Neo-noir is a term used to describe modern film noir. Translated it literally means new-black and refers to films which utilise the elements of the genre. They can be set in a modern day context and involve modern technologies and concerns.
Examples: Black Swan:
Starting off we have a psychological thriller that some may find controversial to include on this list. I would contend, however, that the dark journey into the psyche of our female lead is directly in line with the path of impending doom that is a cornerstone of classic Noir films. Right from the beginning, a feeling of despair permeates the screen and does not let go. Outside of crime drama, Film Noir often turned towards performers and their inner demons to create intense drama out of feelings of inadequacy and egotism (classics such as The Big Knife (1955) and Sunset Blvd. (1950) come to mind). The intense results that this can produce are powerfully portrayed in Black Swan’s ongoing struggle between Nina (Natalie Portman) and her ballet rival Lily (Mila Kunis). Despite twisting the more commonly seen “male seduced by female” structure of Noir cinema, Kunis’ seduction of Portman is a classic femme fatale at work. The only question is, did it really happen?
Key Film Noir Aspects: Feeling of Despair, Mental Instability, Femme Fatale
Brick:
Coming back for seconds on our list is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this time in one of the most unique, yet obvious, Neo-Noir films on this list. What would happen if we took a classic Noir murder mystery, complete with characters, visual style, and dialogue straight out of the 1950s, but placed it into a modern day high school setting? Welcome to Brick, a direct homage to Film Noir with a New Millennium, young-adult twist. Rian Johnson knew exactly what he was looking for when he wrote and directed this one, breathing classic Noir characteristics into this film right down to 1950s vernacular. Don’t let the youth of the characters fool you, though: this is as dark and twisted a mystery as any of the films on this list.
It may start out a little slow-paced for some, but if you give Drive a chance, you’ll be glad you did. When I first saw this one, Ryan Gosling’s performance became an instant classic in my mind. If you’re wondering what Humphrey Bogart would look like in a modern day film, just watch Gosling as the nameless Driver in Nicolas Winding Refn’s spellbinding film. This is a classic Noir tough guy: soft spoken, calm, thoughtful, but never on the defensive and ready to do whatever it takes at a moment’s notice. We don’t know much about our “hero” to start, and there is a sense of despair as his relationship with his gorgeous next-door neighbor and her son gets him tangled up with the wrong kind of people. It soon becomes very obvious, however, that there is a lot more to this Driver than meets the eye. When the action happens, it happens fast and doesn’t pull any punches. The Los Angeles streets and back alleys are once again a classic backdrop for the Noir visual style of this amazing film.
Key Film Noir Aspects: Feeling of Despair, Visual Style, Morally Questionable “Hero,” Criminal Actions
Blade Runner:
Ridley Scott's visionary epic proved that noir is a style translatable across any genre. Combining scifi themes with chiaroscuro lighting and complex characters -- Harrison Ford's detective as cyborg terminator. Blade Runner constructed a never-before-felt noir atmosphere.
L.A. Confidential:
That Curtis Hanson successfully transposed James Ellroy's sprawling novel into an accessible narrative film was impressive enough, but that he also made L.A. Confidential one of the best neo-noir movies is even more so. A star-studded cast (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger) told the tale of a sordid Hollywood underworld filled with corrupt cops and prostitutes cut to look like stars.
Reflections:
There's many films above and beyond this list considered neo-noir for their characteristics, plot and technically related. This is just a look into what makes them neo-noir.
It shows the influence of the genre all the way to present day. It's interesting for me to see films like this which I have previously watched but was unaware of the influences.
Going off on a tangent of interest, I've decided to look into Private Investigators, one because it breaks down the more general theme of film noir into something more specific and focused, two because its something which already has a possible set of creative and branding outcomes.
A private investigator or PI for short can go by many names, such as private eye, private detective or inquiry agent. Private investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. A handful of very skilled PI's work with defence attorneys on capital punishment and criminal defence cases. Many also work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims. They can also be hired to work on cases of adultery, child custody and alimony in order to gain grounds for divorce or for the process after.
Most PI's require a license depending on the country or state, this also depends on whether they are allowed to carry firearms or not. Some are ex-police officers, some are ex-military, ex-spies or were perhaps bodyguards and security guards. While they may investigate a police matter, they do not have the power of police, and as such only have the same powers a civilian would have. They must keep strict documents of all activity if called upon in court.
