A brief histroy of film noir and its characteristics.

Film noir

Film noir is a genre which literally meant ‘black film’.
It would take the viewer on a journey deep into the underworld of violence and corruption which was fuelled with femme fatales with a pessimistic look on life which was shown in the stories which, in the end would lead to disastrous consequences.
During the time of world war two, film noir reflected what mood many were in. For one it encaptured insecurity and paranoia which many Americans felt during the fleeing of Russians from a communistic Russia. This somehow led many Americans to believe that communism would be polluted throughout even though this was the very thing Russians were trying to escape from???. Maybe this belief had something to do with Joseph Mccarthy. He became most famous during the cold war by spreading fear of a communistic rebellion. He is quoted to say that there was a large number of communist/soviet spies within the american government but due to a lack of evidence with nearly all of his claims he was later reprimanded.
Film noir had developed during world war two and first evolved in the 1940’s and continued through to the late 1950’s. 1958 was the year of the final noir which was directed by Orson Welles and was called ‘touch of evil’. In 1945 British and American novels had started being published in to what would be called Serie Noir. Without serie noir many of the later great noirs such as the Maltese Falcon would have never been.
Near to the end of world war two was when France and many other Europe countries were to receive their back log of supplies due to the war and in this contained 6-7 years of past productions. This helped many film critics such as Nino frank make the comparison between them all and the dark stories that they told
Years to follow the end of world war two would truly popularise the so called American ‘film noir’ which wasn’t given its name until in 1946 when Nino Frank, a French film critic, gave name to the dark genre.
Many Americans were unaware that these types of movies were called ‘film noir’s’ until years later. the femme fatales that were seen in many of film noir's could be seen as representing the women of America in World War 2.
Women had won the right to work for the economy whilst their husbands were fighting
A consequence of this was confusion. Confusion within sexual roles and sexual identity, when the husbands came back from fighting many of their wives didn’t want to return back to how it had been and liked their new superior role in the workplace. This caused the American man to lose track of what his position in society was.

Characteristics of film noir.

The storylines of film noir were nearly always of self destruction and twisted greediness. They were also very maze like and the narratives weren’t far from this either. The narratives were usually accompanied by background music to help express the dark mood the film would be trying to convey.

A typical plot of a noir would be a private investigator uncovering a brutal murder or a mysterious crime with a femme fatale sitting in wait to sidetrack and manipulate.
The editing and cinematography of film noir would compose of deep focus which would create a realistic first person view making the significant object in focus as well as that of someone in the background. This would be used in scenes of murder or theft. Disorientating scenes would always be shot in black and white to represent the depressive mood the film would be trying to portray.
Depth field shots cause the image/scene to be sharp including parts that are past the point of focus. This allowed nothing to be missed within the scenes. Dutch tilt was also a favourite. This is believed to cause disorientation and a feeling of discomfort upon the viewer.
Mise-en-scene within film noir varies but not largely.
The main use of lighting depended upon the use of low key lighting which created Shadows by a hard light focused on a person or object of desire. On some occasions the characters face would be half visible to create a sense of mystery.
Venetian blinds would also be used to create small gaps for light to break through, I feel this makes the rooms smaller then they are. The effects used help breakaway from the typical Hollywood movies at this time.
The locations externally would show the streets soaked by the all year round rain and be lit up of the neon street lights giving directions to seedy bars and nightclubs. Internally would be dark and claustrophobic and very ‘smokey’.
The characters of film noir rarely had success or joy. The main characters that would stand out were the strong females. (Named as femmes fatales)
These women in film noir were very sexual and held a deep desire to ruin double cross and manipulate, usually the male co star.
The film noir plots would reveal these femme fatales manipulating normal guys into creating a crime of a serious nature through either theft or murder. This can be seen in Doubly Indemnity.
Next would be private investigators sent out to uncover and solve mysterious crimes.

They would be dressed in trench coats and a trilby hat with cigarette smoke following them around like an unlucky rain cloud. They were full of confidence with a job that could easily twist out of control with devastating consequence.
Now, P.I.’s would not have a job if it wasn’t for our corrupt characters within film noirs. These were usually a protaganistic male, an underbelly of society and just a downright low life set on causing trouble.
The ideology of film noir was that of a depressive note. It was never of great value and usually to portray, at the beginning, the mood which many were having during the war. With the b movies that the director would produce they could leave a message which could cause annoyance to a higher hierarchy. Many directors could get away with this because of the low budget production and unknown actors. Because of these factors many wouldn’t bother to go and see them and instead go to watch the director’s main production.