The film noir essay.

“The true film noir is a barely-disguised transposition of the nightmare, and it carries the
implication of a deeply corrupted social order.” (Holmes, n.d) Film has never looked or felt as
visually distinctive as Noir, both in its original incarnation and modern descendant. Coined by
French film critic Nino Frank, black film as it’s translated, has a reputation for bringing us
groundbreaking and immersive masterpieces of cinema thanks to works like The Maltese Falcon
and Chinatown with people such as Fritz Lang and Quentin Tarantino bring their flavours to the
art of film itself. This essay will attempt to give a basic understanding into the genre, the history
and its elements, an attempt to understand the needs required for the impending final project.

Film Noirs (and Neo-noirs) can be characterised by having a set of rules and conventions. They
often tell stories with internal monologuing recording the male hard-boiled protagonist’s
movements, with extremely stylish visuals and harsh lighting helping the audience engage with
the darker themes of humanity on full display. In one example ( Touch of Evil. 1958), it builds up
the case to be solved by showcasing a part of its urban-decayed setting in one long take before
the car with the decoy character exploding- raising the “whodunit” question often associated
with the genre. You could have a very simple prologue detailing the Protagonist’s reason why
he’s become what he is, another example (Deep Cover. 1992) showcases main character’s father
being killed as the latter attempts to commit robbery on a little store in order to buy his son a
Christmas Present, before being shot by a stranger. Then a mystery or a mission pops up for the
Protagonist to solve, either ignited by a morally-ambiguous Femme Fatale or a corrupt
authority figure that later creates a plot twist to change the story’s outcome. To drive their
points home, it likely will not end on a high note as its atmosphere details the sense of
corruption and crime in its typical American metropolis settings ( Hoerneman, C., 2018). The visual
perspective usually involves harsher, lower-eyed lighting with monochromatic shades of a
scene- though colours can be used in coldness to highlight the modern setting of a neo-noir-
telling the gritty tale in stylish positions from the lens of the camera. Film noir and the Neo are
not so far away from each other, compare to contrast High Sierra’s classical Hollywood sort of
visual storytelling (Camera positions simply going from one spot to another while looking
similar in framing) to Drive’s more dynamic-moving views of the characters on display: Noir is
visually distinctive on the basis of its versatility alone. Versatile based on the evolution,
contrasted by the technology of their day to tell their stories through bended frames.

Before the genre was created, the western hemisphere was not in a bright mood- a sense of
disillusionment and need to face the reality of humanity’s decay- was brought about in the
lead-up and aftermath of the second World War and Great Depression. Film at the time
emphasised escapism and fantasy rather than realism, as Walt Disney’s cartoons began to take
the American character’s imagination in the face of a collapsed stock market (Wheelock, D.,
n.d).

A younger german filmmaker Fritz Lang was telling a story about an idealistic but expressionist
Metropolis in the late 20s, as it made its way outside of a post-great war Germany told a story
about the society’s hands and the heart’s needs to combine into one whole. Then the Nazis
began to take power and planned for world domination- Europe’s resistance, the opposed
Russians and America rebelled against the common evil. Before the storm, Fritz Lang was
offered a position by Joseph Goebbels (who was the propagandist behind Germany’s Nazism
conversion) to be behind Germany’s film leadership. According to Fritz Lang himself, he
promptly left the same night out of fear in being put into a camp and promptly executed
(Chesley, L., 2004). This was after Lang made M, his last German-produced film before fleeing to
Hollywood, taking his german expressionism roots with him to America where realism came
into demand.

German expressionism is defined by a need to break reality into a twisted form. Detailing
fantasy but animated-like environments, acting, even soundtracks. Compared to Noir, it is more
undefined and closer to a theater-like experience. It is directed towards an artistic movement
to the extreme, as Noir pushed toward gritty stylish storytelling in contrast to the European-
gothic exaggerated characters of expressionism (Nosferatu, 1922). They are connected through
their desire to criticise society of their time, of reality itself into an artistic vision of twistedness
(Lukács, G., 1937), it becomes rather ironic as germans were banned from importing films
outside of their nation in 1919 as a result of their isolation beyond the Great War (Thompson,
K. and Bordwell, D., 2003). Expressionism’s look is characterised by a sense of unreality, twisted
by a stylish gothic, as one Lotte Eisner (German Expressionist Films, 2020) would put it: “A sort of
twilight of the German soul, expressing itself in shadowy, enigmatic interiors, or in misty,
insubstantial landscapes.”. Expressionism is told through its artistic architecture, an impossible
set, camera angles that always look upward or into a below abyss and extremely harsh lighting.
Noir took a more sensible approach, bringing on the harsher lighting and the architecture into
refinement to produce something more akin to reality of the time, Neo-Noir updated it with
modern and advanced architecture and extreme colours to symbolise a moment in a film or for
a character in a story.

These series of tragedies and complications, combined with writers being influenced by pulp
stories of their time (Crowther, B., 1990), led to the demand of a backfire against the fantasy.
Gangster films were these pseudo-fantasies that became the metaphorical father of Film Noir,
beginning with The Maltese Falcon in 1941. Neo-Noir came about much later in the 1960s as a
reinvention of the genre as society was facing a bad time (Horsley, n.d.); John F Kennedy was
assassinated in 67; Equal rights activist Martin Luther King Jr was murdered, leading to black
Americans being challenged by white members of society; Vietnam was taking a toll on the
dream massively. People were falling into the same loop as they once were, which began a
direction into cynicism unlike anything before it. Chinatown’s and Taxi Driver’s two-punch of a
classical noir tale told with the luxury of modern architectures and automobiles (Chinatown,
1974) with a fantasy of becoming a vigilante to right the wrongs of humanity at a cost (Taxi
Driver, 1976), made the concept of an American story become infused by expressionism into
something retro-modern.

Film noir has its founding fathers, key practitioners as they say. Fritz Lang, although more
known by mainstream audiences nowadays for Metropolis, did bring up noir as a concept
through M and Ministry of Fear with their expressionist origins telling harsh stories about
humanity’s darkness. Using low-key lighting, gothic aesthetics, slow movements as a visual
method of telling his stories. He developed these techniques as a way of distancing himself
from the larger epic film, to quote (Chesley, L., 2004): “No. I don’t want to make films
anymore.” Before going on to make M, then Fury, then Ministry of Fear. Then you have
legendary actor and face of noir Humphrey Bogart- known for his roles in the groundbreaking
High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. He often played the hard type of character,
one that challenges people while tempted by the corruption of humanity ( The Maltese Falcon.
1941). Coincidentally, John Huston was a background forerunner in the genre. He wrote High
Sierra’s screenplay and directed Falcon, with Warner Brothers distributing a chunk of the films
mentioned in the process.

Those were the key people behind classical noir, but most passed before the genre could have
lasted. After a series of various creators (such as Roman Polanski with Chinatown and Walter
Hill with The Driver), Quentin Tarantino refined it with Reservoir Dogs with its chronological
complexity and refusing to tell its main event by showing the prologues and the aftermath.
Employing a minimal style with the soundtrack, detail by dialogue (as if the characters were
speaking lines right out of a novel), it paints the picture of what happens when something does
go horribly wrong. Interestingly, Tarantino made it as a heist film with a 70s look and sound
rather than a direct noir piece. As the man quote (Hartl, 1992): “I wanted it to be happening in
`real time,' with the audience being stuck there along with the characters, as the radio goes on
all day playing hits from the 1970s.” when it came to developing its chronological-backwards
plot with black comedy, Reservoir Dogs wasn’t influenced by noir but just landed in it with a
tale that refuses to speak about the main event that forces its protagonists into a situation that
spiraled out of their control (Reservoir Dogs. 1992) (A classic “heist gone horribly wrong” setup,
something that was showcased decades prior (High Sierra. 1941).

If you were to compare Reservoir Dogs to Ministry of Fear, you’d be looking at distant members
of a family: Reservoir sits toward the lower grade of modern society (since a majority of it takes
place in a warehouse, something you’d never see much in classical noir or even expressionism).
Ministry of Fear takes place in London during the second World War, a reality shattered by a
violent breakdown of the skies above while a man attempts to prove his innocence while
tackling a conspiracy. Even before that, Nosferatu exaggerated the movements and played up
the story as if they’re in a theatre by comparison. It becomes something akin, when you place
these examples in a relative continuity, more like an evolution in self-awareness- as if the films
themselves knew what they were and started becoming distant from how we see reality as is.
Ministry of Fear strays far from the expressionism, but retains the pseudo-twisted frames.
Reservoir Dogs plays up to the stylings of pulp magazines of the 40s, employing the colours to
expressionism’s tamer elements with classical noir’s one-camera perspective. They’re like polar
opposites by that point.

