Film Noir

What are film movements?

“A film movement consists of not only films but also the activities of a specific filmmaker. We must go beyond noting stylistic and formal qualities, for each period and nation we shall also sketch relevant factors that affect the cinema” (Bordwell and Thompson, 2001, p399).

Film noir is one of the famous film movement in history. Film noir derived from a French word which means "black cinema".  It gained popularity during the post-war years. A few movies that used this film movement was The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941), Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944), Laura (Preminger, 1944) and Murder, My Sweet (E.Dmytryk, 1944).

Film noir constitutes a few main characteristics. Film noir movies have fatalistic attitudes. The male protagonists are usually morally ambiguous. There are two different characters of woman, the femme fatale and menaced woman. Set often gives the gloomy feel. Locations are always in big cities, urban. The cinematography reinforces the darkness in the plot and theme.

History and Development 

According to a French Film Critics which known as the first one was commented on Film Noir can be defined as “Dark Film” in English by Nino Frank in 1946 who discovers this kind of film was conducted in a space or location in a dark atmosphere, downbeat kind of rhythm as well as it looks really black due to have a different sense of set that they will just be using low key lighting rather than high key lighting. (Dirks, 2014)

Film Noir made to be B-movie because it is a low budget movie. It is cheaper to produce and quickly made with smaller casts and limited sets. B-movies were screened as a second feature film alongside a major feature film until it often ignored and overlooked by the critics. (Hayward, 2013, p60)

The themes that they use which we can be able to see at the most of the American crime and detectives film at that period of time were distributed in France to their nearest cinema in order to follow the trend because they were still in the war when they distribute the movie that they had made such as  The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941), and as mentioned above.

They had directed a several numbers of movies that can be able to reveal the sense of tension and unstable feeling at that period of time. They would like to do something different which to show the big contrast between their movie and Hollywood movie that will focus on musicals and comedies. (Dirks, 2014)

This kind of movie consists of a few sets of elements which are paranoia, despair, lost the sense of innocent and starts to have bad behaviors that can be seen in film noir.(Dirks, 2014)

Classic Film Noir has been developed since World War II. During World War II, the male has been sent out to fight in the war and the female has been taking over male’s job. When the male came back from the war, they have no idea what are they going to do because the female has been taken over their job. They imitate the elements from World War II and apply it in their movie such as suspicious, distrust and worry. The first American Black and White film was first to be known in the early of 1940s which was became the famous movie style during the post war period. It was lasted around the Golden Age era until the end of 1960s (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013). The anti-heroes that we can see from Film Noir is how the society has threaten their social status as well as they have no idea what will be their position in that particular society and they would like to have their status back in reality actually to show how “hungry” they are. (Dirks, 2014)

As we can see the anti-hero portraits like he doesn’t know how to differentiate between right and wrong. He doesn’t even do his job well plus lack of the spirit of justice. We can’t see happy ending or positive ending in the most of the Film Noir movie. (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

It’s vital to point out that Film Noir is not a kind of genre but rather the tone of the film, personal opinion, technique as well as the feeling (Hayward, 2006). It is also help to identify that Film Noir can be defined as diverse historical era of film history whereby making film after World War II it’s kind of alike to French New Wave and also German Expressionism.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

Nevertheless, it has been categorized as the classic era plus early Film-Noir makers didn’t put the film title like what American do is they will name it as “Western” or “Musical”. They didn’t realize that actually their film could be categorized as noirs.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

         

Neo Noir usually will bind the modern kind of feeling, situations and conditions that we can’t able to see from the original Film Noir. The Neo-Noir technique will stick to the elements of time and technology.

Compare to the classic Film Noir, Neo-noir films has been made to show to the audience that actually whatever that they see it doesn’t have any relationship with the movie itself by just viewing it, this can be able to achieve by using unusual camera movement then to create the plots in order to push the story forward.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

There is a film can be to use as example which fulfills the criteria like Blade Runner  (Scott, 1982) that acted by Harrison Ford. The film reveals the use of time and place that it shows to the audience to have a huge surprise and bring audience to feel what they are feeling which to show the space it’s really revolutionary and innovative.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

The audience can be able to see the car is flying and they hit certain targets then it will turn it into robots. This film is really a great example of Neo-Noir as it arouses the sensibilities of Noir into the revolutionary kind of feeling plus full of imagination that we can see through in the movie.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

