Why is Film Noir a Significant Sub Genre?

8/13/2019 Why is Film Noir a Significant Sub Genre?

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Why is film noir a significant sub

genre?

BY MICHAELA MCCOLE


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Conventions of Film Noir

In film noir there are many conventions such as the lighting is very low key.

This means that it makes the atmosphere very eerie and makes you think

about the setting. Another convention is there are shadows, followingthe person and also sometimes behind the character. This creates a very

dull mood and makes you wonder about who it is and what will happen.

There is also shadows from the venetian blinds which shows that the

character is in a trap. Also there are prop conventions such as guns, hats,

alcohol and dark coats. The weather they use is a clear convention as

most of the scenes are dull, dark and normally raining or bad weather.

This reflects the mood in the scene for example in LA confidential where

the scene is rainy when it was a bad scene. They would also use non

diagetic sounds, for example they would put music over the top of a

scene to create an eerie atmosphere and build tension.


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Hays code

Hays code was that in films you wasnt allowed to actually show violence. This meant

that films had some violence in it, however the film wouldnt actually show this

violence to the audience. The reason behind doing this was that unlike now they

didnt have an age certificate on films, therefore everyone could watch any film theywanted to. There was no restriction on films back then. Some film directors bended

these rules in their films, for example they may put a certain scene with violence or

sex scenes they made it seem obvious to the audience the things they are trying to

portray but in a sneaky way.

This image is an example of hays code, this image is acomplete depiction of film noir. It shows a murder

that takes place during a dark and rainy night in what

appears to be an abandoned street. The killer is

a beautiful woman who probably seduced the dead

man and killed him when he was least expecting it.


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Lighting and shadows

The lighting in Film Noir is very specifically done, and they have

done this in a specific way to show Film Noir. The lighting is

made to look very specific such as weird large shadows,

mysterious shadows on someone's face or even to cover their

face.

There is a certain shadow with the venetian blinds, thisespecially shows in Double Indemnity when the blinds shadow

shows on the characters face, this shows and looks like theyre

in a trap and usually in a shot, there is only one of them in this

trap and this shows that theyre in a trap usually of the other

person.

Also there is the lighting that creates shadows over thecharacter, this could make the shadow on everything but their

hands, or their face.

The lighting can also be so that there is a strip of lighting across

the characters face, this shows especially their facial expressions

so you focus on their face.


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Camera angles

There are lots of camera angles in DoubleIndemnity such as the low angle shots, these

shots show power of the person whos higher.Similarly the high angle shots, shows that thehigher person has more power over the personwho is lower.

A lot of time in Film Noir the bad character hasthe low angle shot, and the good character has

the high angle shot, this portrays the power ofspecific characters.

The camera angles can also show thecharacters face in a weird angle which createsmystery for the audience.

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Why is Film Noir a Significant Sub Genre?