Film Noir

1. Film Noir By Bianca Forte

2. Conventions of Film Noir • -Noir movies usually feature dark themes such as Crime, murder, love, loss, romance, and corruption. • Cinematic term to describe stylish Hollywood films. • Stretches from the early 40’s to the late 50’s • Low key black and white visual styles • Stories derive from school of crime fiction that emerged during depressing in the Unites States. • French for “black film” • Nino Frank first termed the genre “film noir” in 1946 • Film Noir is referred to as melodramas nowadays.

3. CHARACTERS IN FILM NOIR • The central figures could be a private detective, policemen, a “nobody”, someone who is law abiding. • There is always a damsel in distress in Noir films, who is being victimised. Or, they seem to be a damsel in distress when really they are the evil one in the film. • The protagonist in the film always has a major character flaw which then leads to destruction. The character could be a small time criminal, adulterer , thief, or of a weal will. • The protagonist gets absorbed in some sort of deed and is sent to his doom.

4. GENRE TIMELINE Film Noir began in the 1920’s with films such as “underworld” Classic Noir films are more rare than they were in the 1940’s Film Noir films began to become more advanced as time went on Around the 1940’s film noir began to become more popular The latest Noir film known is “The Spirit” in 2008 The genre was first termed by Nino Frank in 1946

5. THE LETTER directed by William Wyler (1940) The women can also be the criminal in Noir films, such as in “The Letter” directed by William Wyler featuring Bette Davis as a murdering wife whose innocence was compromised by a damning letter. I watched the trailer for this film and the music was extremely dramatic, this is very important for this genre. There were also subtitles and many captions explaining the films narrative. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2817459225/

6. PAST AND PRESENT NOIR FILMS These movie posters are extremely different and you can see as time has gone on that new technology and new ideas have formed as to how film noir can be. In “The spirit” movie poster there is a lot more graphics and pictures overlapping each other. In the “underworld” movie poster there is one image that has been drawn, not a photograph. The text in the 2008 film poster is modern and edgy. “The spirit” 2008 “underworld” 1927

7. PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) Public enemies is a 2009 crime film directed by Michael Mann. The film follows the last few years of the notorious American gangster “John Dillinger” ( played by actor Johnny Depp) and his accomplishes in crime. The film is set in the 1930’s, during a massive crime wave. Main character John Dillinger loved what he did (bank robbing among other crimes) and didn’t think anything else would make him happier. He then meets and falls in love with Billie Frechette, and wants to do everything he can to keep both loves. “We're having too good a time today. We ain't thinking about tomorrow”- John Dillinger

8. PUBLIC EMEMIES CONTINUED Watching the trailer, it is similar to what we want to create. Looking at films like public enemies I can get ideas and these can form to bring our trailer together. The music in the trailer begins to be quite slow and eerie and then it begins to get more dramatic when the action begins to get quicker and faster. The trailer is quite emotional and does hold some characteristics of an old Film Noir trailer such as “The letter” where the writing at the end is plain and simple, and captions are also used to describe John Dillinger as “the most notorious criminal” and saying how he must be “brought to justice” and how “one man wanted the world”. John Dillinger thought he could have it all, until it all just started coming back to him, he thought he would never get caught. Even though this film has not been labelled a classic “film noir” film, it does have characteristic s of one, with his love interest seeming like the damsel in distress and him being the criminal that actually doesn’t seem bad at heart, and just needs money for obvious reasons.

9. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN Directed by Steven Spielberg (2002) Catch me if you can is an American crime based film, about Frank Abagnale Jr, who, before his 19th birthday conned millions of dollars worth of cheques as a pan am pilot, doctor and legal prosecutor. This film is slightly similar to “Public enemies” in the way that he is on the run from the detectives at all times, and never gets caught, until the end. Like a classic Film Noir film, this film features a main detective who is obsessed with tracking Frank Abagnale Jr (played by Leonardo Dicaprio) down. This film is about fraud, and how he pretends to be different people, this is potentially the crime we have chosen for our film.

10. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1972) The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola is an iconic American gangster crime drama starring Al Pacino and Marlon Brando. The film is based on the novel of the same name written by Mario Puzo. I have chosen to look at this film because it is one of the most iconic films of all time, and a film we can get many ideas from. The trailer of the film is fast and exciting, there is a lot of violence, seen in many crime films of this time. To this day, it is still a lot of peoples favourite films and many films created at this time are seen to be in homage to The Godfather. The locations used in this film are similar to the look we want out trailer to have.

11. Goodfellas is a 1990 American gangster film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book “Wise guy” by Nicholas Pileggi. The film follows the rise and fall of three gangsters, spanning three decades. Henry Hill, the main character in the film always wanted to be a gangster, wanting to be a part of something. This film is one of the best gangster films ever made. Like with The Godfather, the suits and the locations are inspiring because we want to have our characters wearing similar clothing and being “high class” criminals. "As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster." -- Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955.

12. INITIAL IDEAS... We discussed Crime and Film Noir because this is the genre we were all most interested in, and found ideas flowed easily . We want to concentrate on fraud, like in “catch me if you can” , we discussed how easy this would be to film, and think that it’s possible we could make it look good . I have been inspired by all the films I have looked at, especially “catch me if you can” and “the godfather” where the characters are dressed well and are powerful. We have thought about locations, in iconic places such as London, as we want a location for our film that looks sophisticated and elegant, like it would fit the character we want to create. We are planning on filming in different locations, such as hotels in Brighton like “The Grand” and “The Metropol” that look like places our criminal would go to because he has a lot of money and they are expensive hotels. We have also discussed props that we may use for our trailer, such as passports, briefcases full of money to accentuate his wealth from criminal success, and a safe where he would keep all of his money in or where he would steal someone else’s money from.