Film Noir?

[Widebrim]

Pleasured to be here, Widebrim!

You seem to be a big film-noire fan, have you ever thought about writing stories like those many film-noires were based off of?

May JESUS CHRIST THE ALMIGHTY LORD GOD and SAVIOR, Bless you, yours, and these United States Of America!

Sincerely,

Daniel Benjamin Orris

To tell you the truth, brother Daniel, some years ago I did write a short story which, now looking back, does contain some of the elements we associate with Noir. It is about a young, decorated, WWII soldier of Mexican ancestry whose return is being anticipated by the residents of his South-West town. You never actually meet the young man, but are told of him through said townsfolk. It main theme is that of racism in a country which has seen its people come together (albeit temporarily) during WWII, but which cannot so easily carry that feeling of camaraderie into post-war society. I suppose it is sort of in the vein of Crossfire, although the two plots are not related. The story is somewhere in a box, and perhaps someday I'll bring it out again.

Lee

 

[Wally_Hood]

Isn't that the very definition of a red herring?
Something that draws attention away from the central issue - www.thefreedictionary.com

Hmmm... you may have me there. I always thought a red herring was a false clue in a story, designed to lead the reader of the story and the protagonist in the story away from the real solution.

Widebrim makes the solid observation that "(h)is death doesn't really draw attention away from the central issue at that point--", which is sort of how I viewed that whole sequence: a murder of a member of the cast, the circumstances of which don't provide a false clue or lead to a false conclusion. Who knows what prompted the whole idea...

 

[Atomic Age]

It's true that the filmmakers didn't know they were making noirs at the time, as it is a genre tag that wasn't coined until 1948 (and it didn't come into wide usage until later). But that doesn't mean that just any crime story of the era is noir, given that the term was coined to describe films that shared certain characteristics, just as not all comedies of the Thirties could accurately be described as "screwball." If the term "Film Noir" applied to all crime films of the era, there would have been no need to coin the term in the first place.

Well to be sure there are some films that are just not film noir. Gangster films of the 30s for instance are decidedly NOT noir, in spite of having many of the elements. The Thin Man for example has more in common with Screwball than noir even though it is a mystery. The same could be said of the Michael Shane films.

However once you get into the ball park, for me rejecting a film because it happens to be in color is really just splitting hairs. Its tantamount to the person who won't watch a black and white movie, only because its black and white. Just because its in color doesn't mean its not film noir.

Now I happen to be in the process of finishing a 90 min film noir where I used only the techniques that would have been available to film makers in the early 1950's. And I shot it in black and white. Here is the trailer for it if anyone is interested....

[video=youtube;0xjGL-rOcoQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xjGL-rOcoQ[/video]

But as I said before, I feel that Blade Runner is about as film noir as you can get, both in its themes, and in its visual style, color not withstanding.

Doug

 

[Widebrim]

Now I happen to be in the process of finishing a 90 min film noir where I used only the techniques that would have been available to film makers in the early 1950's. And I shot it in black and white. Here is the trailer for it if anyone is interested....

[video=youtube;0xjGL-rOcoQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xjGL-rOcoQ[/video]

Doug

That is really good, Doug. I liked the way that the thin thug at the train station died. Will this eventually be made public?

 

[Atomic Age]

That is really good, Doug. I liked the way that the thin thug at the train station died. Will this eventually be made public?

Thank you.

Hopefully. I am finishing ADR with the actors, then it goes off to a composer to write music for it. After that it will probably be the film festival circuit to try and see if I can find a distributor. If that fails, I may try and go the rout of selling it myself through a website.

Doug

 

[Effingham]

Now I happen to be in the process of finishing a 90 min film noir where I used only the techniques that would have been available to film makers in the early 1950's. And I shot it in black and white. Here is the trailer for it if anyone is interested....

Oh, holy crap, I want to see this film!

When, how, where? What? Who?

 

[Atomic Age]

Oh, holy crap, I want to see this film!

When, how, where? What? Who?

Hopefully soon. As I said I'm finishing ADR with the actors. Hopefully I can find a distributor.

