What is 'Noir'?
Excerpt from the book 'Film Noir' by Alain Silver and James Ursini
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Archetypes
Film noir has its share of character types. Among them are:
The Truth Seeker. While it may belie the popular conception, the truth seeker in film noir is not primarily a private investigator in the mould of Chandler`s Philip Marlowe or Hammett`s Sam Spade. He is often an officer of the law (Touch of Evil, T-Men), a criminal (Detour, Criss Cross, Double Indemnity), rarely a woman (The Reckless Moment being one of the exceptions) and, outside of Hammett and Chandler, seldom a private investigator (The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss Me Deadly). The truth seeker can wear any costume, for his and sometimes her primary goal is to navigate the convoluted maze of the noir universe to find a critical answer,
perhaps to discover a ‘great what`s-it,` as the object of the search in Kiss Me Deadly is dubbed.
The Hunted. Growing out of the influence of existentialism combined with the fatalism inherent in much of German expressionism, the noir protagonist is frequently pursued and hunted from beginning to end of a film. He is usually a male and an outsider, much like Albert Camus` Meursault in his novel L`Etranger (The Outsider, 1942). He finds it difficult to connect with a universe which seems so ruled by chance, so inherently absurd. Like Meursault, he may find himself drawn to rebellious criminal acts in defiance of this absurdity.
The Femme Fatale. The most subversive element in most film noirs is the female character, who is often a femme fatale. In recent decades feminist critics like Camille Paglia in Vamps and Tramps (1994) and the contributors to the landmark study Women in Film Noir (1978) have reclaimed the femme fatale, the black widow, the spider woman, from the male perception of evil and castrating bitch. They have seen instead many powerful and seductive characters who provide a possible female alternative to the male rebel. In the femme fatale`s case, the object of her derision, rather than an absurd universe, may be male patriarchy. Post-feminist critics have analyzed characters like Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, Vera in Detour and Anna in Criss Cross and found strong women trapped in a male-dominated universe, who were willing to use any weapon, including their own sexuality, to level the playing field.
Visual Iconography
The visual look of film noir can be traced from the street paintings of Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh to the grisly crime photos of Weegee. Simply put, what most viewers notice when watching a noir movie are:
Chiaroscuro Lighting. Low-key lighting, in the style of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, marks most noirs of the classic period. Shade and light play against each other not only in night exteriors but also in dim interiors shielded from daylight by curtains or Venetian blinds. Hard, unfiltered side-light and rim light outline and reveal only a portion of a face to create a dramatic tension all its own. Cinematographers such as Nicholas Musuraca, John F. Seitz and John Alton took this style to the highest level in films like Out of the Past, Double Indemnity and T-Men. Their black and white photography with its high contrasts, stark day exteriors and realistic night work became the standard of the noir style.
Odd Angles. Noir cinematographers favoured low angles for several reasons. Firstly, this angle made the characters rise from the ground in an almost expressionistic manner, giving them dramatic girth and symbolic overtones. In addition, it also allowed the viewer to see the ceilings of the interior settings, creating even more of a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, appropriate emotions for the world of noir. High angles could also produce disequilibrium, peering down a stairwell over a flimsy railing or out of a skyscraper window at a city street far below.
Moving Camera. For directors like Ophüls and Lang, the camera that slides across a room past an array of foreground clutter or tracks a character through a crowded café had a relentless and fateful quality. When combined with a long take, suspenseful sequences were subtly enhanced.
The Urban Landscape. Noir films are most often set in the urban landscape, particularly the cities of Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. The metropolis with its circles of light under sidewalk lamps, dim alleyways, a press of shadowy pedestrians and wet, grimy streets is the perfect milieu for the nightmarish events of noir. From the footsteps that resonate off the concrete and track the woman alone in Phantom Lady to the flashing neon outside a killer`s hotel room in The Unsuspected (1947), ordinary sights and sounds acquire a sinister context in the noir universe. And when the setting shifts to rural landscapes as in Out of the Past, On Dangerous Ground (1952), Storm Fear (1956) or Nightfall (1957) the idyllic contrasts to urban corruption can become either a sanctuary or a killing ground.
Flashback and Subjective Camera. Whether introduced via a ripple effect or simply a smash cut, the past palpably intrudes in film noir via flashback. The flashback can be filtered through a single character`s point of view (Criss Cross) or ostensibly detached and objective (The Killing, 1956): seeing the past gives a reality that no amount of telling can match.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
Archetypes
Film noir has its share of character types. Among them are:
The Truth Seeker. While it may belie the popular conception, the truth seeker in film noir is not primarily a private investigator in the mould of Chandler`s Philip Marlowe or Hammett`s Sam Spade. He is often an officer of the law (Touch of Evil, T-Men), a criminal (Detour, Criss Cross, Double Indemnity), rarely a woman (The Reckless Moment being one of the exceptions) and, outside of Hammett and Chandler, seldom a private investigator (The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss Me Deadly). The truth seeker can wear any costume, for his and sometimes her primary goal is to navigate the convoluted maze of the noir universe to find a critical answer,
perhaps to discover a ‘great what`s-it,` as the object of the search in Kiss Me Deadly is dubbed.
