Film Noir Highlites (Blog Post #2)

Film Noir is a great genre of movies. They are the types of films that have twists to them, such as the male is not always the hero at the end, and the female is not always the Damsel in distress.  In this blog, we will examine four different areas dealing with Film Noir.

 

A quote that best describes Film Noir:

As Abraham Polonsky states in the documentary Film Noir, “how circumstances become more and more unendurable. And yet you must endure”. This is one main idea that occurs all the time in a Film Noir film. The main character mainly a male, becomes in tangle in a situation, along with a female counterpart, that goes smoothly at first, but certain problems arise, and beings a lot of stress to the character. You see the stress building up on the character as he looks for a solution, to the new circumstances that keep transpiring, for each moment when someone is close to figuring out what he has done. An example of trying not to panic can be seen in the movie “Double Indemnity”, where the character Walter Neff boss, is leaving his apartment, and the wife of the man he kill is hiding behind his door, hoping his boss doesn’t see her. This is one type of circumstances that the main character must deal with during the movie, hoping the boss doesn’t see the wife of the man he killed, and figure out it was him.

 

 

 

Spotting a femme fatale:

The description of the spider woman by Janey Place best identifies with the character Phyllis from the movie “Double Indemnity”. When watching the movie, you she Phyllis is the typical woman, who is out to get what she wants, and use any means possible to get it. Her actions and ways of behaving makes you think she is up to no good. As stated by Janey Place in the documentary Film Noir, “She’s very smart, powerful and she’s extremely sexual.” Janey Place also summarizes what she considers to be the two characters of the spider woman; one is sexuality and being in control. Phyllis portrays the sexuality by wearing tight clothes, showing off her female figure, and smoking.  Phyllis displays control by the camera angles as which she film with during a scene, talking to Walter. She is shot in a low angle, to show control being in charger, and Walter is show from a high angle, to show he is inferior to her, she looks down at him.

 

Noir photography, lighting, and location:

In the movie, “Double Indemnity” you can see many of the different types of techniques and tendencies used to make a Film Noir film. One types of tendency is a motif that is a theme that occurs many times, during a film, can be seen many times, when Walter smokes, he strikes up a match on his finger. A technique used the called a process shot, such as driving in a fake car, but the background is moving along as if the car is really driving. This can be seen twice, where Walter is driving with Phyllis in the car and again when he is driving with Lola. However, when Walter is talking to Loa at the Hollywood Bowl, the background with the band playing is faked but the ground they are sitting on is real. As mention above, the use of different camera angles can be seen though out the movie, such as low angle and high angle. The other camera angles are extremely close up or panorama views. The use of lighting plays a big part in the movie. When Phyllis is about to shoot Walter at the end, the lighting is very dark, you don’t know who fire the gun, until you see its Walter who is shot. The locations of shooting in a market, when Phyllis and Walter meet up to talk, the phone booth when a diner in the background makes you feels she really is talking on a phone in a diner. The locations need to be as real as can do, to give you the effect you are the characters are really at those spots.

Neo-noir as an homage to the original film noir style:

The new films being made called Neo-noir is comparable to the original film noir style in a few ways. Even though, they are in color, they still have the female being the villain and the male being used to help her get what she wants. We have seen in the movie, “Body Heat”, a female using all the resources she has in order to get her dream of being rich and living on an island. You can see her using her female body to seduce a male character into killing her husband and getting all his money. She uses her smarts, to throw off the cop that is trying to solve the murder. The male being used is surprise on how she is playing out her plan so well. She makes sure all her tracks are covered. The filming techniques as angle shots, locations, music, acting and dialogue all put together makes this movie, a great example of modernize film noir movie.