Film noir was created by French film critics, Nino Frank in 1946, who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crimes and detective films released in France to theatres following the war.
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Film noir films, mostly shot in gloomy grey, blacks and whites, thematically showed the dark and cruel side of human nature with doomed love, and they emphasised the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience. An oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism, anxiety, suspicion that anything can go wrong, dirty realism, futility, defeat and entrapment were stylised characteristics of film noir.
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Film noirs films were marked visually by expressionistic lighting, deep-focus or depth of camera work, disorienting visual schemes, gloomy shadows, skewed camera angles, circling cigarette smoke and unbalanced or moody compositions, called Chiaroscuro. Usually settings often use low-key lighting, dark, claustrophobic appearance.
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In different scenes, film noir can use either: High-key lighting or Low-Key lighting. High-Key lighting is when there a more filer lights and the shadows are more realistic, where Low-Key lighting is when it shows strong contrasts of light and creates dramatic shadows. However, the main lighting used is mainly Low-Key lighting to create the gloomy suspicion in the scene.
2) In this scene, film noir, consists of filler light being used as you can see the shadow of the man on the women and there is a shadow on the right side of his face, Low-Key lighting as it has created dark, dramatic shadows, which could connote he is being dominated by the women’s smoke as she blows into his face. By a women smoking connote femmes’ fatales, which is when the character is mysterious and unloving and the man is allowing the women to blow in his face as his facial expression is straight.
The clothing of both characters is: the man is wearing a suit to how high classed he is or it could be his usual look because in the 1950s people dressed in suits for their everyday life. The women however is wearing a very revealing dress to connote a side of her personality which is quite dominating and mysterious but with long formal gloves, which questions the reader on what type of person she is, because the long formal gloves connotes an elegant side to her. Her facial expressions are not clear because of the shadow because the light is hitting her face directly, creating a large dark shadow on her lower face.
The man who wasn't there (2OO1), use film noir, as you can see when he wakes up there is Low-Key lighting with top lighting which allows the audience to see the facial expression of the protagonist. From then you can see he is in peace but as the three other men wake him up there is back lighting and also key light because you can see the facial expressions of the pope but you can vividly see the guard’s facial expressions due to the back lighting. Throughout the scene, there is a large amount of usage of top lighting which connotes they want the audience to see the protagonists facial expressions and the surrounding but when there are certain parts where the light is not there, it could connote his mixture of feelings but he keeps a constant facial expression throughout which is questionable for the audience, whether or not the lighting is reflecting his feelings or the people around him.
His clothing is what they wear in prison, which connotes the setting and the type of person he is, but the lighting and his voice over says differently. Therefore, all these techniques used allow every individual to have their own opinion on the character.
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