Because of their mature themes, content and complexity compared to a traditional mainstream
film and moviegoers wanting to see superhero blockbusters nowadays (Superhero films make
billions, while noirs make only mere thousands or millions), noir became less relevant to
people. An example from the numbers: Drive, directed by Nicholas Winding Refn and released
in 2011, became a cult hit thanks to its retro atmosphere: mixing a synth-wave (electronic
synthesized music with 80s influence) soundtrack, with ultra-violent grittiness and vibrance in
colours to create a narrative not too dissimilar from film noir itself. It made back its budget of
15 Million USD with a paycheck of 77,187,281 USD ( Box Office Mojo. n.d) as a sleeper hit (a
longer-term success than anticipated). Badlands was considered a breakthrough success of
Terrance Malick and a good test of a limited budget of 300K USD (Walker, B., 1975), flopped at
54,396 USD (Box Office Mojo does not have the record of the overall numbers). Could it be
because of the violence? No, High Sierra (It made back its 491K USD budget with 1.4M at
returns (1951. Appendix 1.) and Ministry of Fear (I could not find a record of its budget and box
office take, assuming it did well enough to keep Lang making films in Hollywood) never used
violence in a large fashion. Maybe it’s too depressing for the audience to handle? Although
these films can tend to end on a downer note (Reservoir Dogs and Badlands especially), there
are those (such as Drive) that do leave themselves on a relatively bright high. It’s safe to suggest
that it fluctuates depending on the era, as traditional noir breathed in the 40s-50s, while noir
now is more for the neon skies of retro colouring, Noir is hard to define on success- It’s far too
varied.

Due to the genre’s point of origin, Film Noir came from a different world from our own. It
started brewing up in the 1940s, naturally bringing in the conventions of its day. Some elements
have not aged well, such as the frequent portrayal of women being antagonistic morally-grey
challengers of the stronger male protagonist. Most characters in these stories tend to be white,
while other races are rather seen as somewhat inferior in a face of unwitting racism. By the
time Neo-noir became more dominant, racism and misogyny’s now a nigh-disavowed aspect of
life that persists. Female characters became much stronger and just as capable as their spear
counterparts, such as True Romance’s (Tarantino-written, not directed by him) Clarissa joining
her lover Clarence in their selling of a case full of drugs despite the dangers presented along the
way while actively helping the latter on equal footing ( True Romance. 1993). Black characters
appeared more frequently in the long run as Marcellus Wallace (Pulp Fiction. 1994) initially
appears to be the antagonist of the story but redeems himself when Butch saves his life from a
couple of “torturous homosexuals” as frequently described by online communities nowadays
(this is one aspect of the film that makes it dissonant compared to more modern examples).

To my own conclusion of the genre, Noir is a recount of a stylish gray with deco or decayed
modern aesthetics. Exploring its own questioning of humanity through ways of telling darker
tales, to either become forgotten or cherished into legend. Beginning as a showcase of their
day, alongside evolution into the digital neon age, their hard-boiled nature continues to be a
major source of creative inspiration to a complex story that challenges the modern viewer.
Whether or not if it’s a physical or streamed release, Noirs tend to leave the impression after a
watch. Its stylish iconics, faux-gothics and cynics have a place against the epic film that remains
common today. It’s funny, considering that Noirs never really died- but were reborn. We’ll have
to keep everything in mind, as this information will be going towards the final project’s
research, when producing the genre script later.
To further conclude, this upcoming project is a sequel to my previous attempt on the genre the
year prior. From my research, I am intending on taking the visual techniques from both noir and
Neo-noir and combining them into one modern-vintage piece. I want to combine the
monochrome, darkly lights and cold atmospheres that noir provides with the modern
architecture and hints of colour from the Neo spectrum. Some elements from German
Expressionism will be used for the “dream-like” sequences, such as the sense of a twisted
reality portrayed by a simple but old buildings and dead trees with a single colour setting the
tone into the incomprehensible. This sequel will explore the visual stylish of these 3 genres, as
my research helped me understand why and what they are. Musically it would be a mixture of
dark jazz with a flavour of synthetic sound, keeping to the original soundtracks of noir and 80s-
infused Neo-Noir. In short words: This research is resulting in a genre-busting experience that I
want to make, having understood those concepts better into something unique.

Bibilography:
1951.  Appendix 1. 1st ed. [ebook] Hollywood: Warner Bros. Available at:
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Chesley, L., 2004.  Fritz Lang: The Lost Interview - MovieMaker Magazine. [online] MovieMaker Magazine.
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Chinatown. 1974. [film] Directed by R. Polanski. America: Paramount Pictures.
Crowther, B., 1990.  Film noir. London: Virgin Books.
Deep Cover. 1992. [film] Directed by B. Duke. America: New Line Cinema.
Hartl, J., 1992.  Entertainment & the Arts | `Dogs' Gets Walkouts And Raves | Seattle Times Newspaper.
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Taxi Driver. 1976. [film] Directed by M. Scorese. America: Columbia Pictures.
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Touch of Evil. 1958. [film] Directed by O. Welles. America: Universal Studios.
Pulp Fiction. 1994. [film] Directed by Q. Tarantino. America: Miramax.
Reservoir Dogs. 1992. [film] Directed by Q. Tarantino. America: Miramax Films.
Nosferatu. 1922. [film] Directed by F. Murnau. Germany: Film Arts Guild.
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