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Film Noir By Chloe Sarrington
Film Noir • Classic film noir developed during and after World War II, taking advantage of the post-war ambience of anxiety, pessimism, and suspicion. It was a style of black and white American films that first evolved in the 1940s, became prominent in the post-war era, and lasted in a classic "Golden Age" period until about 1960 (marked by the 'last' film of the classic film noir era, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958)).
Very often, a film noir story was developed around a cynical, hard-hearted, disillusioned male character [e.g., Robert Mitchum, Fred MacMurray, or Humphrey Bogart] who encountered a beautiful but promiscuous, amoral, double-dealing and seductive femme fatale [e.g., Mary Astor, Veronica Lake, Jane Greer, Barbara Stanwyck, or Lana Turner]. She would use her feminine wiles and come-hither sexuality to manipulate him into becoming the fall guy - often following a murder. After a betrayal or double-cross, she was frequently destroyed as well, often at the cost of the hero's life. As women during the war period were given new-found independence and better job-earning power in the homeland during the war, they would suffer -- on the screen -- in these films of the 40s. Robert Mitchum Humphrey Bogart Fred MacMurray
Conventions • One of the most evident conventions of trailers that come under the ‘Film Noir’ genre is the transitions, which are of a wider variety than more modern genres, and predominantly use ‘wipes’ and ‘dissolves’. • Secondly, trailers under this genre generally have a narrator that inputs a line or comment before a clip of the actor’s dialogue. • There is also many more ‘titles’ that comment on the film/add to the narration as well as showing the biggest star’s names. (The fonts of these titles are often bold, italic and scaled to fit the majority of the frame – exclamation marks and ellipsis’ are also noticeably favoured). • There are rarely sound effects – instead there is orchestral music (stylised and stereotypical of the era), which is matched in tempo to the pace of the action. The music changes to suit the different elements of the story given to the audience through the trailer, e.g. ‘suspicion’, ‘violence’, ‘romance’.
