Aesthetic and mise-en-scene of Film Noir

Link to my presentation on Aesthetic and mise-en-scene of Film Noir

Women and costume in film noir

                                    Women in film noir

Femme fatales in film noire use their sexuality and bodies to lure the protagonist into dangerous situations which can sometimes lead to the protagonist's downfall and quite often result in the femme fatale's own death. The women in film noir are stereotypically in revealing dresses smoking or looking sultry and seductive.


The femme fatales are often half hidden by shadow or smoke in a dark room or alleyway, this could be to show their dangerous flirtatious nature and the fact they're half hidden in shadow could suggest they are a dominant or pervasive threat. The dark shadows could also represent the evil shown throughout the film. The smoke could be used to represent mystery and show the mysterious aura around the femme fatales.

In film noir femme fatales are a rebel against societies "typical" woman of the time, during the time of film noir society was rather male dominated and woman were seen as objects to be owned by men, to cook and clean and raise families rather than to have their own identity and career. The femme fatale breaks out of the traditional stereotype of the time and she is portrayed as a strong independent female. Sometimes they are portrayed as a damsel in distress and usually they lure the protagonist into danger.




                                            Costume in film noir

The costumes worn in film noir by woman are similar throughout each of the different films. Women are shown in revealing dresses, fur coats, high heels, stockings, red lipstick and elbow length gloves. Altogether shown as elegant, dignified and graceful.  
 Their clothes symbolise passion and danger, showing them, to the audience, as a hazard to the protagonist. Their red lipstick could also be used to portray this as red symbolises passion, aggression, and courage. It can also symbolise sexual impulses, danger and shame.


The male characters, protagonist and antagonist alike, wear suits and fedoras occasionally making it hard for the audience to establish in the beginning who is the bad and who is the good guy.

The detective is usually dressed smartly in a suit, with gun holster. A large overcoat and tie. The men, like the women are dressed stereotypically. The black overcoats symbolise mystery and danger and this links to the fact that usually the protagonists job is something lonely or isolated such as a private investigator or something else that social alienates them from the rest of society.

  

Exploring Thriller sub genres

Link to the original presentation on emaze.com


Soundtracks in Thrillers

Even the soundtracks in Thrillers have conventions. The soundtrack for psychological thrillers tends to be high notes and tense music, those for action thrillers tends to be deep bass notes and fast paced and in crime thrillers there tends to be more diegetic gunshots and cars.

What is the purpose of a thriller opening?

The purpose of the opening sequence of a thriller should engage the audience, establish the plot, establish characters, set the tone and atmosphere and establish the genre. It should also raise questions which in turn hook the audience.

The thriller opening I have chosen to analyse is Inception. The clip I have analysed is above.

The opening of inception starts with setting the scene, it doesn't show much of the scene just that it's coastal. There aren't really many wide shots or an establishing shot in the very beginning just mid shots. This is to show the audience the setting and gives them an overview of the scene.

The use of guns links to the action thriller genre and foreshadows action and the talk of murder intrigue the audience. It also sets quite a dark tone and hints to the the audience that because of the use of guns there is quite likely to be murder later on. Guns also set a darker tone because they link to murder and death which casts a darker tone onto this thriller.



The protagonist and antagonist are both also introduced in the opening scene. We're introduced the antagonist by seeing a long shot of the back of his head and are not introduced to him to quite a way into the opening scene and even then we only see him from mid to long shots away. This makes him seem more of an intriguing character to the audience because they don't see him close up and it leaves them wondering what he likes and why they haven't been introduced to him yet. It hooks them in which is a succesful technique used in their thriller opening.

The canted angles used when the protagonist is lying on the beach are used to create confusion and distrust, this links to the use of crashing waves which symbolise tension and unease. It also links to the use of a flashback, we as the audience can tell it's a flashback from the intense colour used in the scene which contrasts with the dark colours used in the rest of the scene.

The main thing a thriller opening should do is make the watcher ask questions and hook the in so they watch the rest of the film to find out the answers to their questions. Some of the questions I personally asked were
Why is he on the beach?
What on earth are they talking about?
Why are there children on a beach guarded by guards with guns?
Who are the children?
Why are there guns?
How do they know each other?
"I know what this is?" WHAT IS IT?!?!
Posing questions to the watcher engages them and encourages them to watch on.

The low key lighting is typical of a thriller because it sets a dark atmosphere and a chiaroscuro light effect which works really well in thrillers adding an aspect of mystery and tension to a scene. The deep bass note playing in the back of the scene also adds to the tension and is effective because unless you're concentrating on it it's not obvious and it creates suspense and adds to the tension.

In conclusion I believe that Inception uses all the things a typical thriller opening should do to create tension, grab the audience and establish plot while posing many questions at the same time to hook the audience in and watch more to find out the answers to their questions.

Preliminary evaluation

Link to my preliminary task evaluation

Prelimiary task

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jZiIuT4JFE&list=UUFHqqdfpcaqL_r6JddCseaQ

Above is the link to my preliminary task video

Plan

 

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E7PXdhylmojgHZgaoazE18hNPSody-0JAhvlZUCI0F8/pub Here is the link to the script

 

Below is the storyboard and room plan.

 Storyboard

Storyboard

Storyboard

Room plan

Summer Project

Above are the pictures of my spider diagram about the lighting and camera work in Casino Royale and LA Noire and the link is to my power point about the similarities and differences between LA Noire and Casino Royale.