Doug

 

[John in Covina]

While the guys that made noir did not know they were making noir they still made a number of films that we recognize as noir.

There are certain elements that make for noir -one is that most noir was shot on a budget.

As such it should be B&W and they used lighting techniques learned from the German / European techniques (I think it's termed expressionism.)

Also there are shot compositional elements that were used such as foreground background composition either with people of objects. Often this has an ordinary object up close so it appears way bigger than the person in the shot to re-enforce the unreal situation.

There are unusual high and low angle shots that make for odd perspectives.

Look of lighting and shadows to focus on the person and situation but obscure all else.. Also shadows to produce angular images, as well as shots with very angular images and perspectives.

Noir often has a nightmarish situation with certain unreality elements like drug induced halucinations.

Often a good person succumbs to temptation -such as a man at the hands of the femme fatale.

The situation usually starts with the first BAD decision and gets worse from there.

There are other elements but with the list above and other elements we get new films that have say 9 out of 10 or 8 out of 10 elements and still be noir. Color is a tough one as it makes the dramatic lighting effects nearly impossible and color changes the the compositional concepts. This is why in Sin City and 300 while technically in color they are in many ways B&W & in the dramatic lighting effects have the B&W quality for many shots.

 

[martinsantos]

Widebrim,

A storyline is just a storyline. A silly producer can ever make a comedy over a true tragedy. The idea you put could be a great "noir"? Yes. But it will be always something made "as a noir movie". We can't scape from the cultural reference from those films. Then the result will be with references, inspired and so on.

It's like if we want to make a silent expressionist movie now. It's easy to film - and the result can be pretty good. But could us to scape from the shadows of Dr Caligari or Murneau? It's not a film answer for our time, but something inspired in a brilliant, wonderful filmography of the past. Right in its own way - but not the real thing. German expressionism is over, long time ago.

"Chinatown" is too good to be called simple "tribute". I would call it "inspired". And I really would love if Polanski could film it in black and white.

I don't remember L.A. Confidential... I'll try to see. Blade Runner I saw. It's the same about Chinatown, ever if I really don't like the director's work; his hand is too heavy to me.

I tend to agree with you on both counts, especially the first. Film Noir is a reflection of the times in which it was first produced, times of uncertainty and social change greatly brought on by WWII.

None-the-less...how about a movie set in the past that not only has the technical aspects down, but includes in its storyline some of those elements for which Noir is known? For example, a WWII veteran who can't adjust to a middle-class existence with his wife and children, and takes up with the wife of his workmate, only to find that she wants him to bump off her husband or she'll spill the beans? Or a late-40s P.I. who finds himself embroiled in a case involving a sexy femme fatale who causes him to go against his principles? Would you consider Chinatown as Noir, or is it more of (as you term it) a tribute? And how about L.A. Confidential?

Atomic Age, I think that we aren't talking about "rules"... There are a few points in common that makes the genre possible to identify a movie. The script materials. The work of photogrphers. And so on.

I really believe that colors almost always can destroy a good drama. Colors are almost impossible to control as good as black and white. Colors can't really make a climate, they don't have "soul". So, in crime dramas like the noirs, colors just are out of tune.

I think all these "rules of noir" are a bunch of nonsense. The fact of the mater is , the guys who were making what became known as film noir, had no idea they were making noir. They just thought they were making a crime drama. There were no rules that say the film must include this and can't have that! To say that noir shouldn't be in color would be to exclude an excellent film like Slightly Scarlet. Its a wonderful Technicolor, SuperScope film staring John Payne and Rhonda Fleming. Photographed by the amazing John Alton! It is a quintessential film noir, and should be on the short list of everyone's noir collection. You would also have to leave out "Leave Her To Heaven", another Technicolor noir.

Other films that would have to be left out because they don't include the elements that purists feel must be in noir would be the likes of, "The Big Sleep" and "Murder, My Sweet". Neither of which included a "doomed" hero, yet most people include these films in the "noir cannon".

Many people say that Chinatown or L. A. Confidential are "neo-noir". But to my mind its all just noir. And frankly I'd throw Blade Runner into the noir heap too.

Doug

By the way, I'm really anxious to see your film! Looks very interesting!!

