Film Noir & Murder Mysteries

 

Stereotypical film noirs consist of specific things and generally include some, if not all, of the following aspects:

• Night-time city streets
• Atmosphere of paranoia
• Beautiful but treacherous woman
• Gullible and morally weak man
• Crime of passion/ money

Sources of Noir

 Film Noir, French for ‘black film’, film noir’s content and stylistic trademarks were developed from a mixture of these influences: Hollywood gangster movies, German expressionist cinema of the Weimar years and French poetic realist films from the period straight after the war. It is an era of film typically associated with a low-key black and white visual style. Many of the prototypical stories and attitudes of classical film noir derive from US crime fiction (‘Hard-boiled’) which began in the United States during The Great Depression (1929).

Typical Plot	Typical Characters	Typical Settings
Crime, usually murder(usually of the man’s wife)	Heroes (alienated)Morally questionable/ flawed	Urban setting – city- Maze/labyrinth/puzzle
Criminal Motivation- Greed - Jealousy	Femme Fatale- Beautiful but treacherous woman - Impossible to resist	Climaxes of film noir genre tend to be in industrial settings (refineries, factories, train yards, power plants)
Crime Investigation by a:- Private eye - Police detective (sometimes acting alone) - Concerned amateur	Scapegoat – Red herring- takes the blame for other characters actions (crime) - usually at the end of jokes	Cities: Skyscrapers, dark- Los Angeles - San Francisco - New York - Chicago
Protagonist implicated in: - Heists - Con games - Murderous conspiracies (adulterous affairs)		Typical settings (inside)- bars - lounges - nightclubs
Elements- False suspicions - Affairs - Betrayals - Double crosses	Others- Corrupt policeman - Jealous husband - ‘hardboiled’ detective -Femme Fatale
Amnesia in characters (main character)	Voiceover – narrator – sometimes main character telling story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The use of a questionable hero (fighting his own battles) and ultimately reaching his downfall – walking away into the streets or death have now become stigmas of the film noir.

First appeared in the early 1940s, very stereotypically crowded, dark settings. Things like Venetian blinds and detectives offices are commonplace. Minimal light is essential in creating a noir effect. Very low or very high camera angles as well as pan across from one object to another to make the audience feel like they are in the detective’s ‘mind eye’ (seeing what the main character is seeing) 

Typically shot in black and white, film noir’s ‘classic era’ was during the 1940s to the 1950s, a period just after World War II. Film Noir is a cinematic term mainly used to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas.

• Element of light and darkness in characters and settings = Important.
• Watching film noir: foggy, dark, mysterious, keeps audience in suspension and tension

From The Rough Guide to Film Noir:

Many critics have observed that film noir’s focus on individual paranoia and psychological disturbance is linked to the fact that by the 1940s there was a widespread awareness of psychoanalysis in the US. (Page 21)

Best Film Noir titles: (Taken from the Internet Movie Database)

Rank	Title	Year
1	Sunset Boulevard	1950
2	M	1931
3	Double Indemnity	1944
4	The Third Man	1949
5	The Maltese Falcon	1941
6	Touch of Evil	1958
7	Strangers on a Train	1951
8	Notorious	1946
9	The Big Sleep	1946
10	Ace in the Hole	1951

 

Film Noir conventions (Filming and Lighting)

• Night for night
• Low key lighting
• ‘Venetian’ blind lighting
• Urban settings
• Unconventional camera angles
• High angle
• Low angle
• Dutch angle (sideways: sloped)
• Close up
• Panning

Primary Moods

• Melancholy
• Alienation
• Bleakness
• Disillusionment
• Moral corruption
• Evil
• Desperation
• Paranoia / Guilt
• Ambiguity
• Pessimism 

 

From: http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

Film noir films were marked visually by expressionistic lighting, deep-focus or depth of field camera work, disorienting visual schemes, jarring editing or juxtaposition of elements, ominous shadows, skewed camera angles (usually vertical or diagonal rather than horizontal), circling cigarette smoke, existential sensibilities, and unbalanced or moody compositions. Settings were often interiors with low-key (or single-source) lighting, venetian-blinded windows and rooms, and dark, claustrophobic, gloomy appearances. Exteriors were often urban night scenes with deep shadows, wet asphalt, dark alleyways, rain-slicked or mean streets, flashing neon lights, and low key lighting. Story locations were often in murky and dark streets, dimly-lit and low-rent apartments and hotel rooms of big cities, or abandoned warehouses. [Often-times, war-time scarcities were the reason for the reduced budgets and shadowy, stark sets of B-pictures and film noirs.]