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Negative Effects Of Film Noir

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Film Noir: The dark side
Background

Film noirs came to prominence during and after the World War II and lasted through the ‘Golden Era’ till 1960. Film noir can be defined as a film movement and not just a genre of film because it emerged at the time of political disturbance (1941-1958) – Second World War and Cold War. Feelings of fear, mistrust, and ambiguity, loss of innocence, pessimism and paranoia are evident in noir films, reflecting the disruption and disillusionment prevalent in the American society after the Second World War. The criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphoric symptom of society 's evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict, purposelessness …show more content…

Low-key lighting, silhouettes, limited dialogues and a sense of urgency and crime highlighted the genre. This was popularised by Warner Bros. who had little funds for their films. So part of their set and characters would be kept in the dark - hiding unnecessary information from the viewers. The cinematic style however immensely loved by the viewers. Towards the end of the 1950s film production companies started to have more funding for films and use of darkness was not a necessity anymore. New elements were introduced to generate the same thematic setting. This was the slow birth of neo-noir. Neo-Noir, unlike the classical Noir, wasn 't completely restricted. While Noir was more about detective stories and gangsters, Neo-noir could broaden the scope and include human complexities and anti-hero narratives to its scope. Interestingly, The Godfather, in spite of being made in the 1970s stuck to the classical film noir story-telling. On the other hand, ten years earlier, Godard 's Breathless was the first film which brought neo-noir to international attention, and ever since then people dared to step out of the classical structure and experiment with it. Breathless broke all traditional structures of classical noir story-telling by introducing fast cuts, jump cuts, comic reliefs and stronger female protagonists. Ever since then, a lot of sub-genres were born, namely Science-fiction neo-noir like Blade Runner, horror neo-noir The Shinning, neo-noir crime films like Drive, transgressive neo-noir like The Fight Club and also seen in graphic novel adaptations such as Sin City. Neo-noir, unlike its classical counterpart was used immensely for character-driven plots and a lot of importance was given to the hero 's inner battle as opposed to its outer battle. By breaking away from the classical roots,

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This literary style came to flourish in France, around the 1930s, before the war. Noir was inspired by literature and previous film history and the period of time it grew out of. These genres gained so much popularity because of how well it could relate to the audience. Noir and hard-boiled stories took advantage of the pre-war mood of anxiety, fear and suspicion. Mistrust, paranoia, and bleakness are some recurring themes in this genre.

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These are all strong characteristics of noir narrative. For instance, Norma is just delusional while Joe is caught in a moral battle of genuine love of another screenwriter and the wealth and pity of Norma. The film does use shadows most commonly when referring to Norma's past, particularly the scene where

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All of these conflicts created white suburbanization with the help of film noir and places like Disneyland. In his essay “Popular Culture in the age of white flight”, Eric Avila states that film noir and Disneyland caused a cultural transformation after World War II (3). Film noir showed the social disorder of the city and Disneyland created the suburban order that promised to remove people from the chaos of the city. This of course only catered to the white middle and upper class families. Film noir used the techniques of shadows and lighting to show the dark dismal world of crime and violence that the early to mid-twentieth century represented.

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Femme fatales are usually destroyed in the end, either by being killed or being domesticated, as though they are being punished thinking they can compete with men. Male dominance is always restored by the end of the film. In established film noir, the new economic, social, and sexual freedom that women experienced during the war years as they joined the workplace was quite unsettling to many American men. This fear of strong, independent women and the need to show the danger of this independence was shown, whether consciously or not, in most film noir. The Maltese Falcon, like many films of its era, joins in the distrust of all things foreign.

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Film noir movies often have stylistic characteristics such as exaggerated lighting and shadows. Scarlet Street contained many subjective camera shots while also using exaggerated shadows, for example during the first scene in the movie, there is an emphasis on the mans shadow as he walks into the room. Which brings me to a crucial point, Black and white filmmaking. Black and white style is considered to be an essential attribute for a film noir movie, black and white allows the director to emphasize on distorting images, for example use of the venetian blind shot. Another continuous pattern of film noir is to include main stock characters, this film contains: an anti-hero and a femme fatale, these stock characters are always seen in noir films.

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