The Truth Seeker:
The truth seeker can wear any costume, whether that be a private eye or a criminal. Their primary goal is to navigate the convoluted maze of the noir universe to find a critical answer. The Hunted:
The noir protagonist is frequently pursued and hunted from the beginning to end of a film. He is usually a male and an outsider. He finds it difficult to connect with a universe which seems so ruled by chance, so inherently absurd. He may find himself drawn into rebellious criminal acts in defiance of this absurdity. Femme Fatale:
The most subversive element in most film noir is the female character, who is often a femme fatale. The femme fatale is a black widow, the spider woman, from the male perception, an evil and castrating bitch. Strong female characters willing to use their own sexuality as a weapon in order to level the playing field against men.
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Chiaroscuro Lightning:
Low-key lighting in the style of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, marks most noirs of the classic period. Shade and light play against each other not only in night exteriors but also in dim interiors shielded from daylight by curtains or Venetian blinds. Hard, unfiltered side-light and rim light outline and reveal only a portion of a face to create a dramatic tension all of its own. Cinematographers such as Nicholas Musuraca, John F. Seitz and John Alton took this style to the highest level in films like Out of the Past, Double Indemnity and T-Men. Odd Angles:
Noir cinematographers favoured low angles for several reasons. Firstly, this angle made the characters rise from the ground in an almost expressionistic manner, giving them dramatic girth and symbolic overtones. In addition, it also allowed the viewer to see the ceilings of interior settings, creating even more of a sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, appropriate emotions for the world of noir: High angles could also produce disequilibrium, peering down a stairwell over a flimsy railing or out of a skyscraper window at a city street far below. Moving Camera:
For directors like Ophilis and Lang, the camera that slides across a room past an array of foreground clutter or tracks a character through a crowded cafe had a relentless and fateful quality. When combined with a long take, suspenseful sequences were subtly enhanced. The Urban Landscape:
Noir films are often set in urban landscapes, particularly the cities of Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. The metropolis with its circles of light under streetlamps, dim alleyways, a press of shadowy pedestrians and wet, grimy streets is the perfect milieu for the nightmarish events of noir. Flashback & Subjective Camera:
Whether introduced via a ripple effect or simply a smash cut, the past palpably intrudes in film noir via its flashbacks. The flashback can be filtered through a single characters point of view or ostensibly detached and objective: seeing the past gives a reality that no amount of speech can match.
To further break down our topic and to start to relate it to design, I am looking into how elements of Film Noir are branded in this day and age. For example; how a private investigator might brand himself in relation to business cards and letterheads, if we were thinking in the normal design conventions.
Or perhaps how a barber shop might brand itself in a 50's style, maintaining that black and white aesthetic.
Or how cigarette packets were branded back in the time when cigarettes were openly smoked, as much so in Film Noir by a hardened detective on the case.
A Noir influenced Beer label. It reminds me of the opening credits graphics of an old 50's film.
Any gaming fan will of heard of L.A. Noire. A modern throwback of the genre where you take on the roll of a detective in 1950's L.A. Shows how modern culture still takes influence from and shows appreciation for the genre.
I was previously doing Westerns but found myself surprisingly unenthused by the topic, perhaps as I did a project in a similar style previously of around the same time period. However I still wanted to keep the film interest so I have re-settled upon Film Noir. What is Film Noir?
Film Noir is a cinematic term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, in particular those which deal with cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. It is regarded as extending from the early 1940's to the late 1960's and it's influence can also be seen in more modern ventures.
It is associated with a low black and white key which took influence from experimental German cinematography. Many of the stories and the attitudes of Noir derive from hard-boiled crime fiction born from the US great depression.
Film Noir is French for "black film", first applied to these Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946. Before 1970 however this notion was not widely accepted and they were referred to as 'melodramas'. It is still debated whether Film Noir should be classified as a specific genre.
It encompasses a range of plots. The main figure could be a private eye, a detective, an ageing boxer, a hapless grifter, a law-abiding citizen turned to a life of crime or even someone who was caught up in it all from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Stacked heels and camera trickery were used during the filming of the 1946 version of 'The Big Sleep', to make Humphrey Bogart - who was shorter than female co-stars Lauren Bacall and Martha Vickers - appear taller.
In the Coen's noirish thriller Miller's Crossing, the line"Jesus, Tom" is said seven times, by four different characters.