The ordinary core can be found in the classic Film Noir are the plot will force the story to move forward but it’s kind of slow, it will use slow music to enhance each and every scenes, set in a dark atmosphere as well as criticize on using specific lightings. All the elements can be seen in this particular movie.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

           

Since the year of 1970s, they have those Neo-Noir Films which brings back the core of Film Noir. This kind of technique has been combined into different kind of genres which the filmmakers would like to give the audience to have new sense of feeling so they can be able to compete with other kind of movies. This technique is still developing as the core of the classic version of the technique will still remain.  (Wilder, Film Noir, 2013)

Characteristic of Film Noir

Every film movement has their own characteristic of film. The characteristic over here is the technical part and themes. As been mentioned earlier above, there are few characteristic in Film noir. These characteristics combined and made as a film.

As what been said by Susan Hayward “Film noir has a style of cinematography that emphasizes the impression of night-time photography with low-key lighting, deep shadows and oblique angles to create a sense of dread and anxiety.” (Hayward, 2005, p. 149).

In a film noir, the reason of using the low key lighting is to show the high-contrast and rich, black shadows associated with the films to give the audiences a sense of corrupted characters, social malaise, pessimism, and suspicion and also blurred morals that the characters have. In the movie Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), throughout the movie we can see that it’s been used low key lighting to show the high-contrast and dark shadows for the corrupted characters, this can be seen when Brigid O’shaughnessy find Samuel Spade to solve a case and Samuel Spade demanded for bribe.

            Film noir also used German Expressionistic to give distorted effects on the characters by creating a dark mise-en-scene and also lots of oblique vertical and horizontal lines. The characters in the film noir half of their face is in shadows and another half is fragmented. This visual has given the audiences know that the characters in the film are corrupted.

        

    In addition, in film noir there are always have locations such as alleyways, cramped corridors and the setting is city-bound, comprising of rain-washed roads and dimly-lit interiors. Most of the time, the shots in the film are tightly framed and often with extreme camera angles to show the abnormal and also to feature of the world of criminal, fearful and greed.

            femme fatale which represents strong women they are very good in personality that they can emotionally manipulating the man in the film and they are not under control by anyone but themselves. Not only this, film noir also features the femme fatale as a sexy and pretty woman and the femme fatale always got punishment in the end of the film. 

On the other hand for male characters, film noir features corrupted men as very manly, greedy and they are suffered from psychological damages as their position in the society is changing. The men in film noir are relying on female for his subjectivity. The male character(s) in film noir usually are hard boiled antihero who is very tough, street smart.

            Some say film noir are tales of criminal motives but film noir is not about investigating a murder, although it might as first appear to be (Hayward, 2005, p. 151). As a sexually femme fatale, the male characters will fall for her which threatens the male quest for resolution.

             Film noir usually features a narration which it’s about which voice is going to gain control over the storytelling and control over the image of the woman in the end of the film. (Hayward, 2005, p. 152)

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Conclusion

In a nutshell, Film Noir is not a genre, but is a movement pointed out by the critics. These critics point to the fact that, like all other film movements, film noir emerged from a period of economic instability, the time when World War II and Cold War happened (Hayward, 2013, p149).

Noir movies show the dark side of the society. The characters in the films are corrupted, blurred moral and intellect and have a difficulty in discerning truth, pointing to the moral ambiguity of the character. The character of femme fatale breaks the tradition of women representation in Hollywood cinemas who reposition women a more powerful, intelligent and dominant society and it challenges men’s masculinity in the film.

Noir movies are so interesting that the female lead which is Femme Fatale is so evil that she can do something which violates her moral value. The character of femme fatale causes the idea of gender equality and status should be emphasized in neo-noir film instead of gender discrimination.         

The cinematography of film noir with the low key lighting which creates high contrast lighting, the dark scene with deep shadow, and oblique angles and lines is very unique that these styles need to be documented and preserved and practiced by the future generation of filmmakers.

REFERENCE

    Hayward, S. (2013). Cinema studies: The key concepts (4th ed.). Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.

Dirks, T. (2014). Film Noir. Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html
Wilder, B. (2013, April 4). Film Noir. Retrieved from http://sunsetboulevard1950.blogspot.com/2013/04/history-and-development-of-film-noir.html