Film Noir Initial Research

1. Film Noir Initial Research Sam Hayter

2. History of Film Noir The femme fatale disappeared too, until a new era of social unease, the 1970s, with the much greater gender challenge of feminism, saw film noir’s first true revival. The term ‘Film Noir’ was first coined by French critic Nino Frank. 1940 1955 1946 1970 There was a major challenge in the area of gender and family roles. The male draft combined with the industrial mobilisation for the war effort made women the primary source of factory workers for the huge number of vacancies. The previous female stereotype of the housewife financially dependent on the male was blown away. Arising from this was the ‘femme fatale’,a siren-like figure of desire whose distinctive characteristics, compared to previous female archetypes, were her independence, strength and ruthless desire. The new-fangled television forced film noir out to suburbia to compete with ‘pulp’ crime on TV where, in all the bright sunshine and open spaces, noir was effectively dead as a film genre

3. Generic Conventions Characters Femme Fatale Male Protagonist Mysterious Villain Corrupt character

4. Generic Conventions Iconography Rain Drenched streets Trench coats Cigarettes Dark Sidewalks Lamp posts Alcohol

5. Generic Conventions Setting Alleyways Bar Hotels Offices Cars Urban Location

6. Generic Conventions Visual Style Shadows Mirror reflections Lighting Low angle shots Skewed angle Low key lighting

7. Neo-Noir Classic-Noir Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s. An example of a Neo-Noir film from the 1970’s is Taxi Driver where a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as night time taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process. Classic noir is a more dated style and was most prominent in the 1940s. They were often films with a low budget and did not feature any major stars but instead had actors who became an icon within the genre. This meant that the writers, directors and cinematographers were able to visually experiment with the film as they did not have the constraints that the big Hollywood movies had. The narrative structure of classic noir often featured flashbacks which were rarely seen outside of noir. Classically, film noirs were renown for featuring a femme fatale character. The film most famous for this was Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder. Another classic noir film is The Maltese Falcon, directed by John Huston. http://www.bighousefilm.com/noir_intro.htm

8. Classic Noir – Double Indemnity In this film trailer there are quite a few recognisable conventions of a trailer. The stars of the film are introduced, conversations between characters often consist of just one line and a montage edit is used which places together different parts from across the main film. The film noir features in this trailer include a low angle shot of a Femme fatale character, a hard boiled detective wearing a trench coat and a hat, a voiceover, Cigarette smoke and alcohol. The edits between shots is mainly dissolves and instant cuts, which is typical of montage editing from this time period.

9. Individual film research Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) Blade Runner is described as tech noir: a mix of high-tech sci-fi and film noir. This label, tech noir, is rarely used by fans, though. Usually, Blade Runner is simply said to be film noir or neo noir. Deckard has a couple of typical film noir attributes: a trench coat and a gun. Deckard is a classic anti-hero: he drinks too much, he is a loner and he mistrusts authorities. Finally, he is a detective. The dialogue is harsh, brutal, witty and rich of memorable one-liners. A couple of examples, which would fit in any film noir movie: "They don't advertise for killers." "I'm not in the business. I am the business." "If you're not a cop, you're little people.“ A classic film noir feature is the femme fatale, French for fatal woman, who generally speaking is a seductive woman who lures the hero — as well as other male characters — into ruin. Rachael and Pris can be said to be typical femme fatales and to some extent Zhora too. Voice-over is a characteristic film noir story-telling technique. Originally, the voice-over in Blade Runner was supposed to be both more poetic and more cynical in a traditional film noir manner. The general look and atmosphere resemble film noir features: night, rain, deserted alleys, bright city lights, dim rooms etc. Throughout Blade Runner, there is an interplay between light and shadows, maybe most obvious when Deckard kisses Rachael in front of a Venetian blind, an explicit homage by director Ridley Scott. The plot in Blade Runner has classic film noir components: the hero is assigned a mission of proportions he cannot really imagine, he meets a dangerous woman and falls in love with her and finally he realises he has been deceived by powerful people. http://www.bighousefilm.com/noir_intro.htm

10. Blade Runner Rain Drenched Streets Bar Location / Low Angle Shot Neon Lights Femme Fatale / Rain Drenched Streets / Dark Alleyways Cigarette smoke Single Source Lighting

11. Trailer Each shot is fairly short with either a fade or a dissolve used to edit them together. The credits for the film come in to the trailer at about half way in a bold red font. As this film has been described as Sci-fi as well as Film noir there are quite a few elements from Sci-fi such as fast editing and very high angle shots which wouldn’t be used in our trailer. Generic conventions of film noir in this trailer include the detective, a femme fatale character, the classic trench coat and hat, cigarette smoke, single source lighting effects and shadows from blinds coming onto the characters faces.

12. Trailer This is a more modern film noir trailer but still contains a lot of the conventions that are linked to the genre. These include: Detectives, trench coats, guns, Femme fatale, a male protagonist, shadows. Another main feature of the Sin City trailer is how it is mainly black and white apart from where red is used, for things such as blood. The characters are also mostly in colour except for their clothes.

13. Target Audience Seeing as the majority of film noir’s are usually gritty detective stories, often also falling into the crime drama category, then the target audience tends to stick with males aged between 15 and 75.