1. In the documentary titled American Cinema: Film Noir, Abraham Polonsky describes what occurs when the mood of a film, the story and the actors reflect in their portrayal a "sense of jeopardy in life". When this sense of danger and desperation in life is expressed in film noir, "then it is a correct representation of anxiety cause by the system". Polonsky states that this is a characteristic of all film noir.
In Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958), the demeanor and actions of the police captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) represents anxiety caused by the system, in this case the justice system. Quinlan often feels the need to be police officer, detective, and justice all in one-- and through backstory we find that he often plants evidence to frame who he believes is guilty, even if they turn out to be not the one who committed the crime. Still, Quinlan finds them guilty in his own gut, and that's enough for him. His line of work is stressful, and has become a "crocked cop" due to horrific life experiences. He is a quintessential film noir character, dealing with the hardships of everyday life and surviving the only way he knows how: dangerously.
2. The "femme fatale" in film noir is presented as not only a temptress of men but also a threat to them. A powerful, self-assured woman endangers male dominance and control of situations, and leaves them at the whim of the female. Scholar Janey Place describes the femme fatale persona as being "very smart, powerful, and extremely sexual. She uses her sexuality to get what she's after, and what she's after is not the man-- he's just another tool. What she's after is something for herself."
Dorothy Vallen (Isabella Rossellini) from David Lynch's 1986 Blue Velvet best embodies the femme fatale characteristics. Dorothy's allure appeals to not only psychotic gangster Frank Booth (Denis Hopper) but also college student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan). While she is shown as a submissive character to Frank Booth's antics, ultimately she is one who does what is necessary in order to achieve her goal: to get her husband back and most importantly, her son.
3. The cynical type of narrative in film noir distinctly defines the genre, but what is essentially noir comes from the cinematography and art direction. Noir photography accentuates the light and shadow contrasts and utilizes deep focus to gain a large depth of field, in turn allowing for all grounds in the composition to be in focus. Location, props, and costume design is often consistently defined in film noir. Nightlife in large urban cities, dark alley ways, guns, cigarettes, and classic 1940's garb are just some of the many ways one can describe the style.
The location in Touch of Evil is meant to represent a border-town, on the edge of the US and Mexico (actual location: Venice Beach, California). Lawless and corrupt, the border-town captures the sense of grittiness that all film noir expresses. The photography is conventional film noir, utilizing deep focus, plenty of low angles, high angles, and dutch angles as a form of showing sharp contrasts. The black-and-white aspect of the film lends assistance to emphasizing the light and shadows within the shot. Harsh back-light and shadows enclosing the actor's face symbolizes the sense of dread or danger of the character, while light represents the innocence or hope of another.
4. Neo-noir is a modern style of filmmaking, utilizing elements of classic film noir but using updated media, themes and styles that express ideas of our modern times. Beginning to take form in the 1970's and still being produced today, neo-noir works with the social problems of the last quarter of the 20th century into the 21st century. Within this historical context many things have changed, from the medical field to crime to technology. As did classic film noir, its newer cousin dramatizes real life misfortunes and struggles in the most raw and simplistic way.
Blue Velvet is considered a neo-noir film, as it upholds similar noir photography and themes, however the differences between this film and classic film noir is recognizable. The location in Blue Velvet is represented by suburban America (actual location: Wilmington, North Carolina)-- white picket fences, cookie-cutter housing, green lawns and smiling two-dimensional characters represent the appearance that all if uniform and life is good. Underneath the surface however we see that life is not all good, with the extreme close up to the grass, Lynch reveals a swarm of bugs, representing the underlying social problems of the town, and possibly a commentary of the real-life problems of the time.
The movie also differed by its use of color photography-- the archetypal style being black-and-white. A negative effect of this choice was that by using color film, lights and shadows became less pronounced and more able to be neutralized. However, Lynch was able to utilize color in a way that classic film noir was unable to. In deep focus shots like in the introduction sequence, every inch of the lawn and street were brightly illuminated by color. The bold red of the flowers along the white picket fence underneath the bright blue sky drew the eye towards them to gaze in their beauty. To compensate for the loss of black-and-white's high contrast of light and shadow, Lynch used color in place of it. Chiaroscuro became defined by colors-- warm hues represented softness and comfort, while cold hues worked as the shadows by representing danger or sadness. In the scene where Dorothy is at the club singing "Blue Velvet", deep blue spotlights define her silhouette, smothering her like a blanket of sadness, as a harsh shadow would for a perilous character in classic film noir.
