The video for film noir

Here is my video that shows about film noir:

And sorry about the watermark. Hope you enjoy it.

Analyse film posters of film noir

I found some film posters of some films during the classic era of film noir and I would like to analyse them.

Stranger on the Third Floor

Stranger on the Third Floor, which often signed as the first film noir. Here is the poster of this film:

The title

From this poster, the first thing that can grab our attention is the title: Stranger on the Third Floor. The typography (which is the font style) is sans-serif. It is modern that shows this film is new and it is an original story. The colour of the words is red which means aggressive, blood and dangerous. This can tell us that in the film, it will be really dangerous and may have somebody death. It is also the lexis of this poster. Since it has a really strong impact on the audiences.

Central image

The central image is not only the hand on the left-hand side of the poster below, it can also say that the characters are the central image. Because they clustered in the top half of the poster, nearly 50%. 

The Hand

Let's talk about the hand. The light is coming from left behind the hand, makes this hand's shadow longer and bigger. You can see that the shadow of this hand is almost touching the characters. According to Todorov's Theory, this can tell us about the disruption: someone died in the film and it may be one of the characters in the posters. Also, we cannot know whose hand is. This is a code of the film as it may be the stranger's hand. 

The Characters

Now let's focus on the characters. The facial expressions of the characters are different: some of them are feared, some of them are calm, some of them some of them are angry. They are all unhappy. This can tell us that something happens that is really bad in the film. Also, it is interesting that the characters are directed differently. On the top of the poster, there are three characters, two of them are seen directly to the right while the other one which is covered by the title is seeing to the left. Below them, there are two characters which are all seen to the left. On the top left of the poster, there is a person which is bigger than the others is seen to the right. There is only one person who seen directly to the audiences but only shows one eye. He has been coved by the title and the lighting are mostly dark. This could tell that he perhaps has a dark past and he may be the hero in this film. Also, the man who is right for the angry woman may also be the hero. The light is from the left and gives him a bright look but still, have some dark shadow on his face. This makes him show up but also tell us that he may do something out of the law to achieve his wants.

The Mis-en-scene

The background is dark but with some yellow colour. The yellow is not really bright, it is soft and just like the street light. According to this, it can tell us that the story happens in the night time. And the dark can also say as fear, dangerous, mystery. 

Mark of quality/Promise of pleasure

To the right of the bottom of this poster, we can see that there are some star billing, i.e. any famous people involved. This suggests that the film has good quality and people will enjoy it. The typography of this is also sans-serif but the colour is in black. This makes it more professional and modern. Also, it has the logo of  Warner Bros (an American entertainment company) which produced this film. This gives the film a strong promise since it is famous and the films they make have high quality.

Double Indemnity

Here is another film in classic-era film noir: Double Indemnity (1944). Here is the film poster for this film:

The title

The typography of the title is serif, which is classic and traditional. This could tell us that this film is a classic film noir. The colour is in red, which means romance, dangerous and blood. This gives the information of this film that there is a death in the film and it contains romance. I think this is the lexis of the poster since it has a strong impact on the audiences.

Central image

In this poster, the central image is the couple which almost covers 50% of the poster. They are the main characters of this film. They are hugging but the man is holding a gun behind the woman, this could tell us that this film contains action.  The woman is almost same size as the man but she seems to be dependent on the man. She is an unforgettable femme fatale. Also, there is a strange shadow behind them. It seems like a person who is looking at them. This may tell us that there is a danger coming to them. There is also a tagline (information about the film) to the man's right hand. It is written in white that makes it show up and we could see that there is a murder inside the film.

Mis-en-scene

The background is in pink. This can tell us that the film has a great amount of romance. Also, there is a small person who is watching the main characters. He may have an important relationship to the main characters.

Mark of quality/Promise of pleasure

There is a big black star billing on the top of the poster. The typography is sans-serif that shows modern and new.These two stars are the main stars so they are bigger than the other star billing in the right bottom of the poster. This can suggest that the film has a good quality and the audiences who watch this film will be satisfied because it has really famous people joining in .

The history of Film noir

Some information of Film noir

Film noir, or black film, or dark film, is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, Particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key, black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression.

Low-resolution reproduction from trailer for the movie: The Big Combo

Classic period of Film noir

The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir. French critics assigned the term film noir in 1946, citing a trending confluence of American film elements-antiheroic characters, biting dialogue shot from the hip, and bold visual design. Although City Streets and other pre-WWⅡ crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms.

The film now most commonly cited as the first "true" film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), directed by Latvian-born, Soviet-trained Boris Ingster.

Stranger on the third floor

Most of the film noir of the classic period were similarly low-and modestly budgeted features without major stars-B movies either literally or in spirit.  In this production context, writers, directors, cinematographers, and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big-picture constraints.

Thematically, films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centred with which they centred on women of questionable virtue-a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder in 1944.Though certainly not a B-movie in production and cost- both Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck were A-list celebrities, you can see a lot of the elements of film noir coming into play, as Billy Wilder brought his German Expressionism influences to Seitz’s cinematography.

 Double Indemnity

Moving in the 1950s is Joseph Lewis's The Big Combo in 1955. This film was a low budget B-picture that defied many of the taboos of the time including violence, sex, and homosexual characters.

The Big Combo

And then coming in at the tail end of the classic Film Noir period is Orson Welle's 1958 film Touch of Evil.

Touch of Evil

Some debates

The exact parameters of film noir are still up for debate-some argue that true noir films were made during a specific period, the post-World War Ⅱ 1940s to around 1958, labelling films made before and after proto-and neo-noir respectively, while others argue film noir is more of a style or mood than a genre.

Also, some scholars believe film noir never really ended but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir. A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside the classic era to be something other than genuine film noirs. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion.