Film noir

Film Noir

The term Film Noir is a French word meaning black film. It is associated with a low-key black and white visual style. It is term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime and sexual movements. It began in the 1940's and extended in the early 1950's. It is an American-based genre.


The film Noir frame on the left shows us a silhouette of someone holding a gun. The use of making the character a silhouette suggests he/she wants to hide their identity, leaving the audience in suspense. In addition, in the bottom right corner of the frame, you can see a bright light on the characters hand, known as low-key lighting, which instantly tells us the character is a woman as she's wearing bracelets. This is quite ironic as women aren't supposed to be the ones killing people, however within this frame the woman is seen holding a killing object (gun). Moreover, in the background there isn't much lighting used as well as it being very empty, which puts all the focus on the main protagonist. Furthermore, the gun seems as if it is being pointed at the audience which makes out as if the character wants to kill the, causing them to be more intrigued as they'll feel as if they're in the movie.

In the film clip, we could see the audience seeing a woman running towards a man in a suit, helplessly, making the man seem quite heroic. In particular, based upon the low-key lighting we assume that something bad has happened or is happening, as the parallel music (jazz instrumental) heightens, we also see the woman and man running into an apartment. as the music gets climatic the back light on the characters build up making it all more mysterious.  we see  silhouettes more than we do faces and this creates a sense of secrecy or tension.

The effect on the reader is quite strong as the non-diegetic yet climatic parallel music heightens hows thrilling the effect of the lighting appears upon the characters. A majority of back lighting was used upon the Mafia members in the apartment, along with under lighting on top of the prime gangster figure- this made him appear my intimidating, thrilling and suspicious. The continuous sound bridge smoothly enhances the idea of tense and thrill holding back throughout.