern. Both literary and cinematic noir are defined by the subjective point of view, the shifting toles of the protagonist, the ill-fated relationship between the protagonist and society (generating the themes of alienation and entrapment) and finally the way in which film noir functions.
Film noir was created to emphasize on the genre and create this similar bond between the characters and the audience, and to have a connection with the use of mise-en-scene. The best way to describe and define film noir is to look at the lighting in a film, and an example of this is the image below, which was created in the 1950s which showed two silhouetted figures in The Big Combo film (1955).
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