Essay Preview: Noir
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FILM NOIR
There are many arguments and contradictions when it comes to the subject of film noir. Is it really a film genre, or a title assigned to and created by writers and critics striving to pigeonhole a vast and very differential range of films. Although volumes have been written on the subject, defining film noir essential traits is another matter.
It is impossible to simplify film noir by assigning it basic qualities as nightmarish, weird, sexual, ambiguous and cruel. While these characteristics are present in many classic noirs it cannot be confined to these alone. To fully understand and evaluate film noir you must look at the many contributing factors: writers, directors, actors, settings, story lines, studios and censoring.
“Wed be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel.” This is the first of many attempts to define film noir made by the French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir amйricain 1941-1953 (A Panorama of American Film noir), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject. In the five decades since, no definition has achieved anything close to general acceptance.
As Borde and Chaumeton suggest, however, the field of noir is very diverse and any generalisation about it risks veering into oversimplification. But they do propose that “It is the presence of crime which gives film noir its most constant characteristic Blackmail, accusation, theft or drug trafficking set the stage for a narrative where life and death are at stake… Sordidly or bizarrely, death always comes at the end of a tortured journey. In every sense of the word a noir film is a film of death.” (Borde and Chaumeton, 1955 p19)
Dramatic camera angles, stark and angular sets, rain lashed streets, fog bound runways, sharp contrast lighting and empty public buildings all contribute to illustrate to the viewer the dark world of film noir. This world consists of tales filled with cops, crooks and private detectives. Frothy romanticism is replaced by blind passion and sexual obsession, where women are predators and violence and cold-blooded murder are commonplace. The sun rarely shines in film noir. The gloomy air is prevalent with foreboding, anxiety and inevitability of death.
Alain Silver the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies, refers to it as a “cycle” and a “phenomenon,” even as he argues that it has — like certain genres — a consistent set of visual and thematic codes. Other critics treat film noir as a “mood,” a “movement,” or a “series,” or simply address a chosen set of movies from the “period.” There is no consensus on the matter.
There are many recurring themes and visual distinctions associated with film noir, some but not all applicable to each film considered in the genre. Without oversimplifying the many texts written on the subject my research has lead me to identify common terminology when describing these films. Frequent words are melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia.
The French critic Nino Frank first coined the term film noir, literally meaning French for “black film”, in 1946. No American director, writer or cinematographer ever cited the word “noir” at the time and all have disputed setting out to create or duplicate a genre. “Noir is not a genre, but an unconscious stylistic movement shared by many directors in 1940s and 1950s Hollywood.” (Schwartz, 2005 p ix)
As such, defining definite and conclusive arguments to film noir is futile. Mark Bould agreed when he said “It is customary to acknowledge that film noir was a retrospectively applied generic label; consequently no-one could ever have set out to make a film noir because the signifier (and thus what is signified) had not entered into English usage at the time the films now called film noirs were actually made.” (Bould, 2005 p14)
Critics and theorists argue as to the actual dates that define the boundaries of the film noir “classic period”. Some commentators cite The Maltese Falcon (1941) as the first real film noir, while others prefer to include Stranger on the Third Floor and Citizen Cane (both 1940) as the start of the genre. It is nonetheless safe to say that the original noirs were created between the early 1940s and late 1950s, peaking between 1946 and 1950.
The aesthetics of film noir were deeply influenced and have strong ties to German Expressionist cinema from the 1920s, these were simultaneously reflected in theatre, photography, painting and architecture of the time. The Hollywood industry offered opportunities to German directors and writers who, added with the growing threat from Nazi power, brought to American cinema dramatic lighting and a psychologically expressive approach to mise-en-scene.
With their arrival in Hollywood, a style of expressionist cinema that developed in Europe, reached its full potential in the film noirs, “the coming together of German йmigrйs and other film-makers…helped create film noir as a genre, but without Hollywoods technical expertise – which by the early 1940s was considerable – it would have lacked its distinctive visual identity.” (Crowther, 1990 p60)
Film noir is generally widely recognised for its dramatic and visually impressive staging. These are characterised by chiaroscuro lighting (literally meaning in Italian: lightdark), frequent use of water or reflections, deep shadow and low camera angles and narratives set in urban America, filmed mostly at night.
Film noir used various staging techniques to convey the mood and feeling. Deep focus, depth staging or imbalanced frames helped create a cinematic world that was dark, oppressive, cluttered and corrupt, with rain lashed streets, dingy apartments and over opulent mansions, but above all the atmosphere was thick with the potential for violence.
Low-key lighting schemes produced dark contrast and dramatic shadows. Venetian blinds, fluorescent
street lighting or banister rods cast on an actor or entire set helped to create a claustrophobic atmosphere. Characters faces would appear partially hidden or obscured by darkness.
The use of low-angle shots and wide-angle lenses also contributed to film noirs distinctive visual style. Other techniques that added to the affect were disorientating shots of reflection