Week #3 - Jackie Gonzalez - Film Wow!

Film Noir began in the 1920s and ran through the late 1950s; its name translates to "black" or "dark" film in French. The genre was obsessed with creating stories about gangsters, private investigators, screenwriters, crime, and Femme Fatales, while the point is to make the audience question their own morality. Film Noir’s mise-en-scène for lighting followed a certain visual design; chiaroscuro lighting treatments, shadows, heavy use of smoke or mist, gobos, cookies/kooks, and eye lights were used in ways to capture as well as emphasize the mystery and drama within these films. The era of film noir was a great era for lighting design compared to other later eras which do not pay as close attention to it. Furthermore, German Expressionism served as a form of inspiration for camera angles and aesthetics, this also explains why the dutch angle, derived from Deutch, is used often in Film Noir, especially during intense scenes.

Here in this image captured from the film In a Lonely Place, directed by Nicholas Ray, we can see a variety of shadows being cast on the faces of the actors in the shot. There seems to be a brighter beam of light coming from the actors' left-hand side, illuminating Gloria Grahame's face with a chiaroscuro effect, making her look smooth and emphasizing her to-the-point, stern expression. In contrast, the shadows on Humphrey Bogart's face emphasize the lines, indents, and eye sockets that make him look worrisome, not to mention, his arm is desperately wrapped around her shoulder as if he is asking her not to leave him even after she has made up her mind. Although there is a large bright spot in the background, these two characters remain the focal point of this shot due to the various shadows that add darkness to make them pop. 

Just below is a still image captured from the ending of the film, The Big Combo directed by Joseph H. Lewis back in 1955. The two main characters are at an airport; there is heavy fog or smoke that perfect their silhouettes and make the feeling of mystery prominent. Moreover, the smoke makes this a place as busy as an airport look abandoned or quiet. 

As stated in the opening paragraph, Film Noir called for dramatic visual effects, more specifically, the lines of blinds projecting onto a character's face as they contemplate or spy on someone as seen in the picture below were the main texture that was used. In order to create those crisp shadows and textures, designers used gobos, a small textured frame that slides into the camera, or cookies/kooks which are large, flat sheets with cut out shapes that are held in front of a light source in order to create a texture. I found it quite funny that cookies/kooks closely resemble a theatrical lighting gobo more than a film gobo does, but it is called a cookie or kook instead. 

Although the original era of Film Noir is gone, there is a subgenre called Neo-Noir, or new noir, that includes fairly new films like Chinatown, Blade Runner 2049, and Sin City that follow Film Noir's storytelling, character types, and or visuals. So, the aesthetic and mise-en-scène of Film Noir may not be completely gone as shown here in a still shot from Blade Runner 2049, where there is a heavy mist or fog that helps create a crisp silhouette of Ryan Gosling's character as well as the larger shapes around him which is similar to what we saw in the still image of The Big Combo just above.

Lastly, here are some photos that I took that I feel resemble what I mentioned in this blog post. The first being a strong black and white photo of some hydrangeas packed tightly together in the gardening section of a Home Depot in Sylmar, California. The rooftop of the gardening center looks that a green-house with its supportive beams holding up transparent panels. There is a strong light source coming from the top and the beams as well as hanging flower baskets create strong shadows on top of the hydrangeas. The one's that are of darker colors like green and magenta has a vignette-like design on the petals while the white hydrangea's steer away from darkness and balance the amount of shadow in the photo. I also wanted to add this photo of Downtown Los Angeles since Film Noir movies usually have a metropolitan setting and I wanted to pay homage to that. It is striking how the streets are very illuminated while the buildings act as shutters and cut the light off at perfect ninety-degree angles or straight lines.