Classic Film Noir

Here I'm going to discuss different features found in Film Noir as well as some practical work we did in class.

Structure

Film Noir is where we first saw the 'every-man,' the 'femme fatale', villains, henchmen and 'girl's-next-door' all in the same film.

The structure of these movies were quite predictable, the plots would vary a lot of course, but the basic events stayed relatively similar. Not every Film Noir narrative followed this structure, but many would go something like this:

1. Begins at the end, we discover that the 'every-man' is in trouble, and is retrospectively thinking about the events that got him to his current position 
2. Flashback to the trouble beginning, he meets someone, giving him some business to deal with or a mission to complete
3. Will then meet the 'femme-fatale' and the protagonist will  become completely infatuated with her
4. Something goes wrong, causing the villain wanting the 'every-man killed'
5. The narrative will then return to the present, the main character often regretting the decisions he made to get him to this point, and the one's he made next
6. Another flashback to the 'femme-fatale' deceiving/double-crossing the main character, pretending to be in love with the him, and promising to stay with him forever
7. The 'femme fatale' will be killed or punished (usually by the protagonist) after he has lost all feelings for her, realizing what she's done
8. The film will then end with a similar scene the audience saw at the beginning. 

A few other plot points that are often included in the narrative:

• The protagonist will end up with another woman, often known as 'the girl next door,' who he may have ignored earlier on in the film, or he was dating before he fell in love with the 'femme fatale'.
• Sometimes the 'every-man' will be dead in the present (in 'The Killers' for example) and then there will be flashbacks leading to the moment. 

Below is a a generic Film Noir narrative we were given. They were jumbled up, and we were asked to put them in order and then create stills of the scenes. The captions we were given are next to each photo in the presentation. I would recommend watching full-screen.

Music

The music used in Film Noir's were often very dramatic, especially in the title sequences.

The music would sound very orchestral, and climactic. Mainly consisting of brass and string instruments, as well as percussion  This built tension, the mood of the scene was often known before anyone had spoken.

Here are some trailers for Double Indemnity and Kiss Me Deadly, using this kind of music:

  Double Indemnity 

   Kiss Me Deadly

I will be posting more about different features of Film Noir soon.