Film noir is highly recognizable, known for its oblique angle shots, distorted light and shadow, and stories of criminal lust.
But its definition is very vague, is it a film genre, a film movement active in the 1940s and 1950s, or a unique atmosphere created by film?
Classic film noir The Maltese Eagle (1941)
In this article, we will not talk about the definition of film noir, but focus on its birth, follow the film "Double Compensation" made by director Billy Wilder in 1944, and see what film noir is and what it is about.
Double Indemnity
In the famous detective novelist Dahir Hammit's book The Maltese Eagle, the protagonist Sam Spade expounds his worldview with a fable story:
One day, Fret leaves the office for lunch, and when he happens to pass by a construction site, a pillar beam falls from the sky, smashing the sidewalk to pieces, and Fret is in danger, but the world in his eyes has changed.
Originally, he had lived a well-behaved life, but it was this day that he understood that the world was not obedient at all. I was able to live until now, all by luck. As a result, Fret abandoned the familiar life and gradually established a new life in a new city, changing his life.
The Maltese Eagle by Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart)
The story is very simple, but it precisely expounds the core idea of film noir, that there are no laws to follow in the world, that everything changes randomly.
"Good has good rewards, evil has evil rewards" does not work, if the situation does not go smoothly as imagined, even the most upright people will go astray.
A very interesting point is that between "Strangers on the Third Floor" in 1940 and "The Lady of the Past" in 1956, the filmmakers did not consider this kind of film to be film noir, and they defined these works as crime films.
Strangers on the Third Floor (1940) is considered the first film noir
The concept of film noir was born in 1946, first proposed by the French film critic Nino Frank, who published an article in the film magazine French Screen and titled the works a new type of crime adventure film.
Nino Frank's conclusion comes from his unique perspective.
Because in 1939, when the Nazis occupied France, Hollywood films were completely banned, and it was not until the summer of 1946 that American films re-entered France.
Frank, who had not been exposed to American cinema for years, found these new crime films very different from pre-war productions, such as The Maltese Eagle, The Secret History of Lola, Murder of a Lover, and Double Reparations.
Frank wrote in the article that these films have three points of focus, one is the complete rejection of humanitarianism, the second is the wonderful experience in real life, and the third is the dynamic beauty of violent death.
Film noir is often extremely pessimistic and full of disgust for human nature, and they invite the audience into the inner world of criminals, constituting an adventure with life at stake.
"Double Compensation" is the work that best represents film noir.
The film tells a dark and twisted story, in which the characters succumb to the most primitive desires, and the audience is not only witnessing a crime, but also experiencing the perspective and state of mind of the criminal, experiencing that their conscience is corroded little by little.
In this way, the audience will gradually realize that even the most trivial things can lead a person to a road of no return intertwined with murder and death.
Comparing Double Reparations to any crime film made in the 1930s, the visual and atmospheric contrast is palpable.
But how did Hollywood's brisk crime films of the 1930s and 1940s turn into heavy film noir?
The main reason for the emergence of film noir is the turbulent era background when these films were made.
At that time, Europe and the United States were still in World War II, and as more women entered the workplace, the concept of traditional family was impacted. At the same time, financial markets have not fully recovered from the Great Depression, and the world around them seems to be getting darker and darker.
Women working in factories during World War II
Film noir illustrates these anxieties, with fear that life will become uncontrollable, that women will manipulate men in turn, and that they will even become the target of persecution in the machinations of power.
These fears are vividly presented in film noir, from dark pictures, to twists and turns, to simple and sharp dialogue.
The emergence of new styles was not a whim, and it was European film directors who immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi oppression, such as Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, and Billy Wilder, who brought film noir to Hollywood.
Billy Wilder's masterpieces: Sunset Strip, Prosecution Witness, Passion on Fire
Film noir is a fusion of two distinct European genres, one is Italian neorealism.
This genre pays attention to the real-life shooting, as well as the meaning of each shot, placing the story in a real place, so as to deepen the sense of realism of the film, allowing the audience to gaze at the sad reality, and film noir inherits the pessimism of such films.
Italian Neorealist Masterpiece "The Bicycle Thief" (1948)
But the most profound influence on film noir was German Expressionism, which used distorted light and set to emphasize the psychological state of the characters.
These two genres gradually merged in the 1930s, giving rise to classic works such as "M is the Murderer".
Fritz Lang's masterpiece "M is the Murderer"
But it wasn't until the late 1930s that these works sparked a brilliant spark, and the unique visual style of film noir was born, and the story seemed to take place in the real world, but the scene was so distorted that it echoed the crimes inside.
The real world and the psychedelic world are intertwined to form a unique world style, and the stories told in these works have other sources, mostly from early tough guy mystery novels, especially the magazine Black Mask.
Black Mask
Black Mask was a well-known crime fiction magazine of the time, from which authors such as Dahir Hammet mentioned above, as well as Chandler, began by leading readers into urban fantasies full of killing and lust, immersing themselves in real and rough street literature.
In 1936, a novel called Double Reparations began serialization. Eight years later, it was remade by Billy Wilder and became a masterpiece of film noir.
The protagonist of Double Reparation is Walter, a self-proclaimed and well-informed insurance salesman who thinks he can achieve a perfect murder, but is seduced by Phyllis, the wife of a husband, and betrayed by a dedicated investigator who stirs up the conspiracy between the two.
These three main lines are intertwined to produce almost all the classic bridges of film noir.
Phyllis and Walter, who are plotting to kill Philip's husband, are trying to defraud him of a huge insurance payment
The film begins with an early morning road chase scene in Los Angeles, making the story seem very real. Meanwhile, Walter's fate of fleeing alone mirrors his loneliness and helplessness after his crime.
However, once the audience follows the character into the insurance company in the film, they can feel the expressionist-style set, the room is dim, the lights are dim, and the exaggerated low-angle shot indicates that the protagonist is about to fall into evil.
Interior of the insurance company
Camera angles and lighting are crucial to film noir, creating a world of secrets and lies, crises and truths.
Light and Shadow also reveal which characters are in a desperate situation, and where some of them will be destroyed, which is the core of "Double Compensation", the protagonist is lured from the light into the shadows, from the heroine Phyllis's bright apartment, and gradually into the dark abyss.
When Walter's morality was completely lost, he entered his office, and the shadow hung over him, as if at the end of the journey, and the darkness in his heart broke free from the shackles of his body and acted recklessly in the human world.
In the same way, the camera angle can show the power relations of the characters, and the scene where Walter and Phyllis meet for the first time clearly shows who has the upper hand.
When we first met, look up at Walter in Phyllis
Billy Wilder used a variety of aesthetic techniques from textbooks to condense this film noir classic.
The atmosphere of the depressed room is full of loneliness and betrayal, and the characters in the film have nowhere to escape. This feast of lust, greed and cynicism is vivid in every frame.
In addition to vision, the philosophy of film noir also appears elsewhere.
For example, in terms of character design, Walter is an atypical hero in a difficult situation, he is not malicious, but he is easy to go astray.
Walter
One of the main points of film noir is to arouse the audience's sympathy for the character, where the fear is that the character is degenerating.
Phyllis is a typical snake and scorpion beauty, she uses beauty to corrupt men, subvert the traditional power relations between the sexes, and disguise herself as a victim. Eventually, she reveals the claws of a snake and scorpion beauty, using sex as bait to dominate men.
Phyllis
Although Walter and Phyllis are both criminals, the ruthless and unrighteous latter is the biggest villain of the film, and Walter is the tragic hero who is unfortunately murdered. This fear of women, of manipulating men, is hidden in every film noir.
The allegory of a woman causing a man to fall has existed since ancient times, but the snake and scorpion beauty, the creative matrix, was unprecedentedly popular in the 1940s.
In reality, men who have retired from the army have found that the original social roles of women have undergone earth-shaking changes, and many women have entered the workplace for the first time and have unprecedented rights and freedoms.
The creation of the scorpion beauty in the 1940s was based on the deep uneasiness of male veterans. Therefore, snake and scorpion beauties are different from women under the traditional definition, who are often husbandless and childless, and dare to fight for everything they want.
Scorpion beauty Phyllis
One of the details of the film that distinguishes it from the novel is the use of backtracking, which shows the ultimate fate of the protagonist from the beginning:
"I killed him for money and also for women, and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. I found that I gradually lost my own footsteps, was that the footsteps of a dead man? —Walter
Every scene after the movie is a preview of the ending, there is no suspense, and the characters seem to be trapped animals in the story.
Beginning of Double Indemnity
The fatalism in "Double Reparations" is to deny the characters the right to choose their fate, they are bound by fate, and once they step into the wrong path of greed, they are doomed to the abyss of despair.
Although the character thinks that the plan is perfect and everything is under control, the reality is that the plan can never catch up with the change.
Just as the article begins with the mention of Fret's life-changing fallen pillars, Walter and Phyllis's fate is turned upside down, and once they embark on the road to crime, their fate is out of their control.
This is one of the common themes of film noir, which focuses on feelings of powerlessness and control, on the helplessness of being trapped by circumstances, and on exposing the chaotic and contingencious nature of the world around them.
Anyone can be tempted by greed, and greed will eventually lead people out of normal society. People who succumb to the joy of the moment ultimately pay the price. Thus, film noir erases the whitewash of life and shows hidden social sinisters.
"Double Compensation" almost perfectly interprets what film noir is, whether it is picture, music, or structure, the alienation, loneliness, and despair it expresses reflect the separation of the post-war generation from the new society, and they meet the falling pillars and beams, thus seeing the absurdity of life.
All this is the deepest connotation of film noir.