Three examples of classic film noir

1.Laura (1944) Otto Preminger
New York police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates the murder of a beautiful advertising director named Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). He interviews acerbic newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), who relates how he met Laura. Lydecker became her mentor and used his considerable influence and fame to advance her career. McPherson also questions Laura's fiancé, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), her wealthy aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), and Laura's loyal housekeeper, Bessie Clary (Dorothy Adams).
Through the testimony of her friends and the reading of her letters, McPherson comes to know Laura and slowly falls in love with her. He becomes obsessed -- using the excuse of trying to solve the murder, he hangs around her apartment and is at one point accused by Lydecker of falling in love with a dead woman.
One night, he falls asleep under her portrait. He is awakened by the sound of someone entering the apartment. It is Laura. After recovering from the shock, McPherson determines that the murder victim was actually Diane Redfern, a model Laura had allowed to stay in her apartment.
McPherson is pleased to discover that Laura is as lovable as he had imagined. Now it becomes even more urgent to unmask the murderer. He suspects that Lydecker is also in love with her and that he fatally mistook Redfern for her in his determination to keep her to himself. McPherson warns Laura not to let anybody in after he leaves, but Lydecker gets in anyway. Lydecker is about to kill Laura when McPherson returns just in time.

the trailer from laura

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6f8jRplej8

2.Detour (1945) Edgar G. Ulmer
While in a highway restaurant, the bitter pianist Al Roberts listens to a song and recalls his recent past. In New York, he played piano in a dump night-club where his beloved girlfriend Sue Harvey was the singer. Sue decides to move to Los Angeles, expecting to have an opportunity in the cinema industry. She is not well succeeded and Al decides to travel to LA to meet her. Without money, he hitchhikes and he meets Charles Haskell Jr., who is heading directly to Los Angeles. When Charles unexpectedly dies, Al decides to assume his identity since the police would never believe in the truth about his death. In a gas station, he gives a lift to Vera, a woman that knew Charles and blackmails Al with tragic consequences.

the opening 10mins of detour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpK0pwMOso

3. Double Indemnity (1944) Billy Wilder
A car swerves through downtown streets at night. The driver stumbles to the office of the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company and begins to record his confession about killing a man named Dietrichson. He flashes back to the beginning of the ordeal, when he first met the Dietrichsons.
He, Walter Neff, was an insurance salesman who renewed Mr. Dietrichson's policy at home. Walter was attracted to the man's wife Phyllis, although her manner was cold and sarcastic. She asked Walter about accident insurance for her wealthy husband. Walter accused her of trying to get him to kill her husband and refused. At his apartment, Phyllis told Walter how abusive her husband was, so Walter agreed to kill Dietrichson. Walter tricked Dietrichson into signing the accident insurance policy which insured Dietrichson's life for $50,000--an amount to be doubled in case he had a fatal accident on a train. Walter also gave Lola, Dietrichson's daughter from his late, first wife, a ride to town where she secretly met her boyfriend Nino Zachette.
Several weeks later, Dietrichson agreed to take the train to attend a college reunion. Walter killed Dietrichson and posed as as him and got on the train. Later, Walter jumped off the train and with Phyllis' help, placed Dietrichson's body on the tracks to make it look like Dietrichson had fallen off the train to his death.
Walter's boss Keyes told Walter that he suspected that Dietrichson's death was no accident, but a murder committed by Phyllis and her lover, Nino Zachette. Walter went to Phyllis' house and she shot him. He shot her dead and drove to the insurance office to record his confession.
Now Keyes watches him. Walter collapses.

the opening 2 mins of double indemnity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjfAAOBQx0

Characteristics of film noir - Codes and conventions

It's about what people want, how badly they want it and how far they'll go to get it.

Film Noir is the all-American success story. It's about people who realize that following the program will never get them what they crave. So they cross the line, commit a crime and reap the consequences. Or, they're tales about seemingly innocent people tortured by paranoia. Either way, they depict a world that's merciless and unforgiving.
Storylines were often full of twists and turns. Narratives were frequently complex and typically told with flashbacks (or a series of flashbacks), razor-sharp and acerbic dialogue, and/or reflective and confessional, first-person voice-over narration. My research showed that amnesia was a common plot device, as was the downfall of an innocent Everyman who fell victim to temptation or was framed. Revelations regarding the hero were made to explain/justify the hero's own cynical perspective on life.


The characters of film noir usually involved heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains included down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, a lone wolf, socio-paths or killers, crooks, war veterans, politicians, petty criminals, murderers, or just plain Joes. These characters were often morally-ambiguous low-life from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.