 

[John in Covina]

You can do a lot of old stuff now because so many people today have no history in film, they have never seen the the films that were the inspiration.

Devil In A Blue Dress - Noir or no?

 

[martinsantos]

John, I belive that a lot of folks didn't really see the whole production. But saw enough to know the most sparkling features, specially the technical ones... Not much time ago I saw an horrible "tutorial" about "how to make noir photography". Something to make the old masters come back from the graves to take the "teacher".

Anyway, noir films are the most know filmography from 40s.

 

[John in Covina]

During the 1940's they made a ton of pictures of all sorts but we celebrate film noir because it is so effective in using the "language" of film to tell stories that grab your imagination.

I'd like to put together a poll that asked questions as to people's ideas and understanding of film noir.

How closely is the enjoyment of film noir to the enjoyment of say the B&W tv series "The Twighlight Zone" as a comparison. To me the elements are similar, I'd think that people that like noir would like TTZ too.

 

[martinsantos]

It would be an interesting and enormous thread!!

There is a lot of academic works about film noir and exactly it would be. One of the most intersting I've read selected around 150 films, putting a lot of others as "grey" films category, not noir. But this is just one author's idea.

 

[Atomic Age]

Devil in a Blue Dress, definitely noir!

Again I disagree about color. Again I'm going to use the example of Slightly Scarlet. I would suggest watching the film again and look at how Alton uses the color just as he is using shadow and light. He is very selective about his color. There are some scenes that have a typical technicolor palette with fairly saturated colors, other scenes almost go monochromatic. This is a master of cinematography simply utilizing one more tool in his kit to help tell the story.

Another prime example is Body Heat. This is a classic noir film, borrowing elements of Double Indemnity. Director of Photography Richard Kline uses color to to give you the feeling of the heat wave that has descended on the small Florida town. Heat, a classic film noir element. In reality it was one of the coldest winters on record in Florida and everyone was freezing. You wouldn't know it watching the film. Kline has used color to give the film a stifling film noir atmosphere.

I think that some have very preconceived notions about what a film noir should be, and are unable, or unwilling to look at something that may have unfamiliar elements. After all, is "On Dangerous Ground" not a film noir, simply because it doesn't take place in an urban environment?

Doug

 

[Atomic Age]

I think you could say that there are some episodes of Twilight Zone that would qualify as noir. Some examples might be. "Perchance to Dream", "Judgement Night", "The Four of Us Are Dying", "I Shot an Arrow into the Air", "The Big Tall Wish", "A Passage for Trumpet". And that is just from the first season.

Doug

 

[martinsantos]

Doug,


I certainly will take a look in these films you are recommending - noir or not noir, good they must be!

I saw Body Heat. Really it has "inspiration" on classic noir and specially "Double Indemnity", as you pointed. But as good as this inspired photography can be (and really it is good!) there's something that is missed: monochrome photography.

I think that in noir films the photogrphy take a very important place in telling the story; almost a co-roteirist. Color is too tricky to do this. You can't manage much contrasts. And you have to manage contrasts between colors and between tones. You can't subexpose or overexpose intentionally, because colors can change. B&W can do all this - and much more.

(Maybe I'm a little dogmatic about B&W, Doug. If fact, I usually don't like colors in movies - exception with some Metro musicals.)

Devil in a Blue Dress, definitely noir!

Again I disagree about color. Again I'm going to use the example of Slightly Scarlet. I would suggest watching the film again and look at how Alton uses the color just as he is using shadow and light. He is very selective about his color. There are some scenes that have a typical technicolor palette with fairly saturated colors, other scenes almost go monochromatic. This is a master of cinematography simply utilizing one more tool in his kit to help tell the story.

Another prime example is Body Heat. This is a classic noir film, borrowing elements of Double Indemnity. Director of Photography Richard Kline uses color to to give you the feeling of the heat wave that has descended on the small Florida town. Heat, a classic film noir element. In reality it was one of the coldest winters on record in Florida and everyone was freezing. You wouldn't know it watching the film. Kline has used color to give the film a stifling film noir atmosphere.

