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
