Film Noir was extremely trendy during the 1940’s. People were captivated by the way it expresses a mood of disillusionment and indistinctness between good and evil. Film Noir have key elements; crime, mystery, an anti-hero, femme fatale, and chiaroscuro lighting and camera angles. The Maltese Falcon is an example of film noir because of the usage of camera angles, lighting and ominous settings, as well as sinister characters as Samuel Spade, the anti-hero on a quest for meaning, who encounters the death of his partner but does not show any signs of remorse but instead for his greed for riches.
All throughout The Maltese Falcon the camera angles change with the character. Camera angles and lighting affected the mood of the scene; scenes in which contained more mystery had additional shade and distortion of the lenses and hard lighting to create ominous shadows, among the characters. By creating depth in the scene and tilting the camera angle so that images were portrait, gave the impression of more events were taking place then actually were. Lighting was abnormal with neon lighting in the background and dull lamp light in the foreground, which in turn created it unable to get a clear picture of the situation. As well as background and foreground lighting, there was lighting that would only highlight specific objects, such as the Maltese Falcon, when it was being unwrapped. In some scenes camera angle would be slightly higher than the characters or shown through the characters eyes, the lighting would be underneath the character, not allowing the audience to see their full facial expressions. Lighting and camera angles played a huge role in creating the mystery in Film Noir.
The Maltese Falcon’s settings are dim, claustrophobic, ...
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...iminals who do what they are told, they have quick tempers and have no difficulty drawing their guns in order to kill someone. They are antagonists because they will do anything in order to get the Maltese Falcon for Spade and O’Shaughnessy.
The Maltese Falcon is Film Noir because of the usage of lighting and camera angles, as well as the gray settings. O’Shaughnessy and Spade showed many characteristics of Film Noir, by the way they acted. Spade was an anti-hero on a quest for meaning and O’Shaughnessy is femme fatale because of her sedative actions. The Maltese Falcon brought mystery to the 1940’s.
Works Cited
Anti-Hero Definition. dictionary.com. .
The Humanistic Tradition, Book 6 Modernism, Globalism and the Information Age. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.
The Maltese Falcon. DVD. Warner Bros., 1941.
Film Noir, as Paul Schrader integrates in his essay ‘Notes on Film Noir,’ reflects a marked phase in the history of films denoting a peculiar style observed during that period. More specifically, Film Noir is defined by intricate qualities like tone and mood, rather than generic compositions, settings and presentation. Just as ‘genre’ categorizes films on the basis of common occurrences of iconographic elements in a certain way, ‘style’ acts as the paradox that exemplifies the generality and singularity at the same time, in Film Noir, through the notion of morality. In other words, Film Noir is a genre that exquisitely entwines theme and style, and henceforth sheds light on individual difference in perception of a common phenomenon. Pertaining
mise-en-scene in any film, everything we see has a meaning. But the thing about lighting is we see it,
destructive, exotic and a self-determined independent who is cold hearted, immortal and less of a human. The females portrayed in the noir were primarily of two types - either projected as ethical, loyal loving woman or as ‘femme fatales’ who were duplicitous, deceptive, manipulative and desperate yet gorgeous women. In
In the classical Western and Noir films, narrative is driven by the action of a male protagonist towards a clearly defined, relatable goal. Any lack of motivation or action on the part of the protagonist problematizes the classical association between masculinity and action. Due to inherent genre expectations, this crisis of action is equivalent to a crisis of masculinity. Because these genres are structured around male action, the crises of action and masculinity impose a crisis of genre. In the absence of traditional narrative elements and character tropes, these films can only identify as members of their genres through saturation with otherwise empty genre symbols. The equivalency between the crises of genre and masculinity frames this symbol saturation as a sort of compensatory masculine posturing.
‘L.A Confidential is in the film noir genre. Other films in this genre are ‘The Big Sleep’, ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Double Indemnity’. Lighting is very important in film noir. It uses techniques such as chiaroscuro to give the film a darker, more obscured feel. The characters are often similar in film noir. The main protagonist is always some hard boiled cop or investigator who doesn’t always play by the book to get his desired results. There is often a femme fatale; a very pretty woman with whom the main protagonist has a love interest. There will always be bad guys who will try and stop the main protagonist from completing the case.
