Welcome to Filmmaker IQ - today we dive into seedy underbelly of Film Noir.
Film Noir, it’s a term coined by French Film Critic Nino Frank in 1946 which literally
translates into “Black Film.” But defining what makes a film FILM NOIR isn’t so easy.
The stereotypical film noir features a fedora sporting gumshoe and a femme fatale being
chased in urban landscape. But there are many noirs that don’t have private eyes or killer
dammes and take place in the suburbs. Unlike gangster films, there are no character requirement
for noir. Nor is there location requirement as in a Western. No far fetched Science Fiction,
No song and dance as in musicals, and certainly no super heroes with magic powers.
So without a rigid definition - noir may be best to described as a feeling through visual
styling of low key lighting and story conventions.
Since there is so little to define noir, understanding it requires us to look at noir in the context
of history and technology.
We’ll pick up the story in the 1930s - the Great Depression Era in American history.
Building on advancements in filmmaking in the 20s that added sound, better black and
white photography, and smaller and more controllable lighting the Big 5 Hollywood Studios were
honing their production and distribution methods. It was boom times for film - Going to the
movies was a way for an economically devastated country to escape their troubles and by 1939
there were 15,000 movie theaters in the United States, more than the number of banks.
The 30s was also the beginning of Technicolor in motion pictures - bringing beautiful color
to the blockbuster films like Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. But the technology
of color was still relatively young and the three strip color process required massive
amounts of lighting - these epics were expensive and took a long time to make.
Rather than sink all their eggs into the financial success of these blockbuster spectacles, the
studios used “Block Booking” a system which was perfected by Adoph Zukor and Paramount
during the silent era.
Here’s how it worked. In order for independent theater operators to get the rights to showing
the big A-list films, they would have to buy blocks of films from the studio which included
the A-list films as well as a mix of less desirable B-list films often shown at the
bottom a double feature. At the height studio era, these blocks could include up to a hundred
films - an year’s worth - purchased blindly by the theaters before they even went into
production.
By leveraging their power over the A-list movies, the studio was able to guarantee a
profit on the B movies because they were being charged at a flat rate.. The more B films
they made, regardless of quality, the more money they could make so long as they kept
the cost down.
They needed a lot of stories to tell, Gangster films, westerns, sci-fi, horror, and of course,
pulp fiction crime stories- which would serve the basis for many film noir.
Even though quality wasn’t the top priority for the executives, no filmmaker sets out
to make a bad film. And because their financial success was relatively insured, a certain
level of experimentation was allowed. Through this low budget studio filmmaking the film
noir style emerged especially for the crime genre, based greatly on German expressionism
brought over by artists escaping the Nazi threat in Europe and pursuing a career in Hollywood.
That Nazi threat would materialize into the Second World War. The carnage had left many
feeling disillusioned and numb - a common theme in film noir. The war also advanced
filmmaking technique as many of the cinematographers returning to Hollywood had served in the military
as documentary filmmakers. The war brought better technology, they had faster more light
sensitive film, better and more compact lighting instruments and weren’t afraid of shooting
on real locations - all of which contributing to the look and feel of film noir.
These filmmakers were dealing with serious issues of murder, sex, and crime but they
were bound by the Motion Picture Production Code commonly called the Hays code which censored
taboo subjects. This forced the filmmakers to be more suggestive rather than explicit
in their filmmaking - hiding the ugly business in the shadows of the scene.
These forces culminated into the classic era of film noir - studios padding their blocks
with low budget b-fims, low key lighting greatly influenced by German Expressionism, characters
with a sense of nihilism caused by the lead up to and aftermath world war two, and a restrictive
production code.
But as with anything the world keeps changing and the era would come to an end.
In 1948, the Supreme Court of the United States put an end to Block Booking in the court decision
United States v. Paramount Pictures Inc. et al using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Studios
immediately cut back on the number of B-movies produced as their distribution method had
to change- how B-movies were made and their audiences would change along with it. Many
filmmakers were laid off, but they found work in a new medium - Television.
Television kept audiences at home and away from the movie theaters and established a
new style. I Love Lucy which used a lighting setup devised by Karl Fruend of Metropolis
fame, eliminated shadows on set so that footage from a live multi-camera production could
be cut seemlessly. This flat even lighting look created for technical purposes ironically
by one of the great cinematographers from the German expressionist era was a stark contrast
to the moodiness of noir lighting and it became a stylistic norm, copied by television shows
even to this day.
Film continued to battle television for audiences introducing widescreen aspect ratios, higher
budgets, and more risque material which ultimately led to the abandonment of the Hays Code by
the late 60s.
