Film noir codes and convections

Since the emergence of film noir into mainstream Europe during the mid-1940s and the rise in prominence which this brought, it has been continually argued whether or not film noir should be considered a genre, with no real judgment being made either way sixty years down the line. The reason why many argue that film noir is a genre is that it is very different to other films under the crime thriller category. This is due to the differences in them such as their use of lighting, narrative and visual in particular.

 Film noir was created very in much the USA however in was not until the films reached the likes of France and other European countries that in rose to significance of a greater scale than the USA. Noir's are well known for being dark and somewhat violent films with often similar story lines of crime and betrayal in urban America. Directors of film noirs frequently used the black and white setting which was a custom to film noirs to create this cold, dark and nervy set for the films. The use of shadows in particular and contrast lighting helped to do this, with many shots of crimes about to take place using shadows to make the criminals grow when getter closer to their victims, again creating this tense feel in these scenes. Another way in which directors used lighting in film noir was to chop the set and characters in abstract shapes and stripes, this formed a shady appearance to the movies, and made the audience aware that something dodgy was going on thus forming a mood which was the basis to the representation of film noirs. Directors would often use abstract shapes and design in the layout of the background to noir’s.

 Another effective tool for noir’s was cinematography. Noir’s were known for using low angle, high angle wide angle and skewed angle shots. These helped to create strange visuals of the characters which appear bizarre to the audience. Close-ups and extreme close-ups were used also as well as Dutch tilts to create the strange genre that is film noir. Also along with these mirrors are used to produce abstract shapes of characters. Special effects were used by directors to portray dreamy visual representation in some noir’s.

 The Mise-en-scene of noirs was important to their personality. Actors especially male would often be seen in trench coats and suits essentially formal dress. Location shooting was introduced in the later film noir’s but this was after the peak time for the noir’s however and contrasted from the previous use in noir’s in which films where shots on only a few sets. A further tool which noir’s used unlike other films of their time was night-for-night shooting – where the parts of films which were meant to be the night time were actually filmed at night, different to many films which filmed scenes in the day and made them look like the night e.g. day-for-night. Much of film noir was set in dark cities with rainy streets and tall overwhelming buildings which generally was an urban setting. Moreover the lighting used for noirs would be seen to be low key and using high contrast images so that there were not many mid-tones used but mostly extreme black or extreme white. The lighting also was used to cut the characters faces in pieces using the props as well such as blinds. A feature which noir's were known for was the male anti-hero who was often central in storylines. He would be the everyday working man who wants to earn a decent living but by one mistake is drawn into an ever worsening spiral. The moral to noirs by using this type of character and presenting them to the audience of films is that crime does not pay and mistakes which you make will eventually catch up with you.


 The narrative to film noir often painted a picture of dark shady characters in urban American. Story lines would frequently include betrayal, double crossing, characters unable to escape the world of crime which they had been thrown into i.e. sin and punishment, heists, murder, whodunit, gangsters and amnesia. Unlike many movies around at the peak of noir, there was commonly an unhappy end to noir’s as couples would rarely end up together, this differed from the usual happy ending of most films. Also a distinctive element to film noir was the dominant and deadly women which were in many plots, they would appear attractive and appealing woman to their prey, but end up being cynical killers, and these were women known as femme fatale which became a famous term relate to noir’s. This in itself was different to other crime around at the time were often this type of character would be male. The idea of deadly woman stemmed somewhat from pulp fiction in the early 1990s where noir has noted as taking many of its ideas from. Another source for the sort of plot film noir that is associated with is gangster films which are a clear link due to the violence both involved. Film noir was well-known for having a non-linear narrative.

 Sound in noir's was intelligently used to add to suspense or just to make viewers aware of an important point in the film. Downbeat jazz would be used to add to the mood during certain scenes. Furthermore bizarre music would be used in situations such as dreams or during a killing to add effect. The sound in the location of noir's was cleverly used at times as well with noises from the urban cities acting as background noise through scenes. Further to this the characters would be used to add to the mood of films in certain scenes, sounds such as heavy breathing would be used, the anti-hero would voice over scenes during flashbacks in films making use of a non-linear narrative. More sounds that were used were unexpected noises to alert the audience as well as the use of silence and quiet in scenes where suspense in key which is an important feature to thriller as suspense is what they are based around.

 Editing in noirs was mostly seen as jumps cuts and dissolves from one shot to the next. A feature in many noirs such as Double Indemnity (1944) was the use of a non-linear narrative where the start is at the end. However continuity editing was used for many scenes as noirs were lower budget film and B films it is quicker and cheaper.

 So with the many different and commonly occurring types of film labelled noirs it can be seen therefore as a fair assessment to say that film noir is in itself a genre rather than a subsection of crime thriller. Due the personality noir's partake which are very much part of their own identity; noirs are clearly apart from other genre of the crime thriller genre.