What is contemporary Film Noir

What is contemporary film noir?
Neo noir is believed to be a follow on from film noir incorporating aspects from the original noir’s such as the pessimistic attitudes and the devious femme fatales which can be seen with Sharon stone playing Catherine Trammel in Basic Instinct. I believe that film noir reflected largely what many were believing back in the 1930’s which was paranoia during ww2 as well as worry during the depression and Neo Noir may have followed suit in tapping into the tensions and insecurities during the 1960-70’s onwards which saw the ever increasing world of media and technology, also, America bore witness to the assassination’s of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and the violence of Vietnam and Britain (though not as hard hitting as America) was also having troubles of their own with the economy and conflicts with the IRA. These countries were experiencing what the moods of noir withheld.

3 examples of contemporary noir films.

Raging Bull is a true story and was made in 1980. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and stared Robert De-Niro as Jake Lamotta. An animalistic fighter who enjoyed inflicting and with taking pain. This was the cause of his demise within the boxing world and also ruined his relationship with his family and children. The story was based around the 1930-40’s vision of journalist Peter Hamill. Though unimpressed by the original biography De-Niro took a fancy to the character took his thoughts of a project to Scorsese. De-Niro also disliked the screens which lead to bringing in the screen writers of TAXI to help re-write the script. The style of camera work during the boxing scenes was what made it different to many other traditional fight scenes. Instead of having the camera ringside. The viewer was brought into the ring by placing the camera man as the opponent to really capture the emotions and aggressions of the fighters.

La Confidential was made in 1997 and based upon a James Elroy crime novel published in 1990. It was produced and directed by Curtis Hanson. It starred Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Kim Bassinger, Danny Devito, to name a few. It was set within the glamour mixed with the ‘seedy’ side of Los Angeles. It was made during the time of L.A with its golden dreams in destruction. The film encompasses political corruption, racism, sex and lies with dirty cops within the L.A.P.D. Its main story includes three officers each pursuing a murderous crime. Gradually all three are lead into a one way trip into the sleaziness of l.a crime. The film screams ‘noir’ with its femme fatales, dirty cops, corruption within higher organisations as well as that of the LAPD department.

Body Heat was made in 1981 and was written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. It starred William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston and Mickey Rourke. Its story is based around two characters. Ned Racine, a sleazy lawyer who has a lust for a devious femme fatale, Matty Walker. It has slight comparisons with a previous film noir. Double indemnity as matty seduces Ned and influences him to help her murder her husband which will then leave her to collect his entire estate.

Three great examples of Film Noir

At three we have the big sleep which was directed by Howard Hawkes. The screen play was by William Faulkner and Leigh Bracket and is from the novel by Raymond Chandler. The main characters in this are Humphrey Boggart and Lauren Bacall.
Bogart plays private investigator Philip Marlowe who has been hired by the wealthy general Sternwood to deal with a blackmailer who claims he is owed money by his daughter.
The trail leads Marlowe through romance and numerous murders but leaves the viewer lost in the plot wondering who did what? As does the writers and novelist. In one part they didn’t know why or how one of the cast had been killed. The film was quoted an “incoherent masterpiece”.

At two we have a draw with the Maltese Falcome and shadow of a doubt.
Maltese falcome was directed by john Huston in 1941 and was from Dashiell Hammets classic 1929 novel. It starred Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor. Humphrey boggart plays private investigator Sam Spade who is in pursuit of the killer who had killed his partner who was tailing a suspect for a client.
The client who is undoubtedly a femme fatale with alterior motives and those are to steal a jewel encrusted statuette of a falcon. Maltese falcon was regarded as the first push for the film noir movement.

Shadow of a doubt was directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock in 1943 and written by Thornton Wilder and Saly Benson and Alma Reville.
It stars Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotton, MacDonald Carey, Patricia Collinge, Henry Travers and Humme Croyn.
Hitchcock has been quoted in saying that it is his “personal favourite among his American films”. It tells a story of a young girl called Charlotte Newton who is bored of her mundane lifestyle. She receives news of her uncle coming home to stay. Later she is visited by two men disguised as photographers and journalists. One takes Charlie to the side and explains that her uncle is under watch as they are suspicious of him being a wanted serial killer. Soon Charlie has to hold a secret from the police and others as her suspicions get the better of her and it becomes obvious to her uncle. Who is actually the killer?

And in at one we have double indemnity which is classed as the best film noir film and is seen as director Billy wilders masterpiece. It stars Fred Mac Murray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward Robinson and was filmed in 1944.
It entails two lovers- a likeable salesmen and a bored housewife who plan to murder her husband for financial gain because of a double indemnity clause in his accidental policy.
The plan doesn’t go swimmingly and in the end fails like many other film noir plans and plots.

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.

Hi, my name is Joshua and this is what’s covered in my 1st year of AS media studies

The media course at as consists of two units. The first unit requires ourselves to produce a film on the coursework topic, film noir. A genre of pessimism
Before filming the final piece a preliminary exercise was to be completed. This allowed us to get used to using the camera’s and microphones as well as the editing software on the new apple Macs.
These were then assessed which was very useful in understanding your weaknesses and what to do to improve them.
Our next filming contained an opening sequence of an exchange (with noir characteristics/stylistics) between two people which incorporated a range of shots including a close up of the exchange of an item between the two. The inclusion of research and planning helped for the preparation of the filming as well as a presentation to express the treatment. This allowed constructive criticism to be heard. After each filming an evaluation would take place using media terminology to describe your points of filming.
All theory work given is then placed onto a blog which is created by ourselves.
Unit 2 introduces the teachings of key concepts within media studies which include film language, representations, ideology, institutions, audience and language. This helps with the understanding of a wide range of media texts which will help with the exam on the 9th June 2010.