Film Noir is a fairly self-explanatory name. French for “Dark” or “Black Film”, this style (not genre) of film is pretty much summed up in those two words. These films started being made in a 1940’s, Post WWII paranoia, with the threat of nuclear missiles looming over the heads of all United States citizens, Hollywood included. This paranoia led to disillusioned attitudes and existential feelings, which in turn were reflected in Film Noirs through things such as characters, with the two most prominent types being hardened male protagonists and femme fatales. Also, the “Darkness” of Film Noirs was not just a metaphor for the content of the film, but also a fairly literal description of the visual style was like. Taking influence from German Expressionism, among other things, the visuals of film noirs were often of gritty city streets, dark alleys, or smoky, cramped-looking rooms. To add to the dark appearance, the lighting included heavy use of chiaroscuro, a style that is characterized by a dark environment with single-source, high contrast lighting on the subject. While many film noirs fall into the crime genre, as well as detective, there are some exceptions, such as the drama/black comedy Sunset Boulevard. Despite it’s setting and characters being a bit unconventional for the Film Noir style (the film was a fairly realistic account of what goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood), Sunset Boulevard is definitely a Film Noir, due to it’s use of an archetypal Film Noir hero, a femme fatale, and conventional film noir cinematography and storytelling.
Janey Place and Lowell Peterson article “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir” establishes noir as a visual style and not a ...
" Modernist Journals Project. Web. The Web. The Web.
Film noir (literally 'black film,' from French critics who noticed how dark and black the looks and themes were of these films) is a style of American films which evolved in the 1940s. " The Internet Movie Database LTD. Film noir typically contains melancholy, and not so moral themes. Another characteristic of film noir is just because the main character has the title hero, that does not mean that he will always be alive at the end of the book, or that the hero is always "good." Marlowe in The Big Sleep is a prime example of this concept.
The genre film noir has some classical elements that make these films easily identifiable. These elements are displayed in the prototypical film noir, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. These elements include being filmed in black and white, a morally ambiguous protagonist, and a prominent darkness. However, the most striking part of a film noir is the femme fatale, a woman who craves independence through sexual and economic liberation. In his film, Chinatown, Roman Polanski uses many of the classic elements of a film noir, however he twists many of them to reflect the time period. This is particularly evident in his depiction of his “femme fatale,” Evelyn Mulwray.
The Godfather is most notably one of the most prolific films of its time. This "gangster" film displayed many transformations of permeating color to give the viewer observable cues in its mise en scene that drew one right into the movie. The dramatic acting set the tone of the film with a score that lifted the viewer right out of their seat in many scenes. The directing and cinematography made The Godfather ahead of its time. The nostalgic feel of family importance and the danger of revenge lets us into the life of the Mafia. Even though no other techniques would have given the viewer a feeling of inside the mob like the mise en scene of the power the godfather held, the characters are reinforced literally and figuratively because the story views the Mafia from the inside out, and the cinematography of the film gives it a dangerous and nostalgic feel.
Just about everyone can voice their opinions on a film that viewed as we all do after leaving the theatre. It may be found to be useful when a friend or individual is interested in seeing the film themselves. However, I believe the only way that you could understand a film is by analyzing the film beyond the average person. When one begins to analyze they begin to develop an understanding of the film and may grow to love the film. The director Hitchcock is a fairly well known director. He has directed many different films from Vertigo to Psycho that are found to be popular with the viewers. In this paper I am going to analyze certain elements that spoke out to me during the film. Those elements that spoke to me the most during the film was the lighting techniques, camera movement, and symbols.
Film noir is not a genre of film but rather defined through its subtle qualities of tone and mood. Noir was also a specific period in Film history, mostly sprouting in the 40’s. Numerous amount of films helped contribute to the popularity of film noir, but there were some that innovated the way we portrayed it. Maltese Falcon was one of the pioneers of film noir that influenced many more noir type of films such as The Devil in a Blue Dress. With plots being different but yet a similar feel towards the movie. Similar character roles are very common in noir, like in the Maltese Falcon and The Devil in a Blue Dress. Both films use very alike characters that help give it a better noir feeling. In the Maltese Falcon, Sam spade is the main character but unlike regular plots. Sam is an anti-hero that works
A classic example of an Italian Neorealism film is Bicycle Thieves (1948). Setting the tone for the rest of the film
Creative works are organised into a specific genre. Genre can be concisely defined as a set of conventions and expectations which audiences will grow accustomed to over time. Conventions within a genre will limit and shape the meaning perceived by audiences. Through time, as contexts alter, so do values; though conventions remain the same. Some composers make their texts more appealing once they challenge the original conventions of a genre and thus attract a wider audience. By doing this, composers are able to present their audiences with new themes and values relative to their social contexts. Crime fiction has often adapted these processes and has become a genre of its own with intriguing plots fuelling the audience’s inquisitive nature. English director, Alfred Hitchcock (also known as ‘The Master of Suspense’) was an expert in creating the desired amount of suspense within a crime film. He was able to transfer the values of his context on to the silver screen and subvert traditional conventions. Hitchcock’s film ‘Rear Window’ (1954) displays a perfect example of how the conventions of crime fiction can be appropriated to still involve the traditional features of crime. Through his use of exquisite cinematic techniques and immense detail, responders are given the thrill they expect of the genre.