Thursday, 12 January 2012

History of Film Noir

·       After WW2 films developed frequently dark and ominous themes. These early film noirs were rarely happy or optimistic and had a tendency to let the ‘bad guy’ get away with his crimes. Film Noir was influenced by French new wave and German expressionism.

-        Storylines were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting. Narratives were frequently complex, maze-like, convoluted and typically told with foreboding background music and flashbacks, witty, razor sharp dialogue and first person voice-over narration.

·        Film Noir has several distinctive characters that appear in every film and help to define it as a film noir:

-        A cynical, disillusioned male who gets caught up with…
-        …a seductive, double-dealing femme fatale, who manipulates him to become the fall guy.


-        The women were often portrayed as such because their new found independence following the war was a threat to male power.
-        Males were often shown to be anti-heroes as they had murky pasts and were not clean cut innocents and good guys.

No comments:

Post a Comment