Film noir

Pivotal to a film’s success is in its ability to engage the wider audience into differing perceptions of truly unique experiences. A film has the ability to subject the responder to unconventional mentalities, in the hope of a catalyst in the change of their narrow perceptions on undisclosed experiences. Ron Howard’s 2001 Roman A Clef film A Beautiful Mind, resonates with the viewer as it is a rare opportunity to experience firsthand the psychosis, debilitation and eventual redemption associated…

Director Billy Wilder’s, Double Indemnity (1944) has all of the characteristics of a classic film noir, using every low-key lighting trick in this richly textured black and white that masterfully portrays a neglected wife in a plot with passion, adultery and murder. With powerful performances by both actors, Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff, the tall, handsome insurance salesman who is enamored by Barbara Stanwyck, whose portrayal is one of the greatest femme fatales of all time, cold and…

novel became increasingly popular, but when hard-boiled novels were later adapted as films, the films were regarded as works of Noir. The term Noir was adapted by French critics because the films featured techniques such as black and white coloring and peculiar camera angles. The Noir genre depicts a dark and hostile nature, and it has several genre conventions such as the anti-hero and the femme fatale. Since the Noir genre depicts a dark and hostile atmosphere, the prosperity experienced…

The film tells the tale of an average joe named Llewelyn Moss who discovers a large sum of money that was left behind at the site of a drug deal gone wrong. This film is approached in a cat-and-mouse pursuit style as Llewelyn is pursued by a serial killer named Anton Chigurh who is hired to recover the stolen…

Chandler is writing” (Sparknotes, Themes, Motifs, and Symbols). The movie The Big Sleep is a great tale and produced in classic film noir style that is full of twist and trickery as crime stories go, and the lead character shares a kinship to the anti-hero detective Sam Spade featured in The Maltese Falcon (1941) five years earlier, not just because it was played by the…

sequence which happens in the climactic point of the film. We wanted to build up a lot of tension in this scene before the chase scene so would need to include a variety of slow moving camera shots and close ups. The emptiness of the house followed by reaction shots clearly show how tension is being raised; the audience not knowing quite is about to happen in the coming moments. The lighting in these scenes are a perfect example of classic Film Noir films, incorporating shadows and darkness…

The 1947 movie Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, is a classic noir film, tells the story of gas station worker Jeff Baily: his mysterious past is revealed by the visit of his old employee Whit Steirling, turns out he used to be a private detective, helps Whit to track down his mistress Kathie Moffat, who shot Whit and disappeared with 40,000 dollars. Jeff, of course, quickly fell in love with Kathie, believed she was innocent about the money.…

Based on the 1940 novel written by Raymond Chandler, Murder, My Sweet is a classic film noir, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Dick Powell (Philip Marlowe), Claire Trevor (Helen) and Anne Shirley (Ann Grayle). It was first screened on December 18, 1944 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Known for its remarkable faithfulness to the book source, Murder, My Sweet deals with blackmail, murderers, drugs and more, reflecting the corruption in society around that time. Murder, My Sweet sets a solid…

But unlike modern films that have tried to capitalize on film noir. Drive does so quietly – it uses noir tropes, it isn’t about them. It proves that those well-known types don’t have to be stale, that some of the things that made classic Hollywood crime films so great are as valid now as they were then. This movie uses visuals to tell the story. Drive succeeds in this all-important visual…

in what is shown in pop culture can also impact society. The film industry is one of the most influential parts of pop culture through its wide reaching audience and celebrity fan base. Therefore it makes sense that, in terms of society and pop culture, one of the ways that gender is challenged most is in cinema. What makes a man? What makes a woman? The answer is generally whatever society says a man or woman are. But since the film industry has the ability to shift what it’s audience,…