Historical Insights - Essay Example

What historical insights can industry materials (for example, marketing trailers or posters etc) provide in relation to film noir? Introduction Hollywood was a subject of serious study especially in the black and white era. From the 1930 to 1950s, all the main genres had been established and film noir was one of them. In due course of time, film noir was considered extinct sometime after 1958 but subsequent movies have brought in the genre either in whole or in parts. As most critics suggest, film noir is not strictly an American phenomenon and also need not always have been shot in black and white. But the basic elements of noir which sets it apart from the rest of the crime movies in Hollywood are intact. We take a quick peek into how the genre has survived the dual dominance of changing face of Hollywood and commercialization to ensure it holds its place, in spite of not being considered as a genre by many critics. Key Elements In Film noir Often classified as the art of making black films, film noir has crime trapped in black and white. There are no shades of gray in the story telling or the narrative. Every word uttered by the protagonists are filmed and shown to the viewer. And the most important part of the genre is creating that psychological shroud that propels the viewer in the audience to experience thrill, crime, and goriness coupled with a pessimistic view of the life of a fear stricken man. With fear of God replaced by fear of crime, film noir has always exploited the psychological tension that it builds up in its audiences (Conard & Porfirio, 2007, p.122). In film noir, it is all about using a set of standardized techniques to create an atmosphere of suspense and thrill. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the thriller movies in Hollywood under the crime and action genres, which rely on showing the activity of crime (like an explosion) happen, than concentrate on building up psychological tension through motion picture of scenes related to the crime (like ticking of the time bomb). This genre evidently has a good amount of impact in engaging the audience and is a challenge for directors to achieve while filming the story. Let us take for example, the case of this film from the mid-nineties, “The Usual Suspects”. It is a story of five people who are held as suspects in a series of crimes. While the detective is busy trying to find the real criminal, which ultimately happens over the loud twist in the end, each of the five subjects offer elaborate and often untrue flashbacks to their gory pasts during the interrogation, only to mislead the officers. Why they do so is a story that reveals itself slowly, but what we look for in this film is how different marketing evidences proved towards making the film a success in neo-noir, the resurrected version of film noir. To start from the very basics, we have to run a quick check on the basic elements of film noir that have been used again and again in promoting movies of the genre. The Black Code : A touch of black in the screen is what marks film noir from average crime and action movies. Since Hollywood turned into full scale color printing by the end of the fifties, film noir was considered an art that had to be laid to rest. However, color motion pictures soon saw a revival of the black touch that kept appearing in all the scenes of neo-noir movies, just like the background score or song keeps repeating itself all throughout a film. Interplay Of Light And Dark - Eyes Highlighted : Whether it is on the promotional posters or the individual scenes, a lot of the director’s work would be to use face close-ups and highlight the fear and suspense factor in the eyes of the protagonists. This is enhanced through suitable lighting, preferably white light, something that contrasts with the dark background very well. All film noir posters released prior to a movie have this element. The highlight is on the eye expression of the artistes photographed, one that showcases anger, doubt, fear, and anxiety. Moving Or Fixed Shadows : Shadows are mainly considered a part of grey cinema, but they have always been used to the benefit of the noir director. He uses them in the background of the people standing, just to add to the feel of doom that is looming large over every character in the film. Flashback And Zooming Sequences : Noir movies are great flashback tellers. This is more so since the flashbacks are often incorporated in the main storyline in bits and pieces and add to the grimness of the present in the movie. Promise of Thriller Action : Evidently, all the posters and trailers of the movies are packed with promise of a lot of action and psychological thrills for the viewer. The black code immortalizes each scene while key elements like clock ticking or a half burnt cigarette burning by itself keep the audiences imagining about the worst in crime and thrill. In short, these elements are used to build up the tension, even before the actual scenes of crime or the movie is in front of the viewer. The Flash Element And Angled Camera: The way close-ups of people’s faces and eyes are served in rash flashes in between the narrative, the element of psychological thrill gets aggravated when used in combination with music and camera zoom. This magic is typical to film noir and more or less translates into neo-noir in the same form. What Was Expected From The Usual Suspects? In our study of the promotional evidences of the 1995 thriller, we begin with what was actually expected from the film makers. As was the practice in those days, a lot of thrill got translated into action and neatly acted out crime scenes (Martin, 2000, p.121). So, The Usual Suspects was expected to be a thriller that catered to commercial interests of the producers like the rest of the commercial thrillers of that time did. However, the grit of the director, Bryan Singer, who had decided it was time to give Hollywood audiences and out and out noir movie. Singer was reported saying that his film was Double Indemnity meets Rashomon, two epic film noirs from respective cultures that scored high in the box-office charts only because of their noir elements. Since both Double Indemnity and Rashomon had contrasting poster descriptions, the market was not expecting anything different than close-ups and dark-light plays in this movie’s posters. But what was served was much more emphatic and true to the noir genre, than anything could ever have been. The first poster released by the production showed the five suspects front-facing the camera standing in a line-up at a detective agency. The back-ground was dead black with thousands of lines written in textual font about the characters backgrounds. The labels were in white while the characters were uniquely styles. The centre character called Verbal Kint, was portrayed in a bright yellow suit with a sky blue shirt, something that stood out from the rest of the suspects in terms of color and brightness. Positioned at the center point Verbal’s character was given the maximum limelight, while the rest of the suspects stood casually or in a defiant pose behind or beside him. The black commonality in the dress code of the two characters behind him further created a serious tone, while the characters beside him had black pants in common. A thriller that promises five criminals and their stories of individual and collective crime, coming up with such a sober portrayal of thrill on its posters came as a shock for critics. But followers and fans of the noir genre reveled in the contrast that the styling and differential lighting, used during photography of the poster, had created. The poster read aloud that it was noir time. The promotional activities prior to the release of the film also included postering across walls, pavements, and buses which asked the question “Who is Keyser Soze?”