Friday, October 5, 2007

Film Noir Visual Motifs - Lecture Notes 2

Visual Styles of Film Noir: Iconography

Notes from a Lecture by Dr. David E. Whillock, Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Communications at TCU. Presented Sept. 26, 2007 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth as part of a series titled: American Cinema: Film Noir and the Detective Film.

Whether one thinks of film noir as a style of moviemaking or a genre of movies (and that question is debated by the experts) [Ed. Though I myself can't understand the importance of the distinction without further enlightenment.] the film noir films do have distinctive visual motifs. As Hollywood had moved away from silent films with their inserted titles clarifying and focusing everything for the audience, the early talking pictures were hesitant to move away from balanced, conventional visuals, fearing that audiences might not be able to stay properly focused. Visually, film noir was a reaction against this formal, predictable, comfortable, balanced focusing. The film noir films of the 1940s and 50s, in contrast to their lightweight forbears, sought to develop an internal dimension, more introspective and psychological. Subjective effects like the voice over and flashback helped develop this internal dimension, and film noir used these techniques extensively. Noir filmmakers challenged the comfortable passivity of audiences by creating intentional stress and near strangulation with moods venturing into claustrophobia, paranoia, fear, despair, and nihilism. And their primary tool for creating these moods and establishing this unsettling discomfort was not dialogue so much as style, especially visual style.

1. Keeping things close. Though usually set in a city, film noir seldom used wide establishing shots of an expanse of buildings or a wide span of view. Many shots reaching beyond the close confines of a room were shot through a window.

2. Low key lighting. Lighting experts identify "key lighting" (that lights the main subject) and "fill lighting" (that lights other areas that would otherwise be in shadow) with traditional film lighting designed to reduce contrast and shadow. Low-key lighting used in film noir increases the contrast and intentionally creates and uses shadows.

3. Darkness. Film noir (French, literally "black film") makes use of darkness, not just in the high contrast effect of low-key lighting, but by creating dark spaces in its scenes. In the darkness other rooms and faces exist, but until they enter the light there is a sense that there is nothing beyond the light source. The prominence of darkness in film noir increases its psychological impact with a fear of the unknown and a mysteriousness about what is or is not. In the visual and figurative darkness, a character's motives and true identity remain uncertain and unrevealed. Film noir's use of darkness suggests that light is on the verge of being overcome by the darkness. And likewise hope and joy and peace and comfort.

4. Mise en scène. Film noir often employs a distinctive mise en scène (another somewhat slippery French language term meaning literally "putting on stage"). In the context of this lecture, mise en scène seems to mean "everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement – sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting." (Wikipedia) As a visual motif, the term seems to suggest everything that is within the frame of a shot, perhaps as if the frame duplicates the arch of a proscenium stage. But the creation of what is framed in a shot is not fixed as on a stage. Thus, mise en scène refers to "all elements of visual style — that is, both elements on the set (or within the frame) and aspects of the camera (that create it)." (Wikipedia) The mise en scène of film noir involves off balance composition, and off angle shots creating compositional tension. It often conveys "the information of a scene primarily through a single shot – often accompanied by camera movement" rather than "multiple angles pieced together through editing." (Wikipedia) Thus, the audience enters an unsafe, unstable, uncomfortable world and may find itself asking, "Why do I feel this way?" The film noir mise en scène is often the answer.

5. Choker shots. Choker shorts are extreme close-ups of a face alone often used in film noir to intentionally create discomfort by staying too close for too long. Twitching lips, shifting eyes, and tiny facial details both close and disclose the character while the extended visual invasion of another's space creates dis-ease in the audience and a sense that there is no backing off from reality here.

6. Extended depth of field. Film noir often uses an extended depth of field, that is, it extends the distance in front of and behind the subject that appears to be in focus in a shot . Thus, a character's face and the buildings behind it may all be in focus. The effect of this on the viewer is a sense of equal weight of both the character and his or her environment. The forces acting on a character, the pressures of enclosing circumstances and encircling doom, are intensified by a deeper depth of field.

7. Minimal camera movement. The limited camera movement of film noir also emphasizes the forces of a character's environment, suggesting that a scene moves around a character instead of the other way around.

8. Nighttime lighting. A great deal of the action in film noir occurs at night. As a visual motif rather than a necessity of plotting, this works to reinforce other motifs mentioned above along with the addition of water (with its heaviness and confinement) in street scenes. According to the contract of union lighting workers of the period, all night shots must include water. [Ed. Huh? Go figure.]

9. Vertical lines. Of particular note in Out of the Past the noir film screened in connection with this lecture, the use of oblique vertical lines dramatically splinters the screen as the mounting tension splinters the characters' psyche.

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