1950s Film Noir

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Matt Taylor Professor Biesen April 25, 2024 Film Noir Final Essay The 1940s and 1950s saw the rise in popularity of the "Classic film noir cycle," which was distinguished by its own aesthetic of gloomy, sarcastic tones, morally gray protagonists, and urban locales. Important elements include strong contrast lighting, deep shadows, non-linear narrative, and iconic characters like femme fatales and hard-boiled detectives. Themes of crime, corruption, and nihilism are often presented within these films. Because of its topics, narrative techniques, and visual aesthetic, cinema noir is recognized as a style rather than a genre because it can be portrayed by many different genres, such as mysteries, thrillers, and crime dramas. Film noir proliferated …show more content…
As opposed to nitrate film, which has a characteristic appearance, acetate film stock is more stable and long-lasting, enabling better image quality and longer-lasting prints. However, this sometimes results in a somewhat different visual texture. Location shooting in film noir adds authenticity, realism, and atmospheric depth by utilizing real-life settings such as urban environments and natural lighting conditions. This enhanced the moodiness and intensity of noir films, contributing to their distinctive visual style. Television techniques, like fast-paced editing and dynamic camera movements, influenced the modernization of noir style, especially in neo-noir and contemporary films. The influence of television noir series also impacted the narrative structure and character development in some noir films, leading to more dynamic and serialized storytelling. Overall, both location shooting and television techniques have played significant roles in shaping and evolving the noir style in cinema. Despite being both cinematic noir, "Dark City" and "Moulin Rouge!" convey very different

Film Noir

Film Noir Film Noir best described and known as Black Films, a well known style of Hollywood crime and drama, and its epoch associate with an unobtrusive black-white visual technique. The “standard phase” of American film noir was generally regarded in the 1940s and 1950s. All film noirs have the element of crime usually murder. Motivations for the crimes are generally greed or jealousy, for example in Double Indemnity (1938) show the greed in how Phyllis Dietrichson, played by Barbara Stanwyck…

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Essay on Tarantino: Film noir and Pulp Fiction

as such, the film Pulp Fiction does not clearly state an argument or reveals a moral truth, it is in fact a complete opposite of both. The “point” of Pulp Fiction is that it has no point, the film simply states the fractured state of the individual and the chaos of human life. Most films central in on a problem and/or a battle between good and evil, Pulp Fiction does not centralize on a specific problem and simply states the different circumstances that lead to each scene in the film. The genre…

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Gender Roles In The Film 'The Big Heat'

very dark and dramatic. The feel of this film was very mysterious it has the spooky feel with all of the shadows being casted on the characters. One scene that sticks out to me was after Debby gets burned from coffee being spilt on her and she is sitting in her hotel room. The only light coming through the room is the light from the blinds and it is casting a light on the side of Debby’s face. This felt very spooky. When thinking about this part of the film to me it foreshadowed the fact that Debby…

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Film Noir and more Film Noir Essay

Duong Nguyen Film and Fiction Study Essay 1 After making several researches about noir film, I know that noir film is a cinematic term from French translated literally as black film. It is called black because it refers to films about the crimes in the underground world of Hollywood, especially emphasizing actions that ambiguity between the ethical standards such as good and bad, criminal or justice; and sexual motivation (1). For example, in The Maltese Falcon, at first I thought Sam Spade was a…

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ChinaTown Essay

produced Chinatown (1974). In his movie, he focused on the topic of depression in classic film noir. The undetermined, consistent message of despair in Chinatown illustrates the frightened and disoriented American society during the 1970’s. Chinatown’s cinematographic components resemble the typical film noir’s lighting and effects to connect it to the film’s theme of despair. In film noir from the 1940’s and 1950’s, pictures were hues of black and white. One of the tactics Polanski used to generate…

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Manchurian Candidate Themes

Harvey. Frankenheimer’s film is a black and white, neo noir film, meaning it was filmed in monochrome and also employs elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, etc. that were absent in the 1940’s-1950’s, when film noir was popular. The Manchurian Candidate takes place during the last year of the Korean War and the years following it. Near the end of the war, a platoon of United States soldiers is captured and brainwashed but eventually returned home. The film centers around a young…

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American Noir Film Analysis

The American noir film that I reviewed this week was the 1950’s, Sunset Boulevard. Directed by writer, producer, Billy Wilder. This film starts of in a reverse order with a caravan of police racing down a road to an estate, reveling a master shot of a crime scene against a mansion with one of the main characters Joe Gillis played by actor William holder dead in a backyard pool floating face down as the camera cants up to revels a the underwater view of Joes open eyed stare, floating with a backdrop…

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Comparing 1967 Film Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

War II’s influences on the film industry cannot be denied. After the war Europe was in shambles, soldiers were coming back home to a different way of life, the film studios were in trouble with the Supreme Court and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began to wreak havoc in Hollywood. From these difficult circumstances, new genres in film began to emerge. Inspired by Neorealism, an Italian film movement that stemmed from Italy’s defeat, these new films often depicted real-life situations…

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Comparing Conceptualism And Surrealism In Cindy Sherman's Anti-Art

with her series titled Untitled Film Stills, which consists of sixty-nine self portraits taken over three years time. In these black-and-white photographs, Sherman portrays herself in different stereotypical roles found in film noir, in addition to 1950’s and 1960’s Hollywood. Her work often implies themes of violence and sexuality, while making an obvious connection to these motifs and the lack of variety in roles written for female actors. In her work Untitled Film Still #21 (1977), the artist is…

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MH7 Midterm Terms Essay

don’t hear, but the audience can; Music in film is not always clearly one or the other Onscreen sound- sound you see confirmed by motion onscreen Offscreen sound- what you hear isn’t onscreen (seeing a family sitting inside and hearing rain) ADR- (Automated or Additional Dialogue Replacement) Human sounds recorded after filming Dubbing/looping- replacing or dubbing in sound/voice; culturally different ideas of if this is “fair" Image track- In modern film, image track is not complete on its own Sound…

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