. People were led to believe that the actual pronunciation of the word was not soze but so~ze through television advertisements and trailers. With so much attention pulled into the movie, the producers jumped in straightaway in giving them a neo-noir poster, something that allowed viewers to relate to the color, while it intrigued more of suspense through the inevitable black code. The three marketing evidences used to promote the movie were video trailers, posters, and television spots. Posters were the most important marketing evidences that challenged the market with a new type of presentation, strong enough to build a trend. The film opened to great critical acclaim, with the box-office success showing that noir as a genre was not only distinct in people’s minds but could help amass great sums of wealth in terms of box-office collections. The performances scored very high thanks to the efficient direction of Singer. And the noir elements ensured that no part of the thrill went amiss. But almost as soon as the audience started taking note of the movie, the promotional elements, mainly the poster was drastically changed. The order of line-up was shuffled to suit the theatrical trailer. The new poster was everything that could be called a sleek take on the earlier noir rich poster. To begin with, the background was changed from a dark black template to a white height board that had the usual height measurements in feet and inches. The dark black lines of the chart behind the main protagonists added to the already existing contrast in dress color in the poster. A special edition poster was released which held the special edition and producer monogram in black, positioned centrally on the top. In the earlier poster the title of the film and sub-titles appeared in white below the picture of the five suspects. In the new poster the sub-titles were shifted to the top in black, while the main title of the print appeared in red stamp print across. The third poster was even better with five suspects in a broader frame against the white height scale background. Apt lighting cast their shadows on the backdrop increasing the horror of the scene, while the suspects kept trying to hide themselves from the glare. This one was an epic creation that used shadows to increase the noir element and the psychological drama of the poster. The extrapolated shadows made the suspects look extra dangerous, while they sported unconvinced expressions. This has often been described as the drama element that is so common in film noir but was till then amiss in noir posters. How Did It Differ From Expectations Of The Market? The first poster was totally different from what the average film buff expected at that point in time. The second poster rather concentrated on making the first one more viewer friendly, while both succeeded at incorporating key noir elements. The third one was an epic creation that addressed the topic of the movie from the core. The expression of the suspects was not that of erstwhile criminals who looked gory and dangerous, but that of shady people who were too lost in their crime world psychologically. The expressions had been purposely kept un-dangerous looking, to hint at the psychological tension that is going to hit the viewer once they start un-fathoming what lay behind these faces. The shiny black boots and denims notwithstanding, the troubled melancholy of the five main protagonists is what sets the tone for a promising psychological thriller, something that the film eventually turns out to be. While the poster did enough justice to the director’s vision of the movie, audiences were in for a pleasant shock. For once, there were no close-ups, sectioned snaps, or even shades used to depict the element of thrill and crime that would be present in the movie. Instead, there was this cool set of people trying to knock-off the crime devil off their backs, leaving everybody in a puzzle as to who Keyser Soze was. The black element in the posters got underplayed as soon as the theatrical trailer received good reviews, and class and finesse gripped the underlying tone of the poster to this fast paced thriller. The movie itself was a great revival of the old noir elements, wherein all the dialogue scenes had been captured using zooming lens by the cameraman. This brought in motion within a limited frame and succeeded in keeping the audience psychologically super-active, yet hooked. The apt voiceover worked wonders in keeping the tension in place in parts where visuals were not well defined. What has been often referred to as a narrative of flashbacks, this movie ended up winning most of the film-making and acting awards at the Cannes, the consecutive year. Nobody had expected a jumbled up series of flashbacks to earn the production house and the directorial team so much critical acclaim and box-office success all at once. The Critics Side Of The Story Critics all around were super elated with the movie. Every frame had an intriguing factor that kept you glued to the tension building inside you. But with the poster’s theme (Martin, 2000, 117), the director had made one point very clear: subject and content score far beyond publicity in winning the audience’s hearts . The scenes created n the flashback toggled between the report we heard from one protagonist to another, both present within the same scene. With the marketing elements of The Usual Suspects, Singer proved that it was not necessary to include the lady of the film in the main poster. Sticking to the main part of the story and how well the audience understands that there is a noir background to the theme used in the poster is what scored high in leaving a thorough impact on the viewer’s mind. As critics took a bow to this new approach to neo-noir marketing, Hollywood had its newest theory in film noir marketing. Horror elements like darkness, fire, smoke, and blood were no more required on posters to noir films, as long as the photographer used the black code to underline whatever he was trying to portray on the poster. Also, the presence of a woman protagonist became nil, thanks to the gripping plot of the movie. In neo-noir films post-1995, posters being developed slowly started lacking the lady of the film. Examples include Seven (1995), Fargo (1996), Devil In A Blue Dress (1995), and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and Nolan’s Batman series. Movies before this era which did not have the presence of a woman on their poster were very less, but serious noir extensions like Blade Runner (1982) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962). The impact that The Usual Suspects had in the genre left an indelible mark in the minds of filmmakers all over the globe. Conclusion Film noir has seen many changes since the pure days of film noir that existed till 1958. From 1960, there have been extensions of the art and while neo-noir was the term coined for the new version of the genre, it was not considered to be a complete genre in itself. As fans maintain, it was all about noir from the start till the end. The Usual Suspects cashed in on this element in 1995 and used promotional material that combined the dual geniuses of aesthetic common sense and noir portrayal to create the posters that set a trend in Hollywood film noir promotion in later years. References : Martin, R. (2000) Mean Streets and Raging Bulls: The Legacy of Film Noir in Contemporary American Cinema. Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Conard, M.T. and Porfirio, R. (2007) The Philosophy Of Noir. Kentucky : University Press Of Kentucky. Read More