Deconstructions of The Noir Genre

Many of the conventions associated with film noir are very important to give them the effect and atmosphere the film must have. Although the original era of film noir has passed, many films take aspects of the original genre, and tweak them a bit, creating the new genre "Neo-Noir" meaning modern noir.

Some of the classic conventions include:

• Traditional Narritive:  crime, tragedy, dark moods, and seduction.
• Characters: Protaganist, Antagonist and a Femme Fatale
• Mise - en -Scene: : Lighting:  High contrast of lighting, Chiarascuro and Monochrome   
• Costumes: Male characters in suits and Fedoras, Femme Fatale in seductive clothing
• Setting: Bars, Casinos, Very urban/cityscape enviroments, Dystopian
• Sound: Very orchestral, often with elements of Jazz.
• Editing: Kept simple, with a sense of realism (Verisemilitude)

Today we watched three OTS's of three neo noirs, and compared them to the classic film noirs, This is what we came up with:

Red Riding 1974
A British feature length tv series, keeps quite close to the classic conventions.
Starts off very eerie, with a contrast between black and white, moves to a saturated close up of a mans face, lots of close ups.

Cuts quickly to a very dreary, rainy shot, as the protaganist is established. Music playing is an acoustic guitar, not very conventional. The location is very rural, as it is set in yorkshire, Not conventional. Later in the clip, we establish the protaginist has "Blew his chance" in london, indicating he is flawed, this is conventional.

Blade Runner
A science fiction film with neo noir elements, directed by Ridely Scott.
Starts off with a very futuristic shot of the cityscape, with a few explosions seen, not many classic film noirs would be action packed from the start. There is also an effect where the burning city is being seen and reflected in a mans eye, conventional film noir would not have had anything like this, as the editing was kept to a minimum.

Cut to a dark room, with only natural lighting, and smoke whisping, smoking was very conventional of film noir, and gave a good effective if used with correcting lighting.

The first characters that are seen are two men, but these are neither the Antagonist or Protaganist, in classic film noir, either one of them is established in the first character, showing their importance to the film.
The sound is also quite unconventional, using techno sounds and machinery. Mixed in is a heartbeat, which was used quite often for effect.

Mulholland Drive

An american neo noir, directed by David Lynch
Begins with an high energy scene of people dancing to a old fashioned swing track, as faces are faded in, we establish a blond women, There is alot of bright lights in the scene, this is unconventional, as most film noirs would start very dark.
It then cuts to a very dark shot, where car  headlights are just made out, inside of the car is a heavily made up women. Assuming she is the femme fatale, she is made fairly conventional as we see the amount of makeup and lipstick she is wearing. The sound is very atmospheric and sustained, but is also a synthesised orchestra, giving a conventional contrast.
The movie is overall very chiarascuro, in the sense that alot of it is contrasted, for example, the two main character are two women (Very unconventional) and they have completely different personalities and narritives. The speed and colour of the two opening scenes are also very contrasted, as the first is bright, jumpy and energetic, the secong is very slow, atmospheric and dark.