Characteristics of Film Noir

Visual Style

In film noir always using low-key lighting and associated with the dramatic shadow patterning. This type of style known as chiaroscuro (contracts between dark and light that affecting the whole composition).The shadows that reflect on the wall, the characters or the entire set already become a cliché in film noir as well as neo noir films. These shadows that reflect are to show the mood on a particular set or the mood of the characters. Like if the character is confuse his or her half face might cover with shadow. Another example will be if the character standing on the dark side of the set it means she or he is a bad person. The one that on the bright mean the character is a good person or they also know the truth.

Film noir also applied a lot of German-expressionistic such as low angle shot, oblique vertical and horizontal lines and wide angle lenses. Furthermore, the common techniques that use in film noir are including shots of people in mirrors, shots through a glass, and multiple exposures. All these shot commonly use to create or portray tension or psychological uneasiness. This is because film noir does not directly shot on the characters. Instead, by using the reflection of people in the mirror and with other usual effect. This visual style was added on in the plot and emphasize on the story of film noir.

Film noir always take place in urban setting such as New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles with location like alleyways, cramped corridors, night club and lounges. This is because in film noir there usually has a night raining scene.

Narration and Structure of Film Noir

The structure of film noir commonly was present in non chronological or otherwise convoluted arrangement. So film noir are frequently using flashback and first-person voice-over narration to tell the story. This makes the audience questioning on the beginning of the film. Why will these happen? Who is the one that tell the story? The narration of the film is usually tell by the protagonist but sometime is unreliable. Flashback and voice-over are normally used both to focus attention on one or more of the characters and to produce an intense awareness of – and an intense curiosity about – their mental and emotional states. Many films noirs are marked by this kind of structure. But then there are many gothic thrillers and other kinds of mystery and detective film – any film, in fact, with a crime and an investigating agent. 

Hard-boiled Fiction

Film noir, the hard-boiled fiction that served as its initial source material, represent one form of American existentialism that was produced independently of European philosophy. Hard-boiled fiction introduced the tough and savvy private detective, the duplicitous femme-fatale, the innocent victim of circumstance, and the confessing but remorseless murderer. The creators of this uniquely American crime genre engaged existential themes of isolation, anxiety, futility, and death in the thrilling context of the urban crime thriller.

In the “hard-boiled” mode, ratiocination- the power of deductive reasoning is replaced by action, and the mystery element is displaced in favour of suspense. The element of gunplay, illicit or exotic sexuality, the corruption of the social forces of law, and also personal danger to the male protagonist are always place in film noir.

Femme Fatale

Moreover, one of the obvious characteristic in the film noir, we can saw it from the perspective of female protagonist. They are generally described either two types of female characteristic which is reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femme fatales which is mysterious, gorgeous, unloving, irresponsible and desperate women.

Meanwhile, the male protagonists were frequently weak, confused and morally equivocal, susceptible to temptation, and incapable of acting heroically. Frequently, it would be to follow the goading of traitorous femme fatale who destructively would lead the struggling hero into committing murder or other crime of passion. When the major character was a detective or private eye, he would become embroiled and trapped in an increasingly-complex, convoluted case that would lead to fatalistic, suffocating evidences of corruption or death.