The Hunted. Growing out of the influence of existentialism combined with the fatalism inherent in much of German expressionism, the noir protagonist is frequently pursued and hunted from beginning to end of a film. He is usually a male and an outsider, much like Albert Camus` Meursault in his novel L`Etranger (The Outsider, 1942). He finds it difficult to connect with a universe which seems so ruled by chance, so inherently absurd. Like Meursault, he may find himself drawn to rebellious criminal acts in defiance of this absurdity.
The Femme Fatale. The most subversive element in most film noirs is the female character, who is often a femme fatale. In recent decades feminist critics like Camille Paglia in Vamps and Tramps (1994) and the contributors to the landmark study Women in Film Noir (1978) have reclaimed the femme fatale, the black widow, the spider woman, from the male perception of evil and castrating bitch. They have seen instead many powerful and seductive characters who provide a possible female alternative to the male rebel. In the femme fatale`s case, the object of her derision, rather than an absurd universe, may be male patriarchy. Post-feminist critics have analyzed characters like Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, Vera in Detour and Anna in Criss Cross and found strong women trapped in a male-dominated universe, who were willing to use any weapon, including their own sexuality, to level the playing field.
Visual Iconography
The visual look of film noir can be traced from the street paintings of Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh to the grisly crime photos of Weegee. Simply put, what most viewers notice when watching a noir movie are:
Chiaroscuro Lighting. Low-key lighting, in the style of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, marks most noirs of the classic period. Shade and light play against each other not only in night exteriors but also in dim interiors shielded from daylight by curtains or Venetian blinds. Hard, unfiltered side-light and rim light outline and reveal only a portion of a face to create a dramatic tension all its own. Cinematographers such as Nicholas Musuraca, John F. Seitz and John Alton took this style to the highest level in films like Out of the Past, Double Indemnity and T-Men. Their black and white photography with its high contrasts, stark day exteriors and realistic night work became the standard of the noir style.
Odd Angles. Noir cinematographers favoured low angles for several reasons. Firstly, this angle made the characters rise from the ground in an almost expressionistic manner, giving them dramatic girth and symbolic overtones. In addition, it also allowed the viewer to see the ceilings of the interior settings, creating even more of a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, appropriate emotions for the world of noir. High angles could also produce disequilibrium, peering down a stairwell over a flimsy railing or out of a skyscraper window at a city street far below.
Moving Camera. For directors like Ophüls and Lang, the camera that slides across a room past an array of foreground clutter or tracks a character through a crowded café had a relentless and fateful quality. When combined with a long take, suspenseful sequences were subtly enhanced.
The Urban Landscape. Noir films are most often set in the urban landscape, particularly the cities of Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. The metropolis with its circles of light under sidewalk lamps, dim alleyways, a press of shadowy pedestrians and wet, grimy streets is the perfect milieu for the nightmarish events of noir. From the footsteps that resonate off the concrete and track the woman alone in Phantom Lady to the flashing neon outside a killer`s hotel room in The Unsuspected (1947), ordinary sights and sounds acquire a sinister context in the noir universe. And when the setting shifts to rural landscapes as in Out of the Past, On Dangerous Ground (1952), Storm Fear (1956) or Nightfall (1957) the idyllic contrasts to urban corruption can become either a sanctuary or a killing ground.
Flashback and Subjective Camera. Whether introduced via a ripple effect or simply a smash cut, the past palpably intrudes in film noir via flashback. The flashback can be filtered through a single character`s point of view (Criss Cross) or ostensibly detached and objective (The Killing, 1956): seeing the past gives a reality that no amount of telling can match.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4]
Film Noir
Flexicover 7.7 x 9.6 in., 192 pages
$ 19.99
$ 19.99
Classic noir flicks of the 1940s-50s, illustrated and examined
Still from 'La chienne' (1931)
In his search for tenderness Maurice Legrand (Michel Simon) is outraged when he finds his mistress Lucienne Pelletier (Janie Marèse) in bed with another man, so he kills her and lets the other lover take the blame. This Jean Renoir film was remade by Fritz Lang in America as 'Scarlet Street' (1945).
Still from 'The beast of the City' (1932)
Captain James Fitzpatrick asks his no-good brother Ed to keep an eye on Daisy Stevens (Jean Harlow) so that gangster Sam Belmonte can be brought to justice.