Film Noir Paul Schrader Notes on Film Noir

Film Noir Paul Schrader, ‘Notes on Film Noir’ Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • New mood – cynicism, pessimism and darkenss – penetrated into the American cinema. • Hollywood film grew darker, charcters more corrupt and themes more fatalistic and the tone more hopeless. • First noticed by French film critics and continued to be identified – Noir film • Reflected the mood of the politics and the society in the 1940 s.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • ‘The Forties may be to the Seventies what the Thirties were to the Sixties. ’ • The end of WWII and the Vietnamese War. • Film noir is not a genre. It is not defined by conventions of setting and conflict. It is defined by tone and mood. • It is period specific – movies of the forties and early fifties portraying ‘the world of dark, slick city streets, crime and corruption. ’

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to A Touch of Evil (1958) • Most Hollywood films made between 1941 and 1953 contain some noir elements.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • Exactly because noir is not a genre, no matter how many noir elements are accumulated, they do not make a genre. Four conditions that brought about film noir • WAR AND POSTWAR DISILLUSIONMENT • Antagonism and viciousness to the American society. • POSTWAR REALISM • Greater realism of location shooting than elaborate sets of melodrama became more common.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • THE GERMAN INFLUENCE • ‘Paint it Black’ • Germanization of Hollywood by German expats • Expressionist films of the 20 s and 30 s. • Cinematographer John Alton • Realism and expressionism

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • THE HARD-BOILED TRADITION • Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain and Dashiell Hammett created ‘hard-boiled’ tough anti-heroes.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ STYLISTICS • ‘Most of scenes are lit for night. ’ • Oblique and vertical lines are emphasized – as in German Expressionist film

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • ‘The actors and setting are often given equal lighting emphasis. ’ • Composition is more important than action. Physical action is subordinated to frame composition.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • Attachment to water. Rainfall, noir streets wetted with fresh rain. Docks and piers are preferred settings. • Romantic narration: Robert Mitchum narrates his past in Out of the Past • Complex chronological order

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • THEMES • Raymong Durgnat’s 11 thematic categories • Overriding noir theme, which Durgnat misses – a passion for the past and present and a fear of the future. Three phases of film noir • The war-time period 1941 -46 with Double Indemnity as a bridge to the postwar period. The phase of the private eye and the lone wolf. More talk than action.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • The postwar realist period: 1945 – 1949. The problems fo crime in the streets, political corruption and police routine. Heroes less romantic. • The period of psychotic action and suicidal impulse: 1949 -53. Mentally tormented and neurotic protagonists and killers. • Cream of the film noir getting down to ‘the root causes of the period: the loss of public honor, heroic conventions, personal integrity, and … pyschic stability. ’

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • The end of film noir in the 50 s with A Touch of Evil as the epitaph. • The rise of Mc. Carthy and Eisenhower – few social criticism and more bourgeois life style. • The rise of television undercut the German vision • Colour photography – the final blow.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • Creative noir period – Film noir helped bring out the best in everyone. • Film directors made their best in film noir, started their career in film noir, and moved from other film to make film noir. • Cinematographers were allowed to be highly mannered. • Actors were sheltered by cinematographers.

‘Notes on Film Noir’ • • Critical neglect of film noir in USA Westerns are more American than noir. Film noir is inferior ‘B’ film Auteur theory tries to find the uniqueness of a director not similarity to other directors.

Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946) • Generally considered as a film noir classic. • ‘The Big Sleep is the best scripted, best directed, best acted, and least comprehensible film noir ever made. ’ Tim Robey, a film critic for Daily Telegraph • ‘… it is one of the great film noirs, a black-andwhite symphony’ Roger Ebert, a film critic for Chicago Sun Times

Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946) • No flashbacks or voice-over narration found in Double Indemnity. • No angst-ridden hero. • The German influence is absent. • No nightmare or no aminous shadows • Little expressionistic low-key lighting or distorted images. • Instead The Big Sleep is heavy with (witty) dialogue.

Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946) • No defeated anti-hero, but instead Marlow as a strong, smart and capable private eye. • No major femme fatale BUT • Live through unspeakable experiences, Bogart’s Marlow goes through transformation in character. More nervous and without confidence.

• since the whole idea of film noir was to live through unspeakable experiences and keep your cool, this was the right screenplay for this time in his life.