Film noir films (mostly shot in gloomy greys, blacks and whites) showed the dark and inhumane side of human nature with doomed love, and they emphasized the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience. An oppressive atmosphere of anxiety and suspicion that anything can go wrong, dingy realism, futility, fatalism, defeat and entrapment were stylized characteristics of film noir.

The sets of film noirs were often created by lighting, disorienting visual schemes, jarring editing, ominous shadows, skewed camera angles (usually vertical or diagonal rather than horizontal), circling cigarette smoke, existential sensibilities, and unbalanced or moody compositions. Settings were often interiors with low-key (or single-source) lighting, venetian-blinded windows and rooms, and dark, claustrophobic, gloomy appearances. Exteriors were often urban night scenes with deep shadows, wet asphalt, dark alleyways, rain-slicked or mean streets, flashing neon lights, and low key lighting. Story locations were often in murky and dark streets, dimly-lit and low-rent apartments and hotel rooms of big cities, or abandoned warehouses.

The sounds in a film noir were often very minimal. Usually ambient sounds (such as rain and sirens) are used that creates a more real atmosphere its makes the audience feel like the set is real. Another common sound is tense classical music. All music and sounds would be played in the background on top of the characters dialogue.

Associated Directors

Certain directors were typically associated with film noir including;

Jules Dassin
Brute Force (1947)
The Naked City (1948)
Thieves' Highway (1949)
Night and the City (1950)
Rififi (1955)

Edward Dmytryk
Cornered (1945)
Crossfire (1947)
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
The Sniper (1952)

Alfred Hitchcock
Nortorious (1946)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
The Wrong Man (1956)

John Huston
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Killers (1946)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Fritz Lang
Clash by Night (1952)
Fury (1936)
Human Desire (1954)
Ministry of Fear (1945)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Woman in the Window (1945)
You only Live Once (1937)

Billy Wilder

Double Indemnity (1944)

Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Ace in the Whole (a.k.a., "The Big Carnival") (1951)

Orson welles
The Lady from Shanghai (1948)
Mr. Arkadin (1955)
Touch of Evil (1958)

History of film noir

The term "film noir" originates from French film critics and was first coined by Nino Frank in 1946. Who noticed the trends in American films after World War 2, with its bleak subject matter, somber and downbeat tone.

Film noir was first established in 1940’s and continued through until 1955’s. This was during and after the 2nd world war. Film noir took advantage of the post-war ambience of the anxiety and suspicion.

My research showed that most people wouldn’t class film noir as a genre but as a sub genre or a more "dark" themed crime or gangster film. Using different moods, style, points of view and tone of film.

The budget was usually low, this was because world war 2 was going on and it was felt that making films was less important than supplying troops and supplies. This meant that the directors had to be clever about set designs and special effects. This is why film noir tended to be a B movie film.

There were plenty of short, bare-bones "B" crime thrillers made during the 40s, but the research i did showed that not many of them packed the noir pedigree of "A" productions like Double Indemnity, The Killers, Kiss of Death. Many people thought that those are films that set the era's artistic agenda for cinematic crime - the "B" pictures from the majors, and the stuff from Monogram and PRC and Eagle-Lion studios, mainly copied what the "A" films did successfully.

To overcome the budget the directors would use very simple settings, yet effective. Their main way of creating atmosphere was to use lighting. This meant that the directors could draw the audience’s attention to what was important. which also is an ideal way to create the atmosphere Associated with film noir.

Neo noir is the term used for more modern noirs that still use the same themes and tones as the 1940’s films, but in colour.

Film noir films were typically about alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, pessimism, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia. This was because they were using the ambience from the war. which is a common method with film makers, to use real life mood and situations.

Media Studies course outline

My Media Studies coursework is based on Film Noir. We have been asked to research the history of Film noir which will help our understanding. for our course we have been asked to create 3 pieces of film. The first is the premlinary exercise which is going to be used to show our understnding of framing and editing in filming. the second piece is the exchange were we have to show in film noir style the exchange of something. Finally, we have been asked to create a 2-3 minute opening of a contemporary film noir.

BRIEF OF MAIN PIECE
we are being commissioned in groups of 3 or 4 to produce a 2-3 minute film opening sequence of a "contemporary 'film noir' thriller"(certification 15-18). Our work should update the noir genre but bring the values, traditions, narrative, mood and conventions of film noir to a new audience in contemporary style and setting. We will need to consider and mention what sort of institution it would sit within and the cinemas and distribution pattern the film would have film and also where it will sit best in the televsion schedules and on which TV station it would be most suited to.

here's an example of someone's opening sequence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27LTmDMjlx0