Film Noir and its influences PDF

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Film Noir and its influences...

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Film Noir and its influences

It all started in 1946, in Paris, with a retrospective of American films, which were banned in France during the war. In the eyes of both the French public and the critics, a new world was suddenly revealed, visual, acoustic and mythical. Alive, in spite of his darkness, charming, in spite of his fate, and alienated, he transcended Gaulian decency and European bourgeois ethics, touching, almost, the fingertips of a peculiar, pragmatic existentialism. Then came, as a first, from a series of attempts to define film noir, in 1955, the book by Raymond Bord and Etienne Someton, Panorama of American Film Noir 1941–1953, (Raymond Borde, Etienne Chaumeton. Panorama du film noir americain, 1941-1953). In their book, the two French critics codify the characteristics that define the "black tape". The dreamy, the strange, the erotic, the ambiguous and the hard. Insisting, however, that their proposal is oversimplified, because not all film noirs incorporate all five of these qualities to the same degree. Although film noir is often equated with a particular directorial script that goes beyond Hollywood stereotypes (low lighting, unequal compositions, heroes on the verge of delinquency), black films present a variety of scripts, with some of them falling into the dominant category. Hollywood model, apart from displaying a thematic variety that includes not only detective stories but also romantic romances, and judicial and social dramas. But even the urban space where the noir story unfolds cannot be a definition, because there are many classic films of the genre that take place in small towns, suburbs, rural areas or even on the street. By the same token, the presence of the private detective and the fatal woman is not a decisive factor in recording a film as a noir, because there are films that lack such heroes. So what is "film noir"? Isn't it even a genre and is it a "style"? This is claimed by the American film historian Thomas Stage. But others, such as Allen Silver, a renowned scholar of noir, speak of a "thematic cycle" or a separate "phenomenon" with specific, as in a genre, thematic and visual codes.

Special features If we wanted to determine, in general, what elements determine the noir films we would say, for cynical heroes, strange lighting, many flashbacks, labyrinthine intrigues along with some subdued hints of existential philosophy.

Iconoplasia Cinema as a visual stimulus owes its existence to light. Thus the cinematographer of a film is essentially the director of the light that will embody its existence. The lighting in the classic noirs, low with strong contrasts of black and grey with a wide range of dramatic shading, is reminiscent of the chiaroscuro of the Renaissance painters. The shadows of the blinds or railings of the handrail of a staircase that fall on the face of the hero or on a wall or on the whole space are one of the classic film stereotypes of the genre. The darkness can hide part or all of the hero's face to maintain the mystery and agony of the viewers. The success of the atmosphere I described above would be questionable without the help of black and white cinematography. Without this being a rule because there are also colour films that maintain both the style and the atmosphere, e.g. Party Girl (1958) by N. Reyes, and A. Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Other commonly used visual expressions are shots taken by people in one or more mirrors, shot through frosted or frosted glass, distorted images, unexpected angles of view, oblique frames, etc. The visual part comes to complement the headset or music is evocative and often submits to the drama of the moment. Natural sounds such as cold noises on phones, car brakes on the streets, the sound of women's heels on asphalt or paving slabs, creaking doors, gunshots, screams or shrieks of those in danger or fear, all together intensify the viewer's anxiety and push him to empathize with the heroes.

Structure and Narrative Techniques The script in the black film is unusually complex, with many flashbacks and other narrative techniques interrupting and sometimes disarming the logical sequence of the plot. The off narrative, usually in the first person, which is the voice of the main character, is another feature of the noir of the classical period. For example, in the film Lady in the Lake (1947), the first-person narrative is identified with a constant subjective shot of the hero, whose face we only see when he passes in front or looks in a mirror.

Myth, ethos of the heroes, dramatic space The themes of the genre revolve around jealousy, murder, betrayal, infidelity, arising from the inherent fatalism of the heroes. Crime, especially murder, is an element of almost all film noirs, with the main motive, apart from greed, jealousy. The main plot usually involves an investigation into the crime by a private detective, a police officer, usually acting alone, or an amateur who is interested in the details of the crime. Other common elements of many scenarios are that the protagonists are involved in robberies or deceptions or murderous conspiracies resulting from

infidelity or love affairs between the heroes. Unfounded suspicions and accusations of treason are also often part of the plot. The ethos of noir heroes has more flaws and moral dilemmas than the average of a common man and most of the time they are fallen social figures or unmarried. A basic typology of heroes could be the following: ruthless detectives, fatal women, corrupt police officers, jealous husbands, insurance agents, greedy bourgeois, all of whom smoke wildly. The place where the noir story unfolds is usually the urban space and in particular some cities, which are usually Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Chicago. Bars, nightclubs and casinos are the hangouts where differences, intrigues and conspiracies are tied up or untied. The critical scenes or scenes of the final revelations of many films take place in industrial areas, such as refineries, factories, train depots, power plants, always at night and sometimes in the rain. A cliché that is overturned by the modern neonoir where everything takes place in broad daylight, but in deserted and secluded places.

