Notes on Noir
Film Noir- The western of the street
Narrative
The General narrative of a classic Noir follows a simple pattern: A married woman meets a stranger, the stranger and woman have an affair, woman convinces stranger to kill her husband.
They are also often Gangster movies; this was especially prominent with the influx of German refugees escaping the Nazi regime leading to a mixing of the cultures.
The themes in Noir tend to be centred around the darker nature of man. These were morally dark films and concentrated on the blurred lines of the ethical black and white of the world. Other themes include racial tensions and issues to do with society. Neo-Noir brings these themes back in a different time and relates them to the time in which the film was made.
Representations
Light is the key to much of the representation in Film Noir and to an extent its success. Light used as a way to represent the moral divides of black and white: Dark and light. The lighting is often shady representing a questioning of the motives and principles of the protagonists. In the end of the films Villains are often “trapped by light”, they are pinpointed by a spotlight of high key light in a dark environment, leading to the idea of light overcoming the dark.
The way woman are represented in Noir was different to many pictures of the 20th century. Women in Noir are evil and manipulative and will stop at nothing to attain their goal, hence the title femme fatale. These are powerful woman, and often greedy, in spite of this they are attractive to the main protagonist and he cannot resist them. Women’s ends are different in classic noir than in Neo-Noir, in classic Noir they are mostly stopped where as in Neo-Noir they are not.
Often set in L.A Noirs are often seen as the western of the streets. L.A a developing community draws a lot of parallels with the old west, obviously the idea of a developing community but also the idea of everyone striving for something.
Institution
In the beginning Noir films were made on a budget, they have been described as an “action movie on a budget”. They were also made on a very short time scale sometimes as little as two weeks, being churned out by Hollywood on a very regular basis. The limited budget is partly responsible for the signature low lighting. Lighting takes time and money, so fewer lights mean more time and money. Another way to save money was to use shadows instead of extras, this added to the shady, dark fell of the Noir style.