According to the BFI, The Third Man is the “greatest British movie ever made”. Oddly, it also comes in at 57 in the American Film Institute’s “Top 100 American films”.
Because Orson Welles turned up two weeks late for the filming of The Third Man, men in “fat suits” had to be used as body doubles for several shots.
Cecil B DeMille was paid $10,000 and a brand new Cadillac for his cameo in Sunset Blvd. When Billy Wilder went back to him to film a necessary close-up, he demanded another $10,000.
There are three Maltese Falcon statuette props left in existence, and each is valued at over $1m – more than it cost Warner Bros to make the actual movie.
Pierce Patchett’s brothel in LA Confidential, in which the prostitutes are film star lookalikes, is based on a real place in 1940s Hollywood.
Noirish high school thriller Brick features a number of references to classic film noirs: the “long-short-long-short” car horn signal employed by the main character is stolen from Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
While filming Chinatown, Jack Nicholson often stalled shooting to watch basketball on a portable TV. Director Roman Polanski eventually became so enraged he smashed the gogglebox with a mop.
While often described as a genre, many claim film noir is more about the use of a visual style – i.e. low key lighting – and tropes such as “the femme fatale”, “the cynical detective” and a plot riddled with mystery and deception.
1940’s Stranger on the Third Floor, starring legendary noir character actor Peter Lorre, is widely regarded as the first ever film noir. Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958) is often called the last of the classic noirs.
“Neo noir” movies that consciously echo the noir style include Body Heat (1981), Shattered (1991) and Basic Instinct (1992) – Sharon Stone’s sex vixen might be the most OTT femme fatale in cinema.
The Coen brothers often tip their hats to film noir while twisting its conventions: Fargo swaps a gritty urban setting for the supposedly wholesome rural Midwest, while The Big Lebowski casts a lazy stoner in the detective role.
Scholars are divided on whether film noir is a recognizable genre like the Western or the musical. Most agree that the term is best used to define a style and a period in American cinema, rather than a distinct genre. The points below help to illuminate this definition.
The term film noir, French for "black film" was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946. It was not used by filmmakers of the time, and was not in common parlance until decades later.
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and complex motivations, but elements of the noir style are recognizable in a wide variety of genres.
Both literary and cinematic noir are loosely defined by: (i) the subjective point of view; (ii) the shifting roles of the protagonist; (iii) the ill-fated relationship between the protagonist and society (generating the themes of alienation and entrapment); and (iv) the ways in which noir functions as a socio-political critique.
The primary literary influence on film noir was the school of American detective and crime fiction, led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett (whose first novel, Red Harvest, was published in 1929) and James M. Cain (whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later), and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask.
Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s, but the dominant style is considered primarily a post-war phenomenon.
Cinematic elements of film noir include low-key lighting, chiaroscuro effects, deep focus photography, extreme camera angles and expressionist distortion.
Voice–over and flashback were persistent stylistic and narrative elements of film noir movies. Double Indemnity and Detour are examples of movies that successfully used these techniques.
Many film noir stories include a femme fatale character. A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. The phrase is French for "deadly woman". A femme fatale tries to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm, and allure. Although typically villainous, femme fatales have also appeared as anti- heroines in some stories, and some even repent and become heroines by the end of the tale. Femme fatales of history and literature include the convicted spy Mata Hari, Mohini of Hindu mythology, Cleopatra, and the Biblical figures Eve, Delilah, Salome and Jezebel.
Major examples of film noir include: The Maltese Falcon (1941) – although not entirely in the true noir style, often considered the first film noir, and certainly one of the earliest films to employ the cynical hard-boiled style, particularly in its dialogue, taken almost entirely from Dashiell Hammett’s landmark 1930 detective novel of the same name Double Indemnity (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Out of the Past (1947), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Crossfire (1947), T-Men (1947), Criss Cross (1949), They Live By Night (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), The Big Heat (1953), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Touch of Evil (1958), generally considered the last film noir
Other films not considered strictly film noir but exhibiting many of the characteristics: The Third Man (1949), To Have and Have Not (1944), Notorious (1946) - and a few other Hitchcock movies
Examples of neo-noir (more contemporary films that employ elements of the style, usually self-referentially or as homage): Chinatown (1974), The Long Goodbye (1973), Body Heat (1981), Pulp Fiction (1994), Blade Runner (1982) – an example of noir style used in an unrelated genre, in this case, science fiction.
