Lecture 5: The Many Forms of Noir

1. Lecture 5:The Many Forms of Noir Professor Michael Green L.A. Confidential (1997) Directed by Curtis Hanson

2. This Lesson Towards a definition of Film Noir, History and Influences Examples of Film Noir L.A. Confidential, Noir and the LAPD Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946) Directed by Howard Hawks

3. Towards a Definition of Film Noir Lesson 5: Part I The Night of the Hunter (1955) Directed by Charles Laughton

4. What is Film Noir? • Film Noir is hard to define but relatively easy to recognize. • It encompasses a wide range of film genres from gothic horror to science fiction, detective, thriller and comic book movies. • Naremore: There is no completely satisfactory way to organize noir; despite scores of books and essays on it, nobody is sure whether the films constitute a period, a genre, a cycle, a style or a ‘phenomenon.’

5. The Film Noir and the French • Film Noir as an idea evolved in Post WWII France when French critics grouped together a handful of Hollywood movies, including The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Laura and Murder, My Sweet. • The French had a sophisticated film culture and they treated movies like art rather than commercial entertainment. • They also saw the reflection of ‘shadowy French melodramas’ from the 1930s.

6. The Film Noir Paradox • Film Noir as a genre/category was named by critics not filmmakers, who didn’t speak of film noir until well after it was established as a feature of academic writing. • Naremore argues that Film Noir belongs as much to the history of ideas, as to the history of cinema. • The paradox of Film Noir as he sees it is that it is both an important cinematic legacy and an idea we have projected onto the past.

7. Standard History • The standard histories say that Noir originated in America out of the synthesis of hard-boiled fiction and German Expressionism. • The term is also associated with certain visual and narrative traits, including low-key photography, images of wet city streets, pop-Freudian characterizations, and romantic fascination with femme fatales.

8. Hard-boiled Fiction • A tough, unsentimental style of American crime writing that brought a new tone of realism or naturalism to detective fiction. • Hard-boiled fiction used graphic sex and violence, vivid but often sordid urban backgrounds, and fast-paced, slangy dialogue. Credit for the invention of the genre belongs to Dashiell Hammett, who wrote The Maltese Falcon and the Thin Man. • Raymond Chandler, who wrote The Big Sleep, was another famous practitioner.

9. German Expressionism “A term for a mode of literary or visual art which, in extreme reaction against realism or naturalism, presents a world violently distorted under the pressure of intense personal moods, ideas, and emotions: image and language express feeling and imagination rather than represent external reality. Although not an organized movement, it influenced the painting, drama, poetry, and cinema of German‐speaking Europe between 1910 and 1924.” – Literary Dictionary

10. Example The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Directed by Robert Wiene

11. Narrative Aspects of Film Noir • Often manifested as a crime story: detective, mystery or thriller. • Features anti-heroes and femme fatales • Characters motivated by (sexual) desire • Stories usually hinge on something tragic or shameful from a character’s past • Cynical, anti-establishment, anti-social • Convoluted structure, flashbacks • Moral ambiguity, Existential attitude • (Weary) voice-over narration

12. Other Formal Aspects • Low key, chiaroscuro lighting – interplay between light and shadow • Darkness • Gritty urban mise-en-scene • Melancholy, sensual scores, often jazz-based • Dutch angles, low-angle shots and wide-angle shots emphasize Surreal nature

13. Representation of Race and Ethnicity in Noir • The heroes of film noirs – especially in its heyday, but even more recently – are almost exclusively white men. Though flawed, these white, male anti-heroes are often presented as being basically good men who have been corrupted or lost their way. • When non-white characters and minorities are represented in noir films, they are usually seen as minor characters, villains, or supporters of the white protagonists.

14. Representation of Gender and Sexuality in Noir • Gender conventions are very traditional in noir, with men represented as active protagonists and women falling into two basic categories: • Helpless and in need of saving • Sexually independent and therefore dangerous • Noir, like most genre cinema, also represents heterosexuality as the norm. Gays and lesbians are rarely represented, and when they are, they are often seen as deviant.

