Film Noir In The Maltese Falcon

Film noir is a cinematic style that deals with the dark world of crime and intrigue. It conveys a mood of disillusion and resignation proceeding from moral ambiguities between good and evil. This direction of film is clearly represented in the classic movie “The Maltese Falcon,” by John Huston. In this film it is also clear to the audience that the main character, Sam Spade, portrays an anti hero, which is a character in a story, usually the main character who does not demonstrate heroic qualities, such as courage and morality. In order for a film to be considered film noir it must contain certain elements. Important elements for film noir is that first and foremost the film must be in black and white. The reason for this is because lighting …show more content…
The first sign that it demonstrates film noir is that it is a black and white film. Another key factor is all the shadows and different lightings throughout the movie. At certain moments in throughout the movie the lighting would become very bland, which indicated that there was no concerning actions going on towards Sam Spade. Other times, however, the movie switches to a very simply lit close-up which causes the audience to feel uncertain and worrisome about what might happen in the next scene. Throughout The Maltese Falcon there are many different camera angles.For example many times during this film the camera was angled at a very low position aiming up at a character, typically Gutman, making the characters seem larger than they actually are. By using this manipulation it makes the character stand out and gives the audience the sense that they are more powerful and important than the other characters. Femme Fatale is also present in this film through the character Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Although, she is a very beautiful woman she is also very manipulative and dangerous. Brigid is a compulsive liar and tries to use her feminine wiles to charm men into believing what she says and doing whatever she wants. The plot also makes this film noir due to the fact it is based off of the crime of the missing falcon, this