Lecture 5:
The Many Forms of Noir
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Professor Michael Green
1
This Lesson
•
Towards a definition
of Film Noir, History
and Influences
•
Examples of Film
Noir
•
L.A. Confidential,
Noir and the LAPD
Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep
(1946) Directed by Howard Hawks
Towards a Definition of Film Noir
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Directed by Charles Laughton
Lesson 5: Part I
3
What is Film Noir?
• Film Noir is hard to define but relatively easy
to recognize.
• It encompasses a wide range of film genres
from gothic horror to science fiction,
detective, thriller and comic book movies.
• Naremore: There is no completely
satisfactory way to organize noir; despite
scores of books and essays on it, nobody is
sure whether the films constitute a period, a
genre, a cycle, a style or a ‘phenomenon.’
4
The Film Noir and the French
• Film Noir as an idea evolved in Post WWII
France when French critics grouped together
a handful of Hollywood movies, including
The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity,
Laura and Murder, My Sweet.
• The French had a sophisticated film culture
and they treated movies like art rather than
commercial entertainment.
• They also saw the reflection of ‘shadowy
French melodramas’ from the 1930s.
5
The Film Noir Paradox
• Film Noir as a genre/category was named by
critics not filmmakers, who didn’t speak of
film noir until well after it was established as
a feature of academic writing.
• Naremore argues that Film Noir belongs as
much to the history of ideas, as to the history
of cinema.
• The paradox of Film Noir as he sees it is that
it is both an important cinematic legacy and
an idea we have projected onto the past.
6
Standard History
• The standard histories say that Noir
originated in America out of the synthesis of
hard-boiled fiction and German
Expressionism.
• The term is also associated with certain
visual and narrative traits, including low-key
photography, images of wet city streets,
pop-Freudian characterizations, and
romantic fascination with femme fatales.
Hard-boiled Fiction
• A tough, unsentimental style of American
crime writing that brought a new tone of
realism or naturalism to detective fiction.
• Hard-boiled fiction used graphic sex and
violence, vivid but often sordid urban
backgrounds, and fast-paced, slangy
dialogue. Credit for the invention of the
genre belongs to Dashiell Hammett, who
wrote The Maltese Falcon and the Thin Man.
• Raymond Chandler, who wrote The Big
Sleep, was another famous practitioner.
German Expressionism
• “A term for a mode of literary or visual art
which, in extreme reaction against realism or
naturalism, presents a world violently
distorted under the pressure of intense
personal moods, ideas, and emotions: image
and language express feeling and imagination
rather than represent external reality.
Although not an organized movement, it
influenced the painting, drama, poetry, and
cinema of German‐speaking Europe between
1910 and 1924.” – Literary Dictionary
Example
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Directed by Robert Wiene
Narrative Aspects of Film Noir
• Often manifested as a crime story: detective,
mystery or thriller.
• Features anti-heroes and femme fatales
• Characters motivated by (sexual) desire
• Stories usually hinge on something tragic or
shameful from a character’s past
• Cynical, anti-establishment, anti-social
• Convoluted structure, flashbacks
• Moral ambiguity, Existential attitude
• (Weary) voice-over narration
11
Other Formal Aspects
• Low key, chiaroscuro lighting – interplay
between light and shadow
• Darkness
• Gritty urban mise-en-scene
• Melancholy, sensual scores, often jazz-based
• Dutch angles, low-angle shots and wideangle shots emphasize Surreal nature
12
Representation of Race and
Ethnicity in Noir
• The heroes of film noirs – especially in its
heyday, but even more recently – are almost
exclusively white men. Though flawed, these
white, male anti-heroes are often presented
as being basically good men who have been
corrupted or lost their way.
• When non-white characters and minorities
are represented in noir films, they are usually
seen as minor characters, villains, or
supporters of the white protagonists. 13
Representation of Gender and
Sexuality in Noir
• Gender conventions are very traditional in
noir, with men represented as active
protagonists and women falling into two basic
categories:
– Helpless and in need of saving
– Sexually independent and therefore dangerous
• Noir, like most genre cinema, also represents
heterosexuality as the norm. Gays and
lesbians are rarely represented, and when
they are, they are often seen as deviant.
Examples of Film Noir
The Dark Knight (2008)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Lesson 5: Part II
15
1940s
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Maltese Falcon (1941) – John Huston
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) – Alfred Hitchcock
Laura (1944) – Otto Preminger
Double Indemnity (1944) – Billy Wilder
The Big Sleep (1946) – Howard Hawks
Notorious (1946) – Alfred Hitchcock
Out of the Past (1947) – Jacques Tourneur
– Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Double
Indemnity.
