CLASSIC NOIR. TWO OF THE BEST.

The first film I consider one of the best film noirs is Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard was released in 1950 and was directed by none other than Billy Wilder. Joe Gillis is a down on his luck writer. His most recent script has just been rejected by Paramount Studios and he has some large depts to pay off, fearing his car being repossessed he hides it in the garage of a mansion on Sunset Boulevard. The mansion is in fact the residence of Norma Desmond a once loved silent movie star who lives with her ex-husband and butler Max. Norma wants to re-enter the world of showbiz and has a script she wants Joe to look at, she offers him cash upfront on condition he moves in with her. He accepts. When Norma tries to get closer to Joe they have a fight and this drives Joe off to his friends New Years party where he meets Betty Schaefer. Joe falls in love with Betty and tries to leave Norma who unfortunately shoots him in the back

Like many other Film Noirs the story is not told in chronological order, we start the film with Joe narrating his own death, the pessimistic themes throughout are apparent to the genre, murder, insanity, paranoia. There's Norma who is by far one of the most chilling femme fatales in all of noir. Low key lighting is used throughout the film especially when Joe first moves into the out house, the bulb is broken so it's too dark.



The second film I chose is Double Indemnity. This was released in 1944 and was directed again by Billy Wilder.
A successful insurance man, Walter Neff, has the unfortunate pleasure of meeting Phyllis Dietrichson, the wife of one of his clients, after a couple of meetings he suspects her of wanting to kill her husband for the insurance money but it's already too late, he has fallen for her and does the deed himself. As the investigator for Walters company becomes closer and closer to unveiling the truth, Walters and Phyllis relationship deteriorates, one night Walter meets Phyllis and tells her his investigator thinks it's someone else and tries to severe ties with her and the crime, she puts a bullet in his shoulder. Upon being shot Walter takes the gun from her and shoots her dead then heads to his office to admit his crimes.

We start the film with Walter telling us how he came to be a double murderer, he tells the events in a series of flashbacks occasionally cutting back to present time. Your bog standard characters, femme fatale, investigators, fall guy star in the action. When ever the characters are in the insurance offices the venetian blind effect is used to create an additional sense of paranoia for Walter.

THE CODES AND CONVENTIONS OF FILM NOIR.

When watching a film noir you may notice similar techniques used, or locations. A typical noir will be told in a non linear sequence, the opening scene may show the death of our main character then they would narrate their decadence, relying quite often on flashbacks; another example of something commonly used is low-key lighting, low-key lighting tries to create an chiaroscuro effect with contrasting little light to vast amounts of dark. This creates large looming shadows that fill characters faces and give the audience a paranoid feeling; combine this with extreme close ups that are often used and it almost makes the picture unsettling.You really see the fear in the actors eyes.

An example of an extreme close up in low-key lighting.

Noir directors usually filmed night-for-night, which literally means, they filmed at night, this is what gives the genre those shadows and darkness, it was also cheaper. Another favourite was to use the venetian blind effect, due to a lot of the stories being about crime, investigators, there were often scenes set in the offices of these characters. A classic example of this technique was in Double Indemnity, when our fall guy is in the office of his own firm with his own investigator who has invited the only witness to a pre-meditated murder, our fall guy isn't sure if the witness will identify him and this is when the venetian blind effect is used, as if he is already behind bars. Using effects like this in Hollywood was unheard of because they didn't want their big stars to have shadows hiding their appearance. If the audience weren't already uncomfortable enough directors would obscure their scenes by shooting through objects, such as frosted glass, reflections or even the shadows themselves. If our fall guy was unlucky enough to get a bad dose of some awful narcotic, a dutch tilt would perfectly make the audience sympathize with him, it makes the audience see our guys trouble with movement and stabilization.

An example of the famous Dutch Tilt.

