FILM NOIR

INTRODUCTION

(from a web site called “10 Shades of Noir”)

Dark rooms with light slicing through venetian blinds, alleys cluttered with garbage, abandoned warehouses where dust hangs in the air, rain-slickened streets with water still running in the gutters, dark detective offices overlooking busy streets: this is the stuff of film noir--that most magnificent of film forms--a perfect blend of form and content, where the desperation and hopelessness of the situations is reflected in the visual style, which drenches the world in shadows and only occasional bursts of sunlight. Film noir, occasionally acerbic, usually cynical, and often enthralling, gave us characters trying to elude some mysterious past that continues to haunt them, hunting them down with a fatalism that taunts and teases before delivering the final, definitive blow.

Unlike other forms of cinema, the film noir has no paraphernalia that it can truly call its own. Unlike the western, with cattle drives, lonely towns on the prairie, homesteading farmers, Winchester rifles, and Colt 45s, the film noir borrows its paraphernalia from other forms, usually from the crime and detective genres, but often overlapping into thrillers, horror, and even science fiction (as in the great "what's it" box from Kiss Me Deadly). The visual style echoes German expressionism, painting shafts of light that temporarily illuminate small chunks of an ominous and overbearing universe that limits a person's chances to slim and none. For as Paul Schrader said in his influential "Notes on Film Noir" essay, "No character can speak authoritatively from a space which is continually being cut into ribbons of light."

We will be seeing two or three movies which fall into the category of film noir. After seeing the videotape last week, you should have a reasonable sense of what that genre entails, but this weekend I’d like you to explore it a bit more. Start this weekend with these web sites:

* This web site offers a reasonable working analysis of seven essential elements of film noir. Go there and review these; take notes:

http://www.eskimo.com/~noir/whatis.shtml

* This web site offers perspectives on the role of women in film noir; skimming some of its contents could prove quite useful:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np01intr.html

* This web site allows a virtual tour of a still from the classic noir “Double Indemnity.” Not all of its links have been completed, but there’s enough there to be fun and edifying. Click on elements in the photograph once you “enter the dark room” to see what is revealed:

http://www.cinepad.com/filmnoir/noir_intro.htm

As we watch these movies, here are some questions to keep in mind:

1.  What is the larger story the film tells?

2.  How does the film use characters to develop and reinforce its larger theme?

3.  How does the director use critical scenes in the film to reinforce its larger message?

4.  How does the film's pacing, camera angles, and music reinforce its larger story?

5.  How does the film draw its audience into the story and keep their attention?