16
1950s
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) – John Huston
Gun Crazy (1950) – Joseph H. Lewis
Sunset Boulevard (1950) – Billy Wilder
In a Lonely Place (1950) – Nicholas Ray
Kiss me Deadly (1955) – Robert Aldrich
The Night of the Hunter (1955) – Charles
Laughton
• Touch of Evil (1958)
– Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Touch
of Evil
1960s and 1970s
• Cape Fear (1962) – J. Lee Thompson
• The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John
Frankenheimer
• Point Blank (1967) – John Boorman
• The Long Goodbye (1973) – Robert Altman
• Chinatown (1974) – Roman Polanski
• Farewell, My Lovely (1975) – Dick Richards
• The Drowning Pool (1975) – Stuart Rosenberg
• Taxi Driver (1976) – Martin Scorsese
18
1980s and 1990s
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Body Heat (1981) – Lawrence Kasdan
Blood Simple (1984) – The Coen Brothers
Batman (1989) – Tim Burton
Basic Instinct (1992) – Paul Verhoeven
Reservoir Dogs (1992) – Quentin Tarantino
The Last Seduction (1993) – John Dahl
Heat (1995) – Michael Mann
Out of Sight (1998) – Steven Soderberg
– Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Batman
19
2000s
• Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Batman
Begins (2005) – Christopher Nolan
• Minority Report (2002) – Steven Spielberg
• Road to Perdition (2002) – Sam Mendes
• Collateral (2004), Miami Vice (2006) –
Michael Mann
• Sin City (2005) – Robert Rodriquez
• Brick (2005) – Rian Johnson
– Pause the lecture and watch the clip from
Minority Report
L.A. Confidential, Noir and the
LAPD
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Lesson 5: Part III
21
Noir and the LAPD
• Los Angeles policemen have been at the
center of many film noirs and Los Angles
crime stories.
• Though cops are sometimes the heroes, the
LAPD is often presented at extremes as
either corrupt or as ineffectually bureaucratic.
• LA Confidential represents both these
extremes in the characters of White, Exley
and Captain Dudley.
22
“Bloody Christmas”
• The riot at the beginning of the film, in which
the LAPD officers beat down defenseless
Mexican prisoners, was on based on a real
incident that forced the LAPD to make some
changes in how it did business.
• However, problems between the LAPD and
the public and particularly between the LAPD
and African Americans and Mexican
Americans, continued (and continue).
• The film was made only several years after
Rodney King and the early ‘90s L.A. riots.
Noir and L.A. Confidential
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Crime/Detective/Cop film
Features anti-heroes and femme fatales
Characters motivated by (sexual) desire
Stories usually hinge on something tragic or
shameful from a character’s past
Cynical, anti-establishment, anti-social
Convoluted structure, flashbacks
Moral ambiguity, Existential attitude
(Weary) voice-over narration
24
Noir and L.A. Confidential
• Low key, chiaroscuro lighting – interplay
between light and shadow
• Darkness
• Gritty urban mise-en-scene
• Melancholy, sensual scores, often jazz-based
• Dutch angles, low-angle shots and wideangle shots emphasize Surreal nature
• 1990s style of action, violence, language and
sexuality.
25
Race and Ethnicity in the
Movie
• Though the movie is critical of the LAPD
tactics in handling minorities and features
whites as criminals, it is far more complex in
its portrayal of white men then it is of any
other race, ethnicity or gender.
• Even though the treatment of Mexican
Americans and African Americans in the
movie is condemned as brutal and racist, the
movie still portrays all its non-white
characters as low class and criminal.
Race and Ethnicity in the
Movie (Continued)
• Even the primary villain has an Irish brogue
while the three heroes – Exley, White and
Vincennes – are white male Anglo Saxons.
Though they are presented as flawed and
corrupt in certain ways, each is given a
character arc that allows them to change
morally and to make honorable choices.
• Typical for noir, no minority character gets
this arc.
Representation of Gender
• All the women in the film are represented in
typical ways for noir –
– as either helpless and in need of saving (White’s
character is a self-styled woman savior),
– or as sexually independent and thus threatening
to men.
• Lynn (Kim Basinger’s character) is seen as
both.
• In the movie, women are only valued for their
beauty and sexuality.
28
End of Lecture 5