Why is Film Noir a significant sub genre?

Sophie Baker

Conventions of Film Noir

There are many conventions to film noir. Some being shadowing as there are big parts in the film where this has happened. It makes us wonder what the characters are like behind the scenes and the story behind them. Smoking is also a big part of it. It is usually used to show how to character is seen as important and cool,as smoking was a good thing to do when film noir was big. Voice over was used a lot in the film Noir. It was usually to tell us what the character was thinking and he would narrate the story in his words to the audience. Camera Angles played a big part also. They used to use low and high camera angles to make people seem more superior or powerful. If it was below the person, they had power. If it was above, they had less power. hey used the weather to their advantage in film noir. For example, if it was raining you could tell that something sad and emotional was happening. Film Noir films were the crime genre, and it was better to use Black and White than to use colour so they could make more effects with shadows. Black and white suited the crime genre more, therefore they carried on using it until technology could dim down colours.

Hays Code
The Hays Code was restricted violence. This means that the films would have violence in, and seem like something violent is happening, but they wouldnt actually show it. There wasnt age restrictions back in them days so anyone could see it. Even though this was a rule, film directors bended the rules as much as they possibly could. They would still put murders and sex scenes in films, and make it seem as obvious as possible that these things were happening but they were clever enough not to show it so it was still allowed to be shown in cinemas.

Lighting and Shadows

Cinematographers working in the classical film noir era sought to do the same thing trying to overcome the bland flatness that bright black and white film could have if theres not much contrast. The first and most important light is the key light this is usually the brightest and most dominant light of a setup. Complementing the key is the Fill light, which is place opposite of the key light to fill in some of the shadows left by the key. The final light of the three point setup is the back light this light adds an outline to separate the subject from the background. Film Noir generally uses hard lights the hardness or softness of a light is the type of shadows it creates. Hard lights leave sharp edged shadows this is created by a single point source of light where the light rays are running more or less from a single point in space. Think of a bare halogen bulb. Soft lights leave fuzzy shadows and are created by a larger area of light where the light rays is being scattered in different directions the illumination is coming from many points. Think of this like a frosted bulb or Compact fluorescent.

Camera Angles
Throughout the whole genre of Film Noir, there are a number of conventions that create the style and represent the darkness of it as a whole, through camera shots, angles, effects and locations.There were only two major camera angles used in film noir. The high angle, which usually showed vulnerability and that that certain character was powerless and the low angle, which showed power and that the character that had a low angle on them was in charge and nobody disobeyed him. Majority of the angle shots were low angle as whenever the bad character came on the scene the shots would go low down to show how powerful he/she is. A lot of film noir films are based on a first person perspective. This makes the audience 'take their side' but also helps us understand the dark times men went through after the war - a film is used to express their difficult emotions, rather than them perhaps confiding in a relative. A lot of the films show the main male character as very much an outcast; someone who is detached from the life they are living. This is portrayed through the selection of a first person narrative.