Every film noir is a vicarious ride into the underworld, an exotic, dreamlike passage through forbidden worlds.
The most consistent aspect of film noir, apart from its visual style, is its protagonists. If a usable definition of the noir protagonist is to be formulated, it must encompass its most intrinsic character motif—alienation. But who also introduces him to the parallel worlds of eroticism and violence.
Themes
سرنوشت سیاه مانندعنکبوت تار هایش رو گسترانیده و برای طعمه اش در انتظار نشسته
1. Alienation (بیگانگی)
2. Transgression (سرپيچي ، تخلف ، تجاوز ، خطا ، گناه)
(یک قدم اشتباه برداشتن مثلا" مرتکب یک گناه کوچک شدن ، یک حیله گری جزئی پرتاگنیست محکوم به فنا می کند )
3. Indecision (تردید، دو دلی)
4. Repressed sexual impulsion (انگیزه های آنی جنسی)
5. Fatalism (اعتقاد به سرنوشت )
6. A punishment suggests an air of hysteria, even moral panic.
کوچکترین سرپیچی ها و یا خطا ها می تواند پروتاگنیست را به مجازات هایی غیر قابل کنترل دچار کند مانند عذاب وجدان، حملات عصبی شدید که گاهی این ضربات عصبی ناشی به صورتی اثر خودش رو در رفتار و یا ظاهر پروتاگونیست نشان می دهد.
7. ُShadowy motivations and bleak prospects
(انگیزه های زود گذر به همراه تصوری ویران و غم انگیز نسبت به همه چیز،حال و آینده)
Film Noir Visual Style
1. Used a strong, punchy filmmaking style for maximum impact
2. long, sharply-defined shadows
3. frames bathed in inky blackness
4. tilted camera angles
5. claustrophobic compositions (القای ترس در فضاهایی محصور شده - گربه ای که در چهارچوبی گیر می کند)
6. created an overall aesthetic of nocturnal (به تصویر کشیدن ریبایی های شبانه)
7. many night-time scenes
Plots
Noir plots are easily identified because most revolve around a hardboiled detective with a questionable moral compass that must solve a crime driven by jealousy, passion, alienation or false suspicions. The detective, though a series of flashbacks and interactions with unsavory characters and plenty of femme fatales, must conquer their moral complexities
Cinematography
1. unbalanced framing of shots
2. Black-and-white
3. Wide lenses
4. Low angles
5. Extreme visual style of heightened perceptions
6. voyeuristic camera watching the femme fatale’s every move
Lighting
- Film noir uses high contrast lighting with lots of shadows.
- Sometimes props are the only source of light
- This is called low key lighting.
· Little key lighting (principle source of light)
· Mostly fill light (lights from side or back)
· Comedies, musicals use high key lighting to create uniform light with little contrast
4. Always low key
5. Dramatic juxtapositions between dark and light become the film’s key, shadowy visual component (even in Noirs that are in full color, lighting often emphasizes the play between dark and light in a scene).
Editing
Devices such as wipes/washes
1. dark, claustrophobic urban settings
2. bars, nightclubs, hotel rooms
3. Mean, nasty places where anything can happen at any moment
4. Violence and crime occur often, usually randomly
5. Sex: strip clubs, bars, sultry women abound
6. Cities are grimy, dirty places with lots of shadows.
7. Fog:
§ Fog obscures, makes unclear and unknown.
§ Fate, mystery, future.
8. Water:
§ What lies under the water?
§ Rarely can the audience see below the surface of water.
§ Sometimes choppy and tumultuous (گاهی اوقات متلاتم و پر سر و صدا)
9.
Interesting is the use of mirrors and reflections; characters are frequently reflected in mirrors, or through windows/glasses.
An important part of telling a deeper story in Noir films is the visual
Film Noir Elements
There are seven elements of film noir:
1. A crime
2. The perspective of the criminals, not the police
3. An inverted view of traditional sources of authority, such as corrupt police
4. Unstable alliances and allegiances
5. The femme fatale--the woman who causes the downfall and/or death of a good man
6. Brutal violence
7. Bizarre plot twists and motivations (پلات های عجیب و غریب و پیچ دار)
Other film Noir Elements
Darkness represents two ideas:
1. Darkness of setting
2. Darkness of humanity
Femme Fatale
Each type of film noir woman functions in a way that undermines society's image of the traditional family.
1. The femme fatale, an independent, ambitious woman who feels confined within a marriage or a close male-female relationship and attempts to break free, usually with violent results;
2. The nurturing woman, who is often depicted as dull, featureless, and, in the end, unattainable a chance at conventional marriage that is denied to the hero;
3. Marrying type, a woman who threatens the hero by insisting that he marry her and accept his conventional role as husband and father.
4. The femme fatale is a key element in noir’s crossing over to the dark side of human nature. She arose as a response to threatened male authority but the needs of the thriller to excite audiences made her so exotic and intriguing (if not necessarily attractive) that she’s still compelling today.
Femme fatale Archetype
1. The true femme fatale forms a triangle with a married couple. She’s a ‘stray electron’, threatening the stability of their nuclear family.
Femme fetal Characteristic
1. sexual forthrightness
2. She takes action to get what - and whom - she wants with a directness and aggression previously reserved for male players
3. Spiderwoman
4. More than just attracting the easily duped noir protagonist, she lures him into eliminating the ‘passive spouse’
زن افسونگر خوب بلده که چطور خودش رو جذاب نشون بده ولی مهارت اصلی او در بازی کردن نقش یک همسر و یا معشوقه فرمان بردار است.
Film Noir Character Types
- mysterious, beautiful but dangerous woman—a femme fatale
- male detective with a cynical edge—no family and no ties
- “wholesome” woman as a counterforce to the femme fatale’s allure
- smooth criminals or psychologically disturbed killers
- appearance of bartenders, cabdrivers, informers and the like
Film Noir Sound Qualities
- dialogue is slick, racy, urban slang
- characters deliver lines guardedly
- women speak breathily with sidelong glances
- men speak cynically, concealing or seeming to conceal
- music is either very dramatic—pseudo-Wagnerian
- or nightclub jazzy
