Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Film Noir and Neo-Noir

-=shikamaru=- · 07-09-2004, 05:05 PM

Dark City? Eh....

Well, one thing that shaped the genre (or movement, if you don't consider it a genre) was the idea of the B-movie. Movies made in the 40s and such were much different than the movies today. Since you walked into the movie theatre whenever you showed up, movies were shown in double features. There was the A movie, then newsreel and trailers, then the B movie. The whole point of the B movie was that you would walk into that first, watch that from the middle or wherever you were, then watch the entire A movie, properly, then watch the B movie up to the point where you walked in (or not watch the movie at all).

Whats the point? First, B-movies were cheaply made. No B-movie had a hollywood budget. So directors had to work with little lighting, cutting costs, and so on. This actually led to the necessity of the number of shadows you see in noir. Also, the philosophy of the movie was radically different in the B-Movie. Since people walked into the middle of it, things such as setting, characters, and so on had to remain fairly constant, and the world at the end of the movie can't be too different from the beggining. This lead to Noir attitude.

Holy shit this class teached me a lot. But after all that gibberish the thing to distinguish between noir and neo-noir is that neo-noir is not a B-movie: it is not bound by the limitations of the B-movie like old noir was. That's probably why so much of the old noir has some cliches that had to be done, just because it was a B-rated movie.

But whatever. I'll be seeing "Big Sleep" next Wednesday. Looking foward to it

07-09-2004, 05:05 PM	#7 (permalink)
-=shikamaru=- Crazy	Dark City? Eh.... Well, one thing that shaped the genre (or movement, if you don't consider it a genre) was the idea of the B-movie. Movies made in the 40s and such were much different than the movies today. Since you walked into the movie theatre whenever you showed up, movies were shown in double features. There was the A movie, then newsreel and trailers, then the B movie. The whole point of the B movie was that you would walk into that first, watch that from the middle or wherever you were, then watch the entire A movie, properly, then watch the B movie up to the point where you walked in (or not watch the movie at all). Whats the point? First, B-movies were cheaply made. No B-movie had a hollywood budget. So directors had to work with little lighting, cutting costs, and so on. This actually led to the necessity of the number of shadows you see in noir. Also, the philosophy of the movie was radically different in the B-Movie. Since people walked into the middle of it, things such as setting, characters, and so on had to remain fairly constant, and the world at the end of the movie can't be too different from the beggining. This lead to Noir attitude. Holy shit this class teached me a lot. But after all that gibberish the thing to distinguish between noir and neo-noir is that neo-noir is not a B-movie: it is not bound by the limitations of the B-movie like old noir was. That's probably why so much of the old noir has some cliches that had to be done, just because it was a B-rated movie. But whatever. I'll be seeing "Big Sleep" next Wednesday. Looking foward to it __________________ DINANZI A ME NON FUOR COSE CREATE SE NON ETTERNE, E IO ETTERNA DURO. LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VIO CH'INTRATE'.