Spring 2011: Content available from 02/28 — 03/06.

GENRE: Film Noir

To answer many of these questions, you’ll need to refer to the supplement “Film Noir: Somewhere in the Night,” a chapter from another introductory film textbook. For some questions, you will need your required film textbook.

What is a genre?

Why do you think we return to see genre films over and over? What social value do they have (see end of chapter)?

Your textbook claims that “genres rely as much on variation as they do on repetition” (376). What does this mean?

What three elements typically make up a genre?

What is a subgenre? List at least three subgenres of the American film comedy.

What is a hybrid film?

FILM NOIR

Again, to answer the following questions, you will need the supplement on film noir from the textbook American Culture, American Cinema. A password (needed to open the file) was emailed to your school account.

A Brief Introduction

More than just literally “black film,” what is film noir?

Who discovered film noir? And when?

Why did this country notice these particular American films more than, say, Hollywood audiences?

Stylistically, what did these critics notice about the American films?

Where did plots from most film noir come from?

Classifying Film Noir

Is film noir a genre, a cycle, or a mode of filmmaking? Explain your answer.

If film noir is a genre, what conventions and iconography set it apart from other genres?

Why can film noir also be a series or a film movement?

If film noir is a mode of filmmaking, what emotional reaction does it produce?

How long does film noir last, according to critic Paul Schrader?

With which films does the era begin and end?

Film Noir: Style, Character, Themes

What does film noir look like aesthetically? How do Double Indemnity‘s mise-en-scene and cinematography support this?

What themes are prominent in noir? Where do you see these themes in Double Indemnity?

What kind of characters make up film noir? Under which character type may we place Phyllis? Walter?

Now, watch the first 8-10 minutes of the film noir Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945), and jot down their aesthetic style, the prominent themes, and the character types.

How does film noir differ from classical Hollywood filmmaking of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s? (You might find this trivia about Detour interesting…)

How did the Production Code affect film noir? Or did it?

What elements did film noir borrow from (popular) literature?

What is the role of women in film noir? What kinds of characters were they? What was their relationship like with their families, husbands, etc.?

How do this scene from Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) and Rita Hayworth’s performance match with your answer above?

How does this onscreen representation of women reflect what was happening in America at the time?

Any questions about film noir, direct them to Twitter with your course hashtag!