I think that some have very preconceived notions about what a film noir should be, and are unable, or unwilling to look at something that may have unfamiliar elements. After all, is "On Dangerous Ground" not a film noir, simply because it doesn't take place in an urban environment?

Doug

 

[Effingham]

Hopefully soon. As I said I'm finishing ADR with the actors. Hopefully I can find a distributor.

Doug, I'll be following this with bated breath. If I were still a newspaper editor, I'd be giving you some ink to get the publicity going.

 

[Wally_Hood]

What a great thread- opinions may vary, but we know what we like, and we're not afraid to let our thoughts be known.

For a series of excellent podcasts relating to film noirs and their literary counterparts, I recommend checking out this website:

http://outofthepast.libsyn.com/2005/07

(I hope the link works; if not, copy and paste into your browser)

The two hosts discuss various film noirs in an authoritative and enthusiastic way. One teaches at the university level and the other is a professional writer.

Much of my thinking was shaped by gleaning from their insights.

 

[Wally_Hood]

While the guys that made noir did not know they were making noir they still made a number of films that we recognize as noir.

There are certain elements that make for noir -one is that most noir was shot on a budget.

As such it should be B&W and they used lighting techniques learned from the German / European techniques (I think it's termed expressionism.)

Also there are shot compositional elements that were used such as foreground background composition either with people of objects. Often this has an ordinary object up close so it appears way bigger than the person in the shot to re-enforce the unreal situation.

There are unusual high and low angle shots that make for odd perspectives.

Look of lighting and shadows to focus on the person and situation but obscure all else.. Also shadows to produce angular images, as well as shots with very angular images and perspectives.

Noir often has a nightmarish situation with certain unreality elements like drug induced halucinations.

Often a good person succumbs to temptation -such as a man at the hands of the femme fatale.

The situation usually starts with the first BAD decision and gets worse from there.

There are other elements but with the list above and other elements we get new films that have say 9 out of 10 or 8 out of 10 elements and still be noir. Color is a tough one as it makes the dramatic lighting effects nearly impossible and color changes the the compositional concepts. This is why in Sin City and 300 while technically in color they are in many ways B&W & in the dramatic lighting effects have the B&W quality for many shots.

Well put, John in Covina. May I interpose my take? Most of what we would call noir, while relegated by studio heads to second tier production values, or perhaps by fiscal necessity produced on the cheap, were the product of the studio system. Hollywood invested time and money in the films that would pull in the most ticket takers. Noir wasn't mom and pop and sis and brother fare, so money, time, and front rank talent might not have been made available ( I know I'm setting myself up for a response from someone with greater knowledge of classic Hollywood).

However, could we accurately state that Out of the Past, one of the best of the noirs, was a cheap production?

 

[Atomic Age]

Well put, John in Covina. May I interpose my take? Most of what we would call noir, while relegated by studio heads to second tier production values, or perhaps by fiscal necessity produced on the cheap, were the product of the studio system. Hollywood invested time and money in the films that would pull in the most ticket takers. Noir wasn't mom and pop and sis and brother fare, so money, time, and front rank talent might not have been made available ( I know I'm setting myself up for a response from someone with greater knowledge of classic Hollywood).

However, could we accurately state that Out of the Past, one of the best of the noirs, was a cheap production?

Out of the Past was not a cheap production by any stretch of the imagination. Location shooting near Lake Tahoe, The Sierra Mountains, in addition to shooting all over Los Angeles. They even sent a small unit to Reno. I've heard the estimated budget at about $1.5 million. (at that time the most expensive movie ever made was Gone With The Wind at $3 million) Add to that Robert Mitchum was their biggest star at the time. While not the most expensive movie RKO ever made, defiantly an "A" picture.

While it could be said that many Noirs were B pictures, there were a fair number of A noirs made at the studios. IE "The Asphalt Jungle" "The Big Sleep"(if you want to classify it as a noir which I do) "Murder, My Sweet", "Key Largo", "His Kind of Woman". Jack Warner even wanted Andre De Toth to make Crime Wave as an "A" film starring Bogart, but De Toth declined making it on the cheep in 17 days with Sterling Hayden instead.

Doug