The Usual Suspects

In my analysis I will be looking at a scene near the end of the film where Bud White and Ed Exeley take part in a shootout at the victory motel. The narrative conveys very common noir aspects here; the shootout takes place in a very dark room. The only light comes from outside. This shows the mood of the scene to be sinister and bleak. It puts the audience in a scared state as the shadows can conceal anything. It is also hard to see what White and Exeley are doing. The shadows are very menacing because they use a chiaroscuro lighting effect. This means that the rooms, people and settings are hidden from view by shadows. The blinds over the window cast strong grid shadowing over the characters showing uncertainty and anxiety. This lighting is very common in film-noir films as it shows the seediness of the settings. The

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.

     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.

In Double Indemnity, lighting plays a key role in visual design. Throughout the film there seems to be and absence of light when something secretive is going on. It is night time (or dark outside) when Walter begins to confess his actions, when Phyllis and Walter continue to meet, and when murders take place. This aids in presenting the dark and mysterious actions of the characters and adds a sense of danger. Shadows, also a play on lighting, seem to follow Walter throughout the entire film. This may represent the idea that something menacing is following Walter, possibly a foreshadowing of the confessions that are soon to be revealed. The shadows are typically obvious and over exaggerated, giving the scenes more of an uneasy feel. There is also a significant shift in lighting when Walter first meets Phyllis. The day goes from bright and sunny to dark and rainy. This is also a foreshadow of what's to come. Walter will be stepping out of the light and into Phyllis’ darkness.

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.

Lighting as we know, creates the atmosphere for the setting, it establishes the overall tone for what the audience sees. Lighting is key in filming, as it can change tones from scene to scene to create a certain subliminal meaning. For instance the contrasting light from character to character to allow the viewer to understand the differences. Throughout the movie “The Dark Knight” we are able to see how the lighting allows for the directors subliminal meaning to seek through; darkness within. As the name of the movie suggests “Dark Knight” the movies overall tone is set in the darkness. This dark atmosphere allows for an eerie feeling, tension to build up and an anxiety feeling for the viewer. To understand the underlining meaning behind the lighting choices within the film, it 'll be shown by the protagonist, antagonist and the overall atmosphere within the movie.

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 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.

Films throughout American history have focused on such a wide array of topics – a lot of them having to do with the time period in which they were produced. Some of these topics appear all throughout the history of film, one of them being crime. No matter where you go or where you look, whether it be in a certain place or a certain time period, you can’t escape crime; it’s always there – which is why I think crime is such a popular topic in American films. One of the most popular crime films in America is Bonnie and Clyde – a 1967 film, set during the Great Depression, about a woman who leaves home with a man whom she just met and soon falls in love with to rob banks. However, this movie has a bit of a twist: Bonnie and Clyde, the criminal couple, are portrayed throughout the movie as heroes – the audience is actually sort of invited to root for them to not get caught by the laws and to escape. This unusual crime film illustrates a liberal perspective by portraying Bonnie and Clyde, the criminals, as the heroes and the cops, as well as the banks, as the antagonists. The uniqueness of this film kind of shows how America in the 1960s felt about crime and how the cops and the banks are a part of a failing system in society at the time.

Most of the actors are wearing darker clothing as well which makes their faces stand out even more. This lighting style also adds to the tension and the mystery of the scene. It makes the audience on edge. The contrast filled lighting of film noir is also effective at bringing out the extremes of emotions and thought. The darkness of the genre makes anything that goes wrong seem less taboo, because the lighting of the genre sets up the norms for the world that the film lives in—and in that world, bad things happen. The lighting of the film helps the audience understand the world that the characters are in.

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.

Lighting was a key cinematic technique that Well's used to project a character's persona in the film. He used shadows to hide or mask the faces of the seemingly corrupt characters, like the reporters who are trying to find the meaning of rosebud. He also used backlighting, when light is cast onto the characters from the opposite side of the camera, to create silhouette's .Single source lighting was another technique used to focus the viewers attention on a important prop or action that was taking place. For example, when the reporter is allowed to see the book of Kane there is one window through which all it's light is focused on the book emphasizing its importance.

In the 2005 neo-noir film Hostage, directed by Florent Emilio Siri, Chief of police Jeff Dailey helps negotiate with three hostage keepers to save his own family and two kids. The thrill-seeking, crime plot is executed very intelligently and you can't often infer what will happen next. The darkness of the lighting, darkness of humanity, darkness of the setting, visual motifs and archetypes are all elements of this film that shape it into a neo-noir style. All of these different elements illustrate a neo-noir style film and help us better understand the plot.

There is a similar use of the lack of lighting in Unforgiven. Upon receiving the news that Ned, William Munny’s best friend, was beaten to death by Little Bill, the sheriff in Big Whiskey, for the murder that Munny and the kid committed, Munny decides to take “justice” into his own hands. As it rains cats and dogs in the dark night, Munny, having sent off the kid with the money, walks into town straight into the whorehouse, where Little Bill is discussing a plan of catching the murderers (Munny and the kid). The whorehouse is also very dimly lit, allowing Munny to go unnoticed until he finally he cocks his gun and prepares to kill every deputy, the owner of the whorehouse, and ultimately Little Bill. Before Munny kills Little Bill, Little Bill tells him that he doesn’t deserve to die like this, to which Munny replies, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” As Munny stands over Little Bill, he’s filmed at a low angle, showing how dominating and powerful he is as he towers over the high angle shot of the powerless Little Bill. Seeing that he’s not going to come out of this encounter alive, Little Bill’s last words are “See you in hell.” This encounter is an interesting one because it shows that justice isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. Little Bill thought he was doing the just and correct thing by restricting the possession of firearms in his town to maintain order, making the two men who cut up the whore pay compensation, and killing Ned

The lighting in "The Godfather," is very dim and is often said to be compared with a Rembrant. The lighting suggest many things throughout the film like a painting. The light scenes in the movie are to portray the Corleone family as good people, someone you could relate to not look down upon.