15. Examples of Film Noir Lesson 5: Part II The Dark Knight (2008) Directed by Christopher Nolan

16. 1940s • The Maltese Falcon (1941) – John Huston • Shadow of a Doubt (1943) – Alfred Hitchcock • Laura (1944) – Otto Preminger • Double Indemnity (1944) – Billy Wilder • The Big Sleep (1946) – Howard Hawks • Notorious (1946) – Alfred Hitchcock • Out of the Past (1947) – Jacques Tourneur • Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Double Indemnity. 16

17. 1950s • The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – John Huston • Gun Crazy (1950) – Joseph H. Lewis • Sunset Boulevard (1950) – Billy Wilder • In a Lonely Place (1950) – Nicholas Ray • Kiss me Deadly (1955) – Robert Aldrich • The Night of the Hunter (1955) – Charles Laughton • Touch of Evil (1958) • Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Touch of Evil

18. 1960s and 1970s Cape Fear (1962) – J. Lee Thompson The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John Frankenheimer Point Blank (1967) – John Boorman The Long Goodbye (1973) – Robert Altman Chinatown (1974) – Roman Polanski Farewell, My Lovely (1975) – Dick Richards The Drowning Pool (1975) – Stuart Rosenberg Taxi Driver (1976) – Martin Scorsese 18

19. 1980s and 1990s • Body Heat (1981) – Lawrence Kasdan • Blood Simple (1984) – The Coen Brothers • Batman (1989) – Tim Burton • Basic Instinct (1992) – Paul Verhoeven • Reservoir Dogs (1992) – Quentin Tarantino • The Last Seduction (1993) – John Dahl • Heat (1995) – Michael Mann • Out of Sight (1998) – Steven Soderberg • Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Batman 19

20. 2000s • Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005) – Christopher Nolan • Minority Report (2002) – Steven Spielberg • Road to Perdition (2002) – Sam Mendes • Collateral (2004), Miami Vice (2006) – Michael Mann • Sin City (2005) – Robert Rodriquez • Brick (2005) – Rian Johnson • Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Minority Report

21. L.A. Confidential, Noir and the LAPD L.A. Confidential (1997) Directed by Curtis Hanson Lesson 5: Part III

22. Noir and the LAPD Los Angeles policemen have been at the center of many film noirs and Los Angles crime stories. Though cops are sometimes the heroes, the LAPD is often presented at extremes as either corrupt or as ineffectually bureaucratic. LA Confidential represents both these extremes in the characters of White, Exley and Captain Dudley. 22

23. “Bloody Christmas” The riot at the beginning of the film, in which the LAPD officers beat down defenseless Mexican prisoners, was on based on a real incident that forced the LAPD to make some changes in how it did business. However, problems between the LAPD and the public and particularly between the LAPD and African Americans and Mexican Americans, continued (and continue). The film was made only several years after Rodney King and the early ‘90s L.A. riots.

24. Noir and L.A. Confidential Crime/Detective/Cop film Features anti-heroes and femme fatales Characters motivated by (sexual) desire Stories usually hinge on something tragic or shameful from a character’s past Cynical, anti-establishment, anti-social Convoluted structure, flashbacks Moral ambiguity, Existential attitude (Weary) voice-over narration 24

25. Noir and L.A. Confidential Low key, chiaroscuro lighting – interplay between light and shadow Darkness Gritty urban mise-en-scene Melancholy, sensual scores, often jazz-based Dutch angles, low-angle shots and wide-angle shots emphasize Surreal nature 1990s style of action, violence, language and sexuality. 25

26. Race and Ethnicity in the Movie • Though the movie is critical of the LAPD tactics in handling minorities and features whites as criminals, it is far more complex in its portrayal of white men then it is of any other race, ethnicity or gender. • Even though the treatment of Mexican Americans and African Americans in the movie is condemned as brutal and racist, the movie still portrays all its non-white characters as low class and criminal.

27. Race and Ethnicity in the Movie (Continued) • Even the primary villain has an Irish brogue while the three heroes – Exley, White and Vincennes – are white male Anglo Saxons. Though they are presented as flawed and corrupt in certain ways, each is given a character arc that allows them to change morally and to make honorable choices. • Typical for noir, no minority character gets this arc.

28. Representation of Gender • All the women in the film are represented in typical ways for noir – • as either helpless and in need of saving (White’s character is a self-styled woman savior), • or as sexually independent and thus threatening to men. • Lynn (Kim Basinger’s character) is seen as both. • In the movie, women are only valued for their beauty and sexuality. 28

29. End of Lecture 5