I. à bout de souffle (1960)
Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (À bout de souffle) is one of the leading films that marked the beginning of the mid-20th century cinematic style, the French New Wave. Directed by Godard, based on the original story written by François Truffaut (another influential director of French New Wave), Breathless tells a story of crime and an ill-fated love in Paris. The film opens with Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and a woman who as it appears are trying to steal a car. This action propels the entire film, in the way a McGuffin contributes to the film noir's narrative. Michel hopes to meet up with Patricia (Jean Serberg), an American studying at the Sorbonne whom he met only once before, to convince her to accompany him to Italy.
The film is unconventional in its cinematography, following a nontraditional narrative and achieving an overall discontinuous effect through the use of hand-held cameras, informal frames, and at times improvisational acting. Traditional cinematic techniques like the 180° line are disregarded intentionally. Philosophical, psychological and political ideology are often infused within character dialogue and/or the spoken thoughts of characters, serving as social commentary expressed by the auteur Godard—and the French New Wave group of artists as a collective. Though the film is different than films prior to this point, it undeniably maintains aspects of traditional film-making and narrative as well as references to classic films and art of the past. These nods to convention illustrate Godard's knowledge of them but explains his intentional disregard of established ways through the details of the film.
In its form and narrative, Breathless represents experimental and independent film making during the 1960's. The use of jump-cuts as an editing tool to shift from one scene to another scene later in time and often unrelated contributed to the film's overall radical style. Also employed radically is the mixing of what the viewer knows as part of the sound of the film's world, with what is meant to be heard by only the viewer. In one particular scene Michel drives a stolen car, meanwhile giving a monologue of plans for his recent future. Jump-cut editing here suggests that he is traveling forward in space and time down the road, however, his monologue remains uninterrupted from cut to cut, shifting the viewer's understanding of sound in the film, and bringing to the viewer's consciousnesses the process of film making and ultimately the constructed reality of film.
Breathless sends a nod to film noir in its theme of the criminal protagonist, love that was doomed to begin with, and even so far as references to Humphrey Bogart's film persona through Michel's mannerisms. In one instance Michel walks past the movie theater and sees a photo of Bogart encased in a glass window. In this one scene it becomes clear to the viewer that any similarities between Michel and film noir characters is intentional, and could quite possibly be the driving force behind Michel's every decision. Here I deduce that Godard is paying homage to not only classic American cinema but cinema in general, as Godard recognizes it as being a heavy influence on post-modern society and culture. Though what makes Godard and the French New Wave influential to their peers and future directors is the disruptive style in which they display narrative, leaving it up to the viewer to piece it all together.
The film is unconventional in its cinematography, following a nontraditional narrative and achieving an overall discontinuous effect through the use of hand-held cameras, informal frames, and at times improvisational acting. Traditional cinematic techniques like the 180° line are disregarded intentionally. Philosophical, psychological and political ideology are often infused within character dialogue and/or the spoken thoughts of characters, serving as social commentary expressed by the auteur Godard—and the French New Wave group of artists as a collective. Though the film is different than films prior to this point, it undeniably maintains aspects of traditional film-making and narrative as well as references to classic films and art of the past. These nods to convention illustrate Godard's knowledge of them but explains his intentional disregard of established ways through the details of the film.
In its form and narrative, Breathless represents experimental and independent film making during the 1960's. The use of jump-cuts as an editing tool to shift from one scene to another scene later in time and often unrelated contributed to the film's overall radical style. Also employed radically is the mixing of what the viewer knows as part of the sound of the film's world, with what is meant to be heard by only the viewer. In one particular scene Michel drives a stolen car, meanwhile giving a monologue of plans for his recent future. Jump-cut editing here suggests that he is traveling forward in space and time down the road, however, his monologue remains uninterrupted from cut to cut, shifting the viewer's understanding of sound in the film, and bringing to the viewer's consciousnesses the process of film making and ultimately the constructed reality of film.
Breathless sends a nod to film noir in its theme of the criminal protagonist, love that was doomed to begin with, and even so far as references to Humphrey Bogart's film persona through Michel's mannerisms. In one instance Michel walks past the movie theater and sees a photo of Bogart encased in a glass window. In this one scene it becomes clear to the viewer that any similarities between Michel and film noir characters is intentional, and could quite possibly be the driving force behind Michel's every decision. Here I deduce that Godard is paying homage to not only classic American cinema but cinema in general, as Godard recognizes it as being a heavy influence on post-modern society and culture. Though what makes Godard and the French New Wave influential to their peers and future directors is the disruptive style in which they display narrative, leaving it up to the viewer to piece it all together.
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