Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime drama. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style. Film noir is a term coined by French critics that describes the dark contrasts of the ‘noir’ films made after the American war, and film noir is translated from French, literally as ‘black film’. There are key factors that feature in film noir: the setting in film noir is usually a city, surrounded in offices in which a lot of action during the film can take place. Cities are used often in film noir in the establishing shots and after often juxtaposed to rural settings.
There are often strong character types in film, noir: reluctant hero’s; a detective or investigator; femme fetale (main female). The femme fetale usually gives to perception of being sexy and dangerous. The lighting within film noir is very monochrome, with a vast range of varying black and white shades, it is highly stylised with a lot of shadowing. The ‘venetian blind’ effect is featured heavily in film noir; meaning that shadowing that is given when a light is shone through venetian blinds is created in different ways.
Jae Bennett
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