What is "Film Noir"
In this blog, I want to talk about what is film noir and how it influenced contemporary. "Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war,"(www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html) Film noir film use its unique techniques of light set up, shot angle to express stories about detective, crime, politics and so on. The most important thing people should learn in noir films is what techniques the filmmakers use for creating a dark, mysterious atmosphere."Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film."(filmsite.org)
Main techniques:
Chiaroscuro: "in art is characterized by strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition."(wikipedia.org)
Backlighting: "backlighting refers to the process of illuminating the subject from the back.(Low key: only one key light, a low light situation)
"The curious case of Benjamin Button"
The techniques about chiaroscuro and backlighting can be seen from some stills of this movie. The curious case of Benjamin Button" is not a noir film, but director uses a lot of film noir techniques to create atmosphere and mood which are similar to noir film. The conversation scene in Captain Mike Clark's boat is shot through chiaroscure light. In this scene, there is only one beam of light comes from window, so the light is boldly contrasting with the dark space. And it is good to see the only beam of light is on the bare belly of Captain Mike Clark, because this light makes captain a central character in this scene and it makes him the focus of this conversation.
There is a scene about a conversation between Benjamin Button and his flatmate. Benjamin sitting in front of a lamp. With this light setting, Benjamin's portrait is been illustrated from the back. That means the light source and the viewer are facing each other, with character's portrait in between, Viewer can only see the dark side of the subject, this kind picture can create a parting or sad farewell mood and atmosphere.
In this blog, I want to talk about what is film noir and how it influenced contemporary. "Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war,"(www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html) Film noir film use its unique techniques of light set up, shot angle to express stories about detective, crime, politics and so on. The most important thing people should learn in noir films is what techniques the filmmakers use for creating a dark, mysterious atmosphere."Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film."(filmsite.org)
Main techniques:
Chiaroscuro: "in art is characterized by strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition."(wikipedia.org)
Backlighting: "backlighting refers to the process of illuminating the subject from the back.(Low key: only one key light, a low light situation)
"The curious case of Benjamin Button"
The techniques about chiaroscuro and backlighting can be seen from some stills of this movie. The curious case of Benjamin Button" is not a noir film, but director uses a lot of film noir techniques to create atmosphere and mood which are similar to noir film. The conversation scene in Captain Mike Clark's boat is shot through chiaroscure light. In this scene, there is only one beam of light comes from window, so the light is boldly contrasting with the dark space. And it is good to see the only beam of light is on the bare belly of Captain Mike Clark, because this light makes captain a central character in this scene and it makes him the focus of this conversation.
There is a scene about a conversation between Benjamin Button and his flatmate. Benjamin sitting in front of a lamp. With this light setting, Benjamin's portrait is been illustrated from the back. That means the light source and the viewer are facing each other, with character's portrait in between, Viewer can only see the dark side of the subject, this kind picture can create a parting or sad farewell mood and atmosphere.
No comments:
Post a Comment