Film Genre As A Reflection Of Film And American Society

The 1946 film The Killers is a renowned film noir based off of Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same title, focusing on the detailed backstory and investigation for the motive of the murder of Pete Lund/Ole Anderson, commonly known and referred to as “The Swede.” A film noir is a term made originally to describe American mystery and thriller movies produced in the time period from 1944-1954, primarily marked by moods of menace, pessimism, and fatalism. Although the film does not focus on the war itself at all, it still puts forth interesting new ways in how gender relations can be stereotypical as well as divergent proceeding the Second World War.

The film industry has gone through many different eras and genres, but one of the most significant in all of the industry’s history was film noir. Film noir is not necessarily a type of genre but rather a tone that branched off from the crime/gangster sags of the 1930’s. It has certain elements such as crime, sex, greed, and violence that are supposed to represent the same type of evils found in society. As any noir film, Double Indemnity also contains a moral conflict at the base of its plot. Film noir is generally defined as a dark, suspenseful thriller with a plot-line revolving around crime or mystery. Film noir gained more recognition after World War II. Particularly because Hollywood thrillers were been watched in French cinemas. The idea of film noir

When discussing American culture, the influence and interplay of film cannot be understated. We are a nation consumed with the media. Today, the movie business is one of the highest grossing businesses there is. We hold movie stars up as though they are super human. We closely watch their style, their dating lives, their party habits, and even their favorite restaurants, among many other things. We rely on movies to lift us up, teach us about other cultures and time periods, and even to teach us about our own culture. Often, movies reflect the time period they are filmed in and directly reflect the social tensions of that time and the film noir genre is no different. One of the most famous film noir movies out there, The Maltese Falcon,

The 1970s is known for being the decade for changing the American values and culture and Hollywood played a major part in this change. It all began with president Nixon being elected in 1969. He ordered bombing in the neutral Cambodia, which he though would help end Vietnam war, but it did not. The 1970s were a very turbulent time due to the tragedy of Vietnam and the trauma caused by the Watergate Scandal. Due to this, People were losing faith in the government and many riots occurred during this time. While the People went through many changes in the 1970s, the Hollywood industry also went through many changes during this time.

Alexander Mackendrick’s, The Sweet Smell of Success (1957), is a ninety-six-minute film noir, that incorporates many techniques in cinematography to depict the dark and mysterious genre of film noir itself. This paper will go over the summary of the film, the concept of film noir, followed by a formal and social context of the film, that is the techniques in cinematography used to portray the essential theme of darkness or distrust in the genre of film noir – more specifically, the roles that women play in this particular film. Thus, Mackendrick’s The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) is a classic genre of film noir that uses extensive low-key lighting to portray a certain darkness in the world of film noir, and the darkness in each of the

Film noir, literally meaning ‘black film’, refers to 1940s style detective thriller films that are typically dark in both themes and visual style (Luhr 2004, pp. 93). Although Fargo explores gruesome crimes inspired by the “grim theme of desperation”, the film’s visual palette is oppressively white, both in terms of its bleak snow-covered landscape and its predominantly White-Christian, suburban Upper Midwestern setting (Luhr 2004, pp. 93). Moreover, Fargo challenges film noir conventions in its revelation of the crime’s culprits at the very beginning of a linear and straightforward plot (Bordwell

Film Noir, a term coined by the French to describe a style of film characterized by dark themes, storylines, and visuals, has been influencing cinematic industries since the 1940’s. With roots in German expressionistic films and Italian postwar documentaries, film noir has made its way into American film as well, particularly identified in mob and crime pictures. However, such settings are not exclusive to American film noir. One noteworthy example is Billy Wilder’s film Sunset Boulevard, which follows the foreboding tale of Joe Gillis, the desperate-for-success protagonist, who finds himself in the fatal grips of the disillusioned femme fatale Norma Desmond. Not only does the storyline’s heavy subject matter and typical character

Film noir is the perfect medium to reflect the bleak nihilism of post world war one in

The article also touches base with other critics and discusses the rise of criticism for noir film. The article also calls for a attention to the movement, that instead of having fixed gender roles in other film noir films, that change may occur and that with change a new type of noir may emerge.

Development and adaptation of the western genre has occurred throughout the twentieth century in relation to the shift in context, this is still relevant. Stereotypes of a western genre and the context are determined by the time in which the film is being produced. The time in which they were produced determine how social construction, gender ideas, values and attitudes, the setting and SWAT codes are demonstrated. I have chosen to present this speech by looking at the film studied in class, and a film of my choice and how the difference in context has changed in the tie of these two films.

After World War II, the American motion picture studios began releasing films shot in black and white, with a high contrast style known as Film Noir. Though the roots of this style of film was greatly influenced by the German Expressionist movement in film during the late 1910-early 1920’s, and films that resembled this style were made prior to the war, including the early films by Fritz Lang, a German director who fled Germany prior to the war to work in America, this film style would become prevalent during the post WWII era. Besides the shadowed lighting style and the psychologically expressive mise-en-scène, the film noir plot-lines often surrounded crime dramas and were greatly influenced by the pulp fiction novels of the period by authors like Dashiell Hammett and

The term “noir” was first used by French film critic Nino Frank in his response to the release of four crime thrillers – The Maltese Falcon, Murder, My Sweet, Double Indemnity, and Laura - in France after WWII (Spicer 2002, p.2). The label noir has since been retroactively applied to a number of films constructed between 1941 and 1959 sharing a darker photographic, artistic and thematic style, influenced by post-WWII disillusionment and realism, the influx of Germanic emigres in Hollywood, American hard-boiled and pulp fiction, and anxiety caused by the Communist scare and atomic age (Spicer 2002,

Early forms of creative filmmaking such as German Expressionism and Soviet montage theory are considered to have a rich definitive film history. These films are remembered as having distinguishable techniques, emphasis on images, rhythmic montage, heavy editing, shadows and mise-en-scene. By examining film history, complications with film archiving, theoretical perspectives and Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail. This essay will determine whether the most frequently viewed mode of filmmaking, Hollywood cinema, can be considered as having a definitive film history. Although there is a trend in films produced in 1917-1960, Blackmail being one example of a film with classic Hollywood Cinema elements. I disagree that Hollywood Cinema has a definitive

To fully comprehend why and how this cinematic motion took place, it is valuable here to establish the wider social climate of France at the time, and the active forces which heavily shaped New Wave cinema. Between the years of 1945 and 1975, France would undergo “thirty glorious years” of economic growth, urbanization, and a considerable baby boom, all of which came to expand and radically alter the parameters of French culture (Haine 33). Beneath the surface affluence however, France was in a state of deep self-evaluation and consciousness. Following WW11, the

By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.