Sunset Boulevard, directed by Billy Wilder

The setting of film noir is usually quite cheap. This is used effectively to actually show the dark tacky parts of society where film-noir usually takes place. There is not a lot of light in these films and they are often set on location. A seedy underworld is often present in film-noir movies, where all the bad or undesirable parts of society are exposed. Things like drugs, alcohol, murder and corruption.

Film noir is a famous era of filmmaking that defined the cinematic experience in Hollywood for a whole decade. No film can correctly represent such a influential cinematic era like Gun Crazy directed by Joseph H. Lewis. Gun Crazy is a unique expression of film noir of the 1950s that utilizes many cinematic elements in unparalleled ways to tell its story in a distinct fashion. Lewis uses cinematic techniques such as lighting, composition, editing, music, and mise-en-scene of the opening sequence to establish the tone and character motivations of the story.

After this, the shot pans along the road, and turns into a shot of police cars storming down the street. The fact that the street name, which serves as an embodiment of Norma and all associated with her, is so low to the ground emphasizes that the images of grandeur often associated with Hollywood are a facade, and that the true Hollywood is dark and grim, like a dirty street curb. The street pictured is dirty and unkempt, with weeds peeking out the cracks and piles of loose garbage and leaves strewn all over. This image serves as a stark contrast to the typical impressions people have of Hollywood, and reinforces that the true Hollywood is not the one seen so often on the big screen. Rather than opening with a scene showing off Hollywood’s magnificence, Wilder exposes to the audience what the “real” Hollywood is: a degenerate place full of misery and squalor. Moreover, opening scenes tend to set the tone of the movie, and leave lasting impressions the audience that carry through the entirety of watching. By showcasing the dark side of Hollywood before anything else, Wilder asserts that it is this dark, twisted version of the city that truly defines its inhabitants. In addition to pan shots, Wilder also incorporates music in the opening scene, which further adds to the dark image being relayed about Hollywood. The score is borderline cacophony, trademarked by sharp bursts of drums and trumpet that build suspense and

     Films that are classified as being in the film noir genre all share some basic characteristics. There is generally a voice-over throughout the film in order to guide the audience's perceptions. These movies also involve a crime and a detective who is trying to figure out the truth in the situation. This detective usually encounters a femme fatale who seduces him. However, the most distinctive feature of the film noir genre is the abundance of darkness.

The film Sunset Boulevard (1950), directed by Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond exemplified a Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) by being demanding, intense and unstable. These behaviors that are consistent with the elements of abnormality include suffering, social discomfort, dangerousness, and irrationality and unpredictability. The first element that is consistent with Norma Desmond’s character is suffering. Desmond being one of the greatest movie stars in history suffers as she experiences the fall from stardom. She also suffers from identity disturbance as she reaches an unstable self-image notion. In one scene when Desmond recognizes for a moment about her age, she claims, “Look at me. Look at my hands, look at my face, look under my

Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) explores the intermingling of public and private realms, puncturing the illusion of the former and unveiling the grim and often disturbing reality of the latter. By delving into the personal delusions of its characters and showing the devastation caused by disrupting those fantasies, the film provides not only a commentary on the industry of which it is a product but also a shared anxiety about the corrupting influence of external perception. Narrated by a dead man, centering on a recluse tortured by her own former stardom, and concerning a once-promising director who refuses to believe his greatest star could ever be forgotten, the work dissects a multitude of illusory folds to reveal an ultimately

Film Noir was extremely trendy during the 1940’s. People were captivated by the way it expresses a mood of disillusionment and indistinctness between good and evil. Film Noir have key elements; crime, mystery, an anti-hero, femme fatale, and chiaroscuro lighting and camera angles. The Maltese Falcon is an example of film noir because of the usage of camera angles, lighting and ominous settings, as well as sinister characters as Samuel Spade, the anti-hero on a quest for meaning, who encounters the death of his partner but does not show any signs of remorse but instead for his greed for riches.

Besides being at the brink of madness caused by her self-denial of the passing of her fame, Norma Desmond had also become rather sexual-transgressive. Some male traits shown in Norma consist of her dominance - she demands over Max, financial independence - owns factories which constantly makes profits and her assertive nature - she fearlessly confronts her passion for Joe. The way Norma is ridiculously insane to a degree of dark humour brings sympathy, entertainment and a corrupted depiction of celebrity to audiences.

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

“We all go a little mad sometimes,” and that could possibly be exactly how many feel after watching Psycho, released in 1960, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock took a different route in terms of plot and structure for the typical Hollywood style. Psycho, like a young child never stops asking questions, it leaves us in a state of doubt and unbelief. It is classic horror, with the numerous jump scares leaving us at the edge of our seat, as every moment passes. Yet in the beginning, it 's seems to portray a rather classic form in a sense, a near-Aristotelian story. A woman who appears to be the main character in love, who is then faced with a problem, not enough money to marry her love, who then steals money to help build a future

Film Noir was a result of it's time - The war had just ended and It was time where prohibition had influenced an abundance in crime and corruption. Film noir serves to highlight the darkest aspects of human beings. ‘Society is making the machinery of it's own destruction.

While classic film noir is characterized by high compositional tension, or low lit black and white cinematography, Polanski managed to infuse Chinatown with that sense of corruption and nihilism so prevalent in noir in bright Southern California despite employing a photographic element previously thought antithetical to film noir style: color film stock. The dominant colors of Chinatown are brown, gray, and black, which can be seen as an indication of the film’s allusion to the noir tradition of black-and-white. The various hues of brown and gold can be seen throughout the film, from clothing to homes

Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye and Roman Polanski’s Chinatown are both good examples of neo-noir. They both carry elements of classical film noir with them, such as the “hard boiled detective” archetype, the “femme fatale” archetype, and they both deal with the gritty side of human nature. But while they both have some overlapping noir tropes that can be seen in classical noirs, these films are actually incredibly different from one another. They both act as examples for John Cawelti’s Modes of Generic Transformation. They both share one mode, but then have different modes in addition, making them noir-like in essence, but still incredibly different films.

Although, I don’t get to watch movies often, especially the movies between late 1800s and early 1900’s, the movie Way Down East by D.W. Griffith was a movie I truly enjoyed. This is one of the silent movies that doesn’t only serves the purpose of entertainment, but teaches various lessons by various points. More importantly, this movie emphasized the value of the women, even the main character of the movie is a woman name Anna.

Film Noir as a genre is set in a specific period of time. It is also a genre that is considered to be related to a specific society - that of America from 1940-1958. Film Noir as a genre is a term that French critic Nino Frank coined to describe the new “film movement” emerging from Hollywood in the 1940’s, which appeared to be black and white, crime and detective films. But these two prominent characteristics do not form the genre alone. Stylistic film features such as mood, style and tone are very eminent in Film Noir however it was not always considered as a film genre, but this is what makes the film genre so distinctive. Film Noir was a “new movement” or cycle of films as it consisted of expressionistic lighting techniques such as low