Filmic Narrative

Film Noir

The Origin of Noir

  • The Genre originated in the early 1940ies.
  • Frequently it is regarded as reflection of the general climate of fear, gloom and hopelessness of that time of war and post-war.
  • Continuation of the gangster and horror movies of the 1930ies.
  • Strong influence of the German Expressionism.

Thematic Characteristics

The narrative themes in the Noir genre much darker than in the mainstream movies at that time.

In film Noirs, we find a dark and oppressive atmosphere. The movies are invariably pessimist, or even fatalist. Human life is limited. The individual cannot escape his fate/

Plots always happen in Urban settings. The city is an integral part of the narration. In some cases, like in The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950), it can be considered one more character of the story. There are some exceptions to this rule, though, In The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946) the whole action mostly takes place on a modest road restaurant.

Exteriors are often in night scenes with deep contrast between light and shadow (chiaroscuro). Frequently, it is rainy. Flashing Neon lightsalso appear in many movies, contributing to the effect of cheap urban environment.

The interiors, where most of the action takes place, are small and oppressive: ill lighted small apartments, poor hotel rooms, bordellos.

Moral ambiguity: As opposed to what we learned about the horror movies, there is no absolute good or evil in Noirs (we called this distinction moral Manicheism).  What is supposed to be good, is frequently corrupted, for example the police, and what is supposed to be evil, is not that evil. Criminals are frequently portrayed as victims of the corruption and the hypocrisy of society.

The hero of film noirs is also different. He is rather an anti-hero, because his negative character traits are predominant. Anti-heroes are cynical, ironical – or even sardonic. They are always disillusioned and lonely, frequently born losers. They do not have a cause to fight for. It is mostly their own interest what they pursue. Yet, they cannot success.

Female main characters frequently play dubious roles. “La femme fatale” is one of the recurrent narrative archetypes of the Noir.  A “femme fatale” is a beautiful, glamorous, sophisticated, but unscrupulous, amoral, and extremely ambitious woman, who frequently is the cause of the perdition of the male anti-hero.

To sum up, film noirs invariably show the dark and brutal side of human nature and all our weaknesses: Fear, egotism, ambition, corruption, hatred, …

Narrative Stylistic Elements

The name of the genre, Noir, directly refers to the visual atmosphere characteristic of those movies.

The expressionistic photography, we have been calling it chiaroscuro, emphasizes the contrast between light and shadows. With this photographic technique, the filmmakers are able to visually support the dark undertones of the Noir stories.

Filmmakers use deep focus (extreme visual length of the field), abundant high and low shots and unbalanced compositions. Since the action is very limited, the filmmakers give an extraordinary dynamism to his stories with these bold visual techniques. To increase the fast rhythm of the narration, the directors use sharp dialogues and a very vibrant editing.

A relevant visual factor is the smoke. Anti-heroes, practically with no exception, are chain smokers – and the smoke of the cigarettes also contributes to create the esthetic of the genre.

Another recurrent narrative technique of the Cinema Noir is the “voice-over”. A narrator, the very same anti-hero or someone else, tells the story in off. In Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), paradoxically, the narrator of the story is already dead.

Film Noirs use frequent flashbacks to explain the story of the characters. Flashbacks are alteration of the chronological order of the story. In most of the Noirs, the narration jumps back to a point in the story, before the main narrative starts. 

The Third Man

Literary Authors

  • Dashiell Hammett
    • The Maltese Falcon (1941) / The Glass Key (1942)
  • Raymond Chandler
    • The Big Sleep (1946), Farewell, My Lovely (1944), The Long Goodbye (1978)
  • James M. Cain
    • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) / Double Indemnity (1944)
  • Cornell Woolrich
    • Phantom Lady (1946) / Black Angel (1946)
  • Mickey Spillane (Mick Hammer)
    • Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Film-Makers

  • Orson Welles
    • The Lady From Shangai (1948) / The Third Man (1949) / Touch Of Evil (1958)
  • John Huston
    • The Maltese Falcon (1941) The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Key Largo (1948)
  • Billy Wilder
    • Double Indemnity (1944) / Sunset Boulevard (1950)
  • Robert Siodmak
    • The Killers (1946) / Phantom lady (1946) / Cry of the City (1948)
  • Fritz Lang
    • Scarlet Street (1945) / The Woman in the Window (1944)
  • Otto Preminger
    • Laura (1944) / Angel Face (1953)
  • Howard Hawks
    • To Have And Not To Have (1944) / The Big Sleep (1946)
  • Jacques Tourneur 
    • Out Of Past (1947)
  • Raul Walsh
    • High Sierra (1941) 

Actors

  • James Cagney (the first gangster)
    • Public Enemy (1941) / Angels With Dirty Faces (1937) / The Roaring Twenties (1939)
  • Edward G. Robinson (also popular as unscrupulous gangster, but a superb actor in many different genres and roles)
    • Little Cesar (1930) / Key Largo (1946) / The Woman On The Window (1944)
  • John Garfield
    • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) / Force Of Evil (1948)
  • Robert Mitchum
    • Out of Past (1947) Angel Face (1953) / The Big Sleep (1978)
  • Humphrey Bogart
    • The Maltese Falcon (1941) / The Big Sleep (1946) / High Sierra (1941) / Key Largo (1948) / In a Lonely Place (1950) / Desperate Hours (1955) / Casablanca (1942)

Femmes Fatale

  • Veronica Lake
    • The Blue Dahlia (1946)
  • Barbara Stanwyck
    • Double Indemnity (1944)
  • Joan Bennett
    • The Woman On The Window (1944) / Scarlet Street (1945)
  • Lana Turner
    • The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
  • Ava Gadner
    • The Killers (1946)
  • Jane Greer
    • Out of Past (1947) 

Films

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

  • Director: Jon Huston
  • Cinematographer: Arthur Edeson
  • Music: Adolph Deutsch
  • Screenplay: Dashiell Hammett (based on his own novel)
  • Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Kaspar Gutman

Double Indemnity (1944)

  • Director: Billy Wilder
  • Cinematographer: John F. Seitz
  • Music: Miklos Rozsa
  • Screenplay: Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler (based on a novel by James M. Cain)
  • Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson

The Killers (1946)

  • Director: Robert Siodmak
  • Cinematography: Woody Bredell
  • Screenplay: Anthony Veiller and John Huston (based very freely on a short story by Ernest Hemingway – actually just the first 13 minutes of the movie are based on Hemingway’s 10 pages story).
  • Music: Miklos Rozsa
  • Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gadner, and Edmond O’Brian.

The Lady From Shanghai (1948)

  • Director: Orson Welles, 
  • Cinematography: Charles Lawton Jr., Rudolph Maté, and Joseph Walker
  • Screenplay: Orson Welles (based on a novel by Sherwood King “If I Die Before I Wake”).
  • Music: Doris Fisher, Heinz Roemheld
  • Starring: Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth

The Third Man (1949)

  • Director: Carol Reed
  • Cinematography: Robert Krasker
  • Screenplay: Graham Greene, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Orson Welles (Based on his own short novel)
  • Music: Anton Karas (unforgettable Zither music)
  • Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

  • Director: Robert Aldrich
  • Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo
  • Screenplay: Mickey Spillane
  • Starring: Ralph Meeker (as unforgettable Mick Hammer)
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