In terms of technology, color film continued to advance so by the end of the 50s, color
film was becoming much more practical. The techniques of using harsh backlighting in
film noir to create separation in black and white film wasn’t as necessary as differences
in color could easily provide that same sense of distance with color productions.
There’s no better way to get a sense of film noir than to look at a few defining films
of the classic era. Let’s start with what many consider is the first true “noir”
film: Stranger on the Third floor from 1940
Directed by Boris Ingster, written by Frank Partos and Nathaniel West and lensed by Nicolas
Musuraca, Stranger on the Third floor tells a story of a newspaper reporter whose court
testimony was used to convict a murder suspect. But he’s having doubts about the conviction
especially after he finds his neighbor dead under similar circumstances. Masuraca’s
visual style in this B-film would define the look of film noir- especially notable is a
brilliant German Expressionist inspired dream sequence as the reporter imagines his own
false conviction.
I'm telling you I didn't do it. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're the jury. Please believe
me, I'm innocent. There was a man in the hall - a stranger he....
Why aren't you listening to me?
Please you honor!
They're not listening.
Make them hear me - they've got to.
Defendent will refrain.
I didn't kill him, I didn't! You can't convict me!
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, have you reached a verdict?
GUILTY!
But I'm not guilty. The stranger killed him. There! There he is.
Another essential noir: Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder in 1944
Photographed by John F. Seitz and written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double
Indemnity tells the story of an insurance salesman involved in a murder plot on his
lover’s husband. 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.
Hello baby.
Anybody else in the house?
Nobody, why?
What's that music?
Radio up the street.
Just like the first time I came here isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance.
We were thinking about murder, I was thinking about that anklet.
What are you thinking about now?
Moving in the 50s is Joseph Lewis’s The Big Combo released in 1955
Written by Philip Yordan and Photographed by John Alton, the Big Combo was a low budget
B-picture that defied many of the taboos of the time including violence, sex, and homosexual
characters. It tells the story of police lieutenant Diamond’s unwavering pursuit of a sadistic
crime boss Mr. Brown. Extremely Controversial at the time was this suggestive scene where
Mr. Brown demonstrates his mastery over his girlfriend Susan.
Susan tell me c'mon - what's bothering you?
I hate and despise you.
Susan. What are you trying to do, drive me bats? What do you want Susan, tell me. I'll
give you anything you want, tell me.
Nothing
Nothing.
Coming in at the tail end of the classic Film Noir period is Orson Welle’s 1958 film Touch of Evil
Cinematography by Russell Metty and written by Orson Welles, A Touch of Evil takes place
in a small border town where a car bomb has killed a prominent building contractor. Mexican
Narcotics Officer Mike Vargas played by Charlton Heston, visiting on his honeymoon, gets entangled
with an investigation led by a crooked cop Captain Hank Quinlan played by Orson Welles.
Even though the forces that created the elements of film noir may have changed, like a certain
style of music, film noir will never completely go away. After the classic era, noir elements
would find their way into all genres and budgets - an endless well that filmmakers continue
to draw from.
Forget it Jake it's Chinatown
It seems you feel our work is not a benefit to the public.
Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a
benefit, it's not my problem.
May I ask you a personal question?
Sure.
Have you ever retired a human by mistake?
Sombody phone Guiness, I think we have a record here...
You are confused aren't you? Frightened - it's alright, I can help you.
Who is this?
I'm a doctor.Now you must listen to me. You have lost your memory. There was an experiment.
Something went wrong, your memory was erased. Do you understand me?
No I don't understand. What the hell is going on here?
Just listen, there are people coming for you even as we speak. You must not let them find
you. You must leave now.
Hello? Are you there?
No hay banda!
There is no band.
This is all a tape recording. No hay banda and yet we hear a band.
If we want to hear a clarinet - listen.
They got this guy in Germany. Fritz something or other. Or maybe is Verner - anyway. He's
got this theory: you want to test something you know scientifically - how the planets
go around the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap, you
gotta look at it. But sometimes, you look at it, your looking changes it. You can't
know reality what happened or what would have happened if you hadn't stuck in your goddamn snoze
Excuse me miss, wonder if you could help me. Looking for somebody.
Problem is a night like this everybody's looking for somebody stranger.
It's not like that. The name is Nancy.
Eyes to the stage pilgrim, she's just warming up.
I took Gotham's white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn't hard, you
see madness as you know is like gravity, all it takes is a little push.
We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of everything that is film noir - it’s a
massive and important style made possible by compact lighting technology, faster film,
German Expressionism, a studio system’s appetite for low budget films, and the part
in each of us that loves a dark story. It’s all connected, every bit of it contributing
to the well of our shared past and understanding - so use it, let it inform your filmmaking
and go make something great. I’m John Hess and I’ll see you at FilmmakerIQ.com