Film Noir: Cynical and Sleazy

Film Noir (pronounced as \nwar\ ; IPA key /nwaʁ/ literally translates to “black film.” It was the name used by French film critics.

These films have their own looks, such dark stories that are uniquely American. But actually it was believed that this style was influence was German Expressionism since they have a lot in common. They were black and white. They were dark. They were often raw. It has the rule of fate that primarily describes Hollywood crime dramas wherein almost everybody dies. This is your type of detective-slash-crime movies of a man in loose suit emerges from a smoky dark alley and would walk right to you with his mysteriously somber stare.

frame by frame shot of  film noir character emerging from smoky entrance to a dark alley

In cinematography, low-angle, wide-angle, skewed and Dutch tilt shots were widely used. Some devices were also used for disorientation purposes such as shots through curved and frosted glass. Moreover, flashbacks and voice over narrations were frequently involved in a film noir structure.

Since this is a black film, lights and shadows were metaphorically used in a creative way. They do big tricks. Low key lighting schemes associated with shadows, contrasts and people reflected in mirror/s became iconic visual elements. Just like what John Bailey mentioned, a cinematographer interviewed in the video American Cinema: Film Noir, it was after the war when the development of cameras, smaller dollies, and more contained lighting units made it more possible for the filmmakers to go out at night on the streets using the lights in a very controlled dramatic way. 

This type of film is also stereotyped as those with tales of deception and seduction. True enough, it always includes shady, seductive femme-fatale with hidden motives. According to Paul Schrader, a writer and director, this sensibility about female characters in film noir may have originated from the fact that when American male soldiers came back to America from their so-called warzones in Europe, American females had changed their position in the society. She’d worked during the war, became more independent. She may have had affairs during the war. And that’s very threatening to a lot of men.

Indeed, this is a type of movie that comprised of sex, money and murder. This style was also associated for having roots from German Expressionism (which I’m about to tackle in my next entry). These cynical and pessimistic films seemingly demonstrate angst, corruption and urban decay that were happening during the war.

So here are my notes about the video American Cinema: Film Noir. Much of which I learned a lot. Hope you learn from them too. As usual, italicized comments inside the parentheses are my two cents and is not part of the video. Feel free to leave your comments if you want to say something.

• It was in the 1940s right after the war when film noirs started to circulate in movie theaters. (This explains the dark and mysterious emotions displayed in this type of film.)
• Told stories were about life in the streets, shady characters, crooked cops, twisted love, and bad luck. (sounds very dark and dangerous, but mind you, these scenes also happen in real life)
• It’s about the darker side of human nature.
• Examples of these films are THE FORCE OF EVIL (1948), DETOUR (1945), DOUBLE INDEMNTY (1944), CROSSFIRE (1947), MEAN STREETS (1973), CHINATOWN (1974) and BODY HEAT (1981).
• According to Abraham Polonsky, the writer and director of movie The Force of Evil, “You make the film according to your mood, the circumstances. The way the story is written is the influence of the writer on you, the actors on you and so on. And it is reflecting the general sense of jeopardy in life which exists in all film noirs. Then it’s a correct representation of the anxiety of the system.”
• Film noir poses the question, “Why me?” and its most acceptable answer is “For no reason. For no reason at all.” (it’s as if you’re fighting with a force in nature but for some reason, you just can’t defeat it because it’s out of your control)
• It is concerned with errors and confusion. We don’t know what’s going on but we do know that some bad is out there controlling events. (That is why, most of the time, this type of film will leave us hanging after watching.)



shady character

• The more that the film noir character struggles, the deeper he becomes more entwined in nightmare, the better the film will become. It hits eople so hard because it’s the core of them all. They’re tales of survival.

• Psychiatry was just being discovered in this period. (which explains why film noir has psychological elements)
• According to Edward Dymtryk, director of Crossfire and Murder My Sweet, “One of the things about Detective stories, murder stories, is that no matter how bad they are, I’ve never seen anyone [from the audience] walked out on one. Because it’s a riddle, a puzzle, and they want to puzzle it up.” (It’s the thrilling experience that would make you want to continue watching the film as if you’re a detective yourself putting the puzzles together only to realize that you got the wrong piece with you.)
• The censorship in a film noir allows one’s imagination to take over where the material is not completely exemplified. (this explains the shots used during sexual scenes wherein a camera will give us a shot of a lady showing some skin while a man will go for it then the camera shot will stay at the woman’s face capturing her sensual expression and leaving us with our imagination on what happened)
• What you really see in film noir is the emergence of a more psychological phenomenon which is that men would’ve always been endangered by a strong sexual female.
• Females were extremely driven, selfish, and ambitious characters which are generally characteristics associated with male characters. (Sounds like the famous quote “Behind every successful man is a great woman.”  Whew!)
• Throughout the ages, female is considered as a powerful dangerous figure. (Okay, I’m buying this. LOL. Sounds exciting to me!)
• Female character in film noir used her sexuality to get what she’s after. Something for herself but definitely not the man.
• Being a woman in a film noir can be identified in a lot of ways: long hair, tight clothes, long fingernails that are actually often composed as claws, often smokes as sign of loose morals.
•  An example of showing women controlling the composition by being shot in low angle then cut to a shot of a man from a high angle so that they have a visual dominance. (Now, this is very interesting. Shots were creatively used to show women as dominating characters.)
  
  

  

  low angle shot of a woman

  

  high angle shot of a man

  
  
• A classic femme-fatale is a woman usually getting a man to bed then to trouble, which the kind of character that people never forget.
• There’s an element in film noir the way lights and shadows were used in such an extreme contrast that is almost religious, spiritual or philosophical.
• The lighting complements the film as if it is a part of a scene. (Well, for the most part, I think that’s because that’s the only resource they got. Back in the 1940s, colored films are not yet introduced so basically they had to make full use of what they have – which are the lights and shadows.)
• The sense of the frame, the world, being essentially black became the signature of film noir.
• Deep focus, foreground, and background focus are equally sharp to add a tremendous wide visual field opening up behind the actor gave a tremendous wide environment.
• This is a historical genre which was done in a specific time.
• We don’t make film noir anymore. – Paul Schrader

There you have it! So out of all those bulleted points mentioned above, which do you think still applies to modern film noir? Or do you even think we still have film noirs nowadays? Personally, I do think so. So yes, I basically disagree with what Paul Schrader said at the latter part of the video that we don’t make film noir anymore. Well, the films we have in the modern times may not be exactly the same black and white type of film just like the ones in the 40s but we still have detective-slash-crime-slash-melodrama-femme-fatale type of films. The only difference is that, film makers no longer have to stick with the fixed black-white-shadows-contrasts elements because audience of today, well I, personally, prefer colored films with dialogues and less voice over narrations. I mean, I prefer to see the action instead of just listening to dialogues ad narrations.

So before I leave you with your boggled minds of what a film noir really is, let me leave you a classic film noir, right from YouTube, so you could have better grasp of it. This one is entitled "Detour." Enjoy!