Styles, codes and conventions

Typical noirs are often crime based in their narratives and usually include some sort of law enforcement character investigating a mystery and pursuing a villainous character. Some examples include The Maltese Falcon, The Killers and The Stranger. An atypical moral message is that crime doesn’t pay.Typical characters that crop up in noir films are a hardboiled detective and a glamorous woman in need of assistance. Prime examples of film noirs with these characters are Out of the Past and Kiss Me Deadly.Characters are often ‘alienated’ from the wider public and tend to be loners such as Robert Montgomery in The Chase. The actors usually portray these sorts of characters in a calm subtle manner. Locations are often in the middle of large cities such as White Heat. As far as lighting goes most noirs are filmed in a black and white style or close to it but there are exceptions such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo which is shot in colour.A lot of film noirs contain voiceovers by the main protagonist such as more recent noirs like Chinatown and Bladerunner.Most noirs are filmed in low key style like Out of the Past and Kiss Me Deadly, but others are shot in a more complex way such as Lady in the Lake where the protagonist is shown only in mirrors.In classic noir some flashbacks were used but special effects have become more common with more recent noirs like Twelve Monkeys and Minority Report. Whilst special effects are used extensively for comedic purposes in the parody Who Framed Roger Rabbit

History of film noir

The term Film noir or “Film Black” is a cinematic term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime scene dramas and those that empathise cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Film Noir classic period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940’s to the last 50’s, although the first Film noir was way back in the early 30’s. The term Film noir was first applied to the black and white Hollywood movies in 1946 by French critic Nino Frank and was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the classic era. The question of whether film noir has its own genre is still an on-going debate among cinematic historians and critics to this day. Film noir is deeply influenced by German expressionism, a cinematic movement of the 1910’s and 20’s. German expressionism consisted of developments of theatre, photography, painting, sculpturing and architecture. With the opportunities of making it big in America and the constant threat of growing Nazi power led directors such as Firtz Lang, Robert Siodmak and Michael Curtiz making the move to Hollywood and bringing along with them their lighting techniques and psychologically expressive approach to mise-en-ecene. All three of these directors would go on the make some of the most famous and classic Film noirs ever made.

Introduction

I am an AS Media student at Suffolk New college. Our brief this year is to study in depth film noie. This includes the history, codes and conventions and examples of this genre aswell as making a short opening of a film using film noir conventions.