Three Examples of Contemporary Film Noir

I researched three contemporary film noirs, the Coen Brothers’ 1996 film Fargo, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), and David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.

Fargo is a suspenseful crime drama, a violent mystery thriller and a satirical comedy. It follows an incompetent car salesman a hapless husband (William H. Macy) who plans his wife’s kidnap and ransome from his wealthy father-in-law when already in debt, but he hires two men who together fail to just “kidnap” his wife.

The heavily pregnant but highly intelligent Chief of Police (played by Frances McDormand) is smarter-than-she-looks, and appears to the audience as the one who solves the crime within the first few minutes after the opening sequence, with her comic policeman-partner.

With stark white vistas and backdrops, the noir film was shot in the Upper Midwest of America (Minnesota and North Dakota), not actually in the city of Fargo as the title may suggest. The film is supposed to be based on truth, the real story taking place in Minnesota in 1987. The names of the characters have been altered as requested by survivors but the story itself was told “exactly as it happened”, in respect for the dead.

The film was shot during periods of cloudy skies, because sunlight reflected off the white surface would have exposed the camera lens to a bright light. This was an important factor to consider when filming in these conditions and locations because the main subject in the opening sequence may not have shown up on screen because of the increased exposure to the light.

After directing the big-hit film Alien in 1979, Ridley Scott returned in 1982 to direct a film called Blade Runner. The film itself has grown to be one of the most popular and most influential science-fiction films of all time. The film is set in the future, and follows an ex-cop and bounty hunter (played by Harrison Ford) who is searching for four android replicants who have been driven to earth by fear. Their goal is to find their creator and to make him extend their lives.

Set in the year 2019, the wasteland of Los Angeles shows a decaying planet. The original 1982 version shows Harrison Ford’s character as a human bounty hunter, but Ridley Scott’s tenth anniversary ‘Directors Cut’ shows the character as a replicant and so science fiction fans look at the two versions as completely different films.

The film Blue Velvet (1986) has themes of sex, violence, crime and power and is set in a ‘peaceful’ small American town in the mid - 1980’s. Although thought of as a dark, vulgar and disgusting film, it also won awards - Best Film of 1986, Best Director, Best Supporting actor and Best Achievement in Cinematography from the National Society of Film Critics. The plot line is sketchy but involves an innocent college student discovering a severed ear in the sleepy town and who finds himself dragged into the darker side of life. The two male leads could be seen as representing the opposite sides of life (attraction/repulsion, innocence/experience, perversion/love) that struggle for dominance.

Three Examples of Classic Film Noir

I researched three classic film noirs, The Maltese Falcon (1941), directed by John Huston; Laura (1944) directed by Otto Preminger; and Touch of Evil (1958), directed by Orson Welles.





The Maltese Falcon is a detective mystery starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Aster. It is a mixture of mystery, romance and thriller, known mostly for its corrupt, hardened characters and the plot which is full of double-crossings and deceptions.

Laura, on the other hand, is a romantic melodramatic mystery and detective thriller. It is about a naïve, Southern playboy from Kentucky (played by Vincent Price); a society columnist and homosexual bachelor (Cliffton Webb); