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Introduction To Film - Genre Study I Film Noir
Introduction To Film - Genre Study I Film Noir
Introduction To Film - Genre Study I Film Noir
FILM NOIR
Film Noir
Film Noir - literally “BLACK FILM” – is a French phrase, but it refers to an American
cinematic phenomenon made in Hollywood. These films are considered “downbeat”; they
focused on the dark sides of life. They violated the traditional narrative and stylistic practices
of classical Hollywood cinema that oriented and stabilized audiences. Noir films created an
uncomfortable and disturbing malaise or anxiety in their viewers and are sometimes referred
to as “feel bad movies.” The time period typically associated with NOIR films is the early
1940’s – the late 1950’s. FILM NOIR was categorized retrospectively. Noir did not have this
title while directors were creating them during this time period. Noir directors of the time
were not necessarily intentionally trying to create films that fit into a specific category.
Instead, they were simply creating films that reflected much of the sentiment of the time.
FILM NOIR &
PULP FICTION
The source material for the bulk of the time.
of NOIR narratives came from the
underworld of American pulp
fiction. For example, nearly 20%
of FILM NOIRS between 1941
and 1948 were adaptations of
hard-boiled detective novels.
In the case of FILM NOIR, this AESTHETIC or STYLE was characterized by low-key
lighting; deep-focus cinematography; distorting, wide-angle lenses; sequence shots;
disorienting mise-en-scene; tension-inducing, oblique, and vertical compositional
lines; jarring juxtapositions between shots involving extreme changes in camera
angle or screen size; and claustrophobic framing. The cinematography reinforces the
darkness in the plot and theme. Long, sharp shadows are used in FILM NOIR, as well
as inky blackness. Tilted camera angles suggest a sense of claustrophobia, and
emphasize a nocturnal world. Sets have a gloomy feel. NOIR films often take place
indoors - in spaces with low-key lighting. Blinds often obscure windows. Exterior
scenes include streets and alleys, dark and wet. Flashing neon signs were popular to
use in FILM NOIR. These types of sets were partially due to war-time scarcity. The
characters will often be seen in murky streets, cheap city apartments or hotel rooms,
or abandoned warehouses. These movies are often based on situations based in
reality – usually crime and espionage. They are set in urban areas and deliberately
have a realistic feel. They are produced in a semi-documentary style to suggest the
darkness of reality.
MODE
Discussing films as being representative of specific
MODEs is focusing on the specific emotional reactions
produced by certain films in an audience. Some films can
be categorized as affective phenomena that produce
certain emotional responses in people. MODES are the
way stories are told in order to elicit certain reactions.
Though millions of laborers lived this new reality, they continued to subscribe to the
old, pre-industrial era myths. It was only after the Depression that the power of these
myths began to waver. Film noir reflects a transitional stage in American ideology and
American identity shifted from 19th century, preindustrial, agrarian prototypes to 20 th
century models that acknowledged the nation’s transformation into a mass consumer
society and an industrialized, corporate state.
Characters in noir are products of post-war consumerist society. Film noir captured
the emptiness of these people’s world. As a movement, it reflected the chaotic period
in which old myths began to crumble and no new myths were there to take their place
– the period in which national identity was in crisis.
NOIR suggested that American innocence had been lost and could not easily be
recaptured.