The worldview and ethics There is a deep pessimism in all the noir films. Classic stories are about people who involuntarily get involved in incredible situations, which they did not cause themselves, people who fight against their destiny, which, as everything shows, has them written off. The corrupt world in which the films take place reflects the American social landscape of the time, that is, the intense anxiety and alienation that followed the end of World War II. Noir ethics are very loose, although the Hayes Code required all films of the classical period to show that virtue always triumphs in the end, that laws should not be broken, that religion should not be ridiculed, that lustful kisses should be avoided, and the scenes of passion, in the majority of them the black films are full of these forbidden ones, either literally, figuratively, or with obvious allusions. Let us not forget that in many later noirs evil triumphs, for example Polanski's Chinatown (1974).

The influences

Cinematic

There is no parthenogenesis in art, whoever said that was absolutely right, so film noir carries within it various cinematic as well as literary influences. The aesthetics of noir films have been profoundly influenced by German Expressionism, a powerful artistic movement of the '10s and' 20s that influenced theatre, photography, painting, sculpture, architecture and cinema. Under the threat of the Nazi swarm sweeping Germany at the time, many important filmmakers were given the opportunity to immigrate to the United States and work in the thriving Hollywood film industry. These directors, who worked in Germany, were directly associated with the expressionist movement or were students of former members of the movement. Fritz Lang, Robert Sionmak and Michael Curtis brought with them a new style that gave a dramatic tone to the lighting and charged the frame with a psychological expression. For example, Fritz Lang M's film The Düsseldorf Dragon (1931), shot two years before he left Germany, is one of the first major talking police films, with a distinctive noir style of directing and script. . In M, apart from the hero who is a criminal, the subject of criminal pathology is introduced for the first time. The films of Joseph von Sternberg who was born in Vienna but grew up in the USA, Shanghai Express (1932), The Devil is a Woman (1935), with their intense eroticism and baroque aesthetics in artistic composition of the plan, can be considered as serious influences. The French poetic realism of the 1930s, with its romantic fatalistic style and its "cursed" heroes, also influences the noir. The non-noir's fictional and screenplay findings, as well as Orson Welles's non-noir's Citizen Cane (1941) narrative, make him the forerunner of many classic noir films. The genre was also influenced by the Italian neorealism of the 1940s, with its documentary style exuding authenticity. Billy Wilder 's Lost Weekend (1945) and Jill Dassen' s Naked City (1948), as well as a number of films made in the late 1940s and early 1940s. '50, owe their semi-documentary approach to neorealists.

Literary The main literary influence in film noir was exerted by the Hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction, which was dominated during its first period by writers such as Dassiel Hammett, whose first novel, The Red Harvest (Red Harvest) ), was printed in 1929 and James Cain,

whose Postman Always Rings Twice, appeared five years later. The stories of these pioneers were popularized through popular magazines printed on cheap paper (pulp magazines), such as The Black Mask. The classic films The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Glass Key (1942) are based on books by Hammett. Kane's novels were based on the films Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder, Storm in the Mother Heart (1945), Michael Curtis (Mildred Pierce) and The Postman Two Knocks (1944). ) by Tay Gurnett. In 1939, Raymond Chandler appears, who quickly becomes the most famous representative of the American school, with his first work Passion and Blood (1939). His novels became great cinematic successes, while he was also successful as a screenwriter. Chandler, like Hammett, focused more on the detective character in his stories, while Kane created less heroic protagonists and focused on their psychological analysis than on the investigation of the crime. One of the most prolific writers of the genre, which dominated the 1940s, was Cornell Woolrich with 13 films based on his work among them, Black Angel (Deadline to Dawn). (1946) (Deadline at Dawn), and Anxiety in the Night, (1947) (Fear in the Night.)