Taking the scenes from dark dingy night clubs and ram shackled hotels, to fancy restaurants and the best bars in town, makes the films more believable, it engrosses the audience more, they find themselves in these places daily. Our hero in a film noir will usually be pushed beyond his limits and during the course of a film noir you will notice the effect it will have; his dress sense will start getting sloppy, his shirt will become untucked, his tie slightly a-skew, blood will eventually stain his clothes and even in black and white you will know blood on the clothing. His mental state takes a beating too, he will start smoking and drinking heavily making his survivability more and more unlikely.



The music and sound FX of a film noir can be said to be very lonely and pessimistic, there's likely to be a musician wailing the blues in a bar where our perps are at. A great example is in The Killers, through the whole scene a piano is playing off screen, and when the two murderers come through the door the piano plays a few very different chilling keys. A lot of the sound will be emphasized such as breathing, music or certain characters speech, to draw further attention to objects or characters.

HISTORY OF FILM NOIR.

Film Noir is a world of villainous women who can achieve anything they want, ruthless romantics crave power and money more than life itself, crime is glamorized and pays just as well. Grab your .45 and your trench coat but do us all a favour, don't turn on the lights.

During pre-war Hollywood, when people went to watch movies, the cinemas would play two films. There was your big blockbuster film with the greatest stars and largest budget, the A film, then your B movie which usually had up and coming stars and a budget not so great as the A films. The B movies usually reused sets from the A films, the directors also had more artistic freedom because the studios kept the A pictures their main priority. This allowed the directors full control without having to worry about the man up stairs. This made the B movies push boundaries within the genre. People were not used to viewing the angles or scenes that were included, this is what gave noir an uncomfortable feel.

A classic Femme Fatale.

When the Second World War ended, a torrent of films from America reached Europe. Upon seeing these films, critics noticed that most of them had similarities. They were very pessimistic, a lot of the story lines involved crime, murder, double crossings. In 1946 a French man, Nino Frank, gave this genre of films the name “Film Noir”, which in French means Black Film.

Film Noir typically involve stories based on criminal activity. Even the good guys are bad.  Be it killing your lover’s husband for a fat packet or escaping your lover for the job you once loved, you're bound to get it in the back, the femme fatales end up on top.  Low lighting is key in these films to give of a negative paranoid image of how the characters usually feel, large shadows swamp the scenes and make both us and the actors alert to every detail. Thick or thin.

The Femme Fatale is another French word, meaning “Fatal Female”, these became increasingly popular around the time of the end of the war. I think this is because during the war all the men were off over seas fighting and it was a very female world home side.  They took over a lot of the male roles and come 1945 when the men returned, they saw their women in a different light, all of this created super confident women. It was no longer a mans world.

A comic book warning about communism.

It is hotly debated if Film Noir is actually a genre or not. Film Noir developed from the early 20’s gangster movies and is based on the hardboiled novels wrote during the great depression. Film Noir reached its pinnacle around 1940 to 1950, producing big hits such as:  Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, The Third Man, The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep, all of which, (besides The Third Man) were filmed in America, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago were popular places to film.  When people started fleeing Germany and the surrounding countries to escape Hitler’s reign, so did the film makers, they bought with them German Expressionism which used shadows to their fullest effect. When the atrocities of the Second World War became more and more public there developed a growing hate for right wing fascism, the kind Hitler imposed upon Germany. This changed a lot of peoples minds back home in America, there was now a growing increase in left wing liberalism, this greatly effected Hollywood. Many people in the creative community were liberal and when America went to war with Russia there was a fear of communism and it spreading to America. People in Hollywood began ratting each other out, this led to some of the directors fleeing America for foreign soils, and all of this perfectly reflects film noir, paranoia.

WELCOME TO MY BLOG & BRIEF.

Welcome to my AS media blog. My name is Courtney Smith and I attend Suffolk New College. I will update my coursework blog frequently with my research into film noir.

During the course of our studies we will pick three other members to accompany us into making our very own opening to a film noir. We are advised to keep the stylistics, codes and conventions of the typical film noir, but making the content accessible to a modern mature audience.

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