Following World War II, film critics in France noticed a new dark, low-key screen style in American cinema. These films, showing “lost innocence, doomed romanticism, hard-edged cynicism, desperate desire, and paranoia,” brought a more mature world-view into Hollywood (CITE). Known as film noir, this style took advantage of the post-war atmosphere that surrounded America in the 1940s. American society felt disillusioned and jaded after everything that transpired with the second World War. In his article, The Dark Themes of Film, Quintus Curtius says it best: “The war changed everything, turning conventional morality on its head. Nobody really knew how to cope with the vastly changed landscape that war and social turbulence had created.” (CITE). The dark, cynical aspects of film noir resonated with audiences in this time period. Furthermore, as the Cold War transpired, society dreadingly shifted to a paranoid, pessimistic mood. And these dark times fit perfectly with film noir’s dark themes.
Film noir, in its most classic form, lasted
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Originally, neo-noir films were considered a part of the classic noir form. However, in the 1970s, film critics started to refer to it as a separate style. Usually crime dramas and psychological thrillers, neo-noir has a number of common themes, visual elements, and storyline schemes with film noir. Nonetheless, there are quite a few differences between the two film styles. For one, neo-noir used more “modern circumstances and technology, which were typically absent or unimportant in the classic film noir.” (CITE). Additionally, neo-noir films usually employ unconventional plot devices and camera movements. And unlike classic film noirs tendency to draw the viewer into the protagonist 's life and building a relationship, neo-noir constantly reminds the viewer they are just watching a film. Themes of “identity crisis, memory issues and subjectivity” are all common in neo-noir
Kroll (2012) claims that we are in an age where “all movie genres are being subverted, postmodernized, de-constructed, film noir is a tough genre to mess around with”. The Usual Suspects manages to experiment with
I hope that everyone (well, at least some of you) had the opportunity to enjoy the special programming block shown on TCM during the months of June and July known as TCM 's Summer of Darkness. Every Friday during this period, the TCM schedule was jam-packed with key noir pieces (eg. Detour), as well as films that were great "influencers" - essential viewing that established the mood and essence of what would come to engender this film movement/genre (eg., Fritz Lang 's M). And not to be left out, there were a even a few contemporary pieces that had clearly had a noir DNA imprinted on them.
Using movies as a way of teaching a specific time period is an entertaining but often fictitious method to education. Especially, when Hollywood blockbusters like Gladiator (2000) are involved. However, some Hollywood pictures that do a sufficient job of showcasing a time in history. Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, also starring Russell Crowe, is a rarity in the world of historical fiction film. While it is still not 100% factual, it does do a fantastic job of featuring the atmosphere of the early 1930’s.
Film noir movies often have stylistic characteristics such as exaggerated lighting and shadows. Scarlet Street contained many subjective camera shots while also using exaggerated shadows, for example during the first scene in the movie, there is an emphasis on the mans shadow as he walks into the room. Which brings me to a crucial point, Black and white filmmaking. Black and white style is considered to be an essential attribute for a film noir movie, black and white allows the director to emphasize on distorting images, for example use of the venetian blind shot. Another continuous pattern of film noir is to include main stock characters, this film contains: an anti-hero and a femme fatale, these stock characters are always seen in noir films.
Casablanca, a Romantic Propaganda Introduction Casablanca is one the classic Hollywood movie which is one of the most critically acclaimed Hollywood movies of all time and also very famous. Casablanca is a romance story that happens during World War II but the question is does it end there? Is Casablanca just a Romance movie? In this essay, I will be discussing how the movie Casablanca which is one of the most famous and critically acclaimed films of all time is a propaganda movie and what message is sending and the effects that propaganda movies make and why it’s important for governments.
Film noir is a cinematic style that began in the early 1940s that focused on the crime and corruption that occurs in everyday life. Film noir was influenced by two major film movements, German Expressionism and French poetic realism (Schrader 8). While German Expressionism influenced lighting techniques, realism affected narrative and cinematography. The Great Depression and World War II shaped film noir’s cynical tone that fate is uncontrollable. A classic example of film noir is the 1945 film Detour, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.
This essay will discuss how the film uses these two techniques, in reference to the film, and to what ideological and political ends are the techniques used in the films with specific references from the film to support the argument. A Man with a Movie Camera is based around one man who travels around the city to capture various moments and everyday
From the cinematic techniques to the plot line, the film incorporates many elements of the style of film. Despite being set in an older period of time and adapting the elements of the spaghetti westerns, it appeals largely to the modern audience due to the certain things which capture their attention. Director Jocelyn Moorhouse
Sklar shows this by looking at the film “Male and Female” by Cecil DeMille. This film was very controversial for the time it was released. Sklar quotes Adolph Zukor’s comments on the film’s morality; “‘the noble lady falling in love with the butler—would probably not have been acceptable to prewar audiences.’” (1933). DeMille’s post war films urged moviegoers for social change.
Those that believe Casablanca is not film noir usually perceive Film Noir as a genre. Noir is not a genre; Noir transcends genres and behaves more accurately as a style of cinema. As styles go, there can be variations of them as we see now with Post-Noir and Neo Noir, noir elements in a different time period of film technology which makes these films slightly different than the style of classic film noir. Themes of cynicism, impending doom, loss, jeopardy of life accompanied by visuals dominated by shadows, strong lines, and overall darkness to the image make up film noir’s style. Noir is not absolute, the beauty of this style is its vulnerability to variation, which is why Michael Curtiz’s Classic Casablanca is film noir.
Sci-fi and film noir genres portray women as an object to be wary of as their independence and free will is a form of danger to society. The femme fatale used in the film noir genre is a sexist term that was developed with the integration of women in the workplace and their growing ambition. These women are viewed as selfish, sensual, and dangerous as they fail to conform to gender roles. Moreover, femme fatales and independent women can be perceived as body snatchers through the expansion of independent feminist ideologies that go against conventional gender roles and undermine patriarchal values that instil fear in men who wish to uphold these values. Don Siegel’s (1956) “The Invasion of The Body Snatchers” is set in a period where the idealism
The Maltese Falcon, a film categorised as Film Noir and The Searchers, a Western genre film, are both from different genres but both reinforce and challenge dominant social and cultural beliefs and values throughout each film. Each genre can be broken down into; codes, conventions and narrative conventions. Codes are aspects of the text that help the audience make meaning.
German Expressionism has influenced thousands of films and filmmakers since the art movement began in the 1920’s. It is known for its dismissal of the standard conventions of Western filmmaking for a more off-kilter style of storytelling. Some film historians consider Metropolis (1927) to be one of the most groundbreaking German Expressionist films ever made. However, there are many instances throughout Metropolis in which it deviates from the eccentric Expressionist style. There are many obvious occurrences of expressionism during Metropolis, for example the opening machine sequence, but conventional Western techniques are also common in the film.
Throughout the history, the mode of Hollywood production has long been inclined to minimizing risks and maximizing profits. The self-replicating and income-promising high concept products thus became dominant within the industry for being commercially safe. In this essay, Justin Wyatt argues that the traits of high concept is essential in the delineation of American film history through three perspectives – the transformation of the auteur, television and ideological agenda of high concept, and the alternatives to this style. One way to understand high concept as a potent force is to observe the circumstances of the auteurs in the post war era.
Two films, although created years apart yet have a lot in common, including their content of it’s narrative techniques. Both films, even though black and white with strokes of genius of cinema offer a vast stretch for study. I will be looking at Sir Orson Welles “Citizen Kane” (1941) and Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” (1950). We see in Citizen Kane he values for the American life. The three abstract themes that constantly follow through Citizen Kane are Wealth, Power and Love.