The classic period American film noir takes off and reaches the highest peaks of its creative heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, considered its "classic period." The first real noir is considered today the film of the Lithuanian, but studied in the Soviet Union, director Boris Ingster Stranger on the Third Floor, (1940), although it was not initially recognized as the beginning of a new trend, let alone a new cinematic genre. Most film noirs of the classic period were low cost, with no particularly famous protagonists. In this context, as writers, directors and photographers were not restricted by the conventional elements that any major Hollywood film should have, they were free to experiment. From this experimental trend two different aesthetic styles were developed, the expressionist first and then the semi-documentary. Another new element of the narrative was the intricate flashbacks that were absent or rare in other Hollywood movies. The strictness of the famous Hayes Code, which required the films to have "decent" content, without adultery and justified criminals, did not prevent the creators from making noir films that had elements quite risky for the time. Thematically, film noirs stood out because very often they had heroic women of dubious morals. Phyllis Dietrichson (almost the same as Dietrich), in Billy Wilder 's Infernal Love (1944), (Double Indemnity), played by Barbara Stanwick, was the beginning of a series of fatal women who mixed up the lives of good and bad. This was followed by a series of films starring "bad girls", such as

Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Knocks Twice (1946), Ava Gardner in The Murderers (1946), The Killers and T in Sinners and Murderers (1947) (Out of the Past). The private detective, the other half of the fam fatal appears in The Maltese Falcon (1941), is Sam Spade and is played by Humphrey Bogart, Dana Andrews, Mark Macpherson in Laura (1944) and Nell Philip Marlowe on The Date of Death (1944), (Murder, My Sweet). The dominance of the detective as a leading role in film noirs has declined since the 1950s, with the heroes' psychology becoming the centre of gravity. Over time, the distinctive noir visual style began to look outdated, and changing production conditions led Hollywood industry in different directions. Some scholars, however, believe that film noir never ceased to exist, but continued to evolve. Thus, films in a noir atmosphere after the 50's are considered a continuation of the "classics". Many critics, however, do not consider these films to be authentic noirs of the genre, believing that they belong to a limited period of time and geography, and that what followed used it as inspiration and influence.

Film Noir in Europe Is noir exclusively an American creation? Opinions differ - some believe that classic film noir is exclusive to the US and others see it as a global phenomenon. During the classic period, many films with noir style and themes were shot outside the United States. For example, Jill Dassen, who fled to France in the early 1950s because of McCarthy's "blacklist", directed one of the most famous French noir films, Rififi (1955). In Britain, Carol Reed, more influenced by French poetic realism and less by the American version of expressionism, turns to Third Man (1949). In Italy, Lucino Visconti directed The Devil's Lovers (1943) (Ossessione), a film adaptation of "The Postman Always Knocks Twice", in contemporary Italy, which is also considered crucial to the development of neorealism. In Japan, Akira Kurosawa directed films that are considered noir, such as: Drunk Angel (1948), Tearful Dog (1949), The Evil Sleepers, which is an adaptation of Hamlet.

Decades 1960-1970 - The Neo-Noir In the post-classical period, films appeared that consciously recognized the classical conventions of the genre, and either revived them, or rejected them, or redefined the historical archetypes of the classical form. This species is called neonoir. The most recognizable film of the period is Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), while Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the atmosphere of the old noir face to face with modern day taxi driver (1976) (Taxi Driver). The best-

known film noirs of the 1970s were essentially remakes of classic films, while American police television series of the day revived the "hardboiled" tradition of detective fiction.

Decades 1980-1990 The change of the decade came with the black and white film of Scorsese Angry Idol (Raging Bull). Michael Mann and other contemporary directors create neonoir films, where the classic theme is adapted to its contemporary historical moment, with a renewed visual style and rock or hip hop music. The Oscar-winning film Los Angeles: Confidential (1997) (L.A. Confidential) based on a novel by James Elroy is a deliberately retro noir. His story, with immoral police and fam fatals, seems to come straight from a 1953 film. David Fitzgerald, after the huge success of Se7en (1995), turned Fight Club, a sui generis mixture of noir aesthetics and comedy to the brink of absurdity. The Cohen brothers' Fargo (1996) is one of the most characteristic examples of neonoir. David Leeds' Blue Velvet combines elements of noir with an extremely complex psychography of his psychopathic hero. David Cronenberg, in his film Naked Lunch (1991) (Naked Lunch), based on the novel of the same name by William Burroughs, mixes the noir atmosphere with surrealism. An archetypal modern feminist is Sharon Stone in Paul Verhoeven in Basic Instinct (1992). Quentin Tarantino's films that come closest to the classic noir, but also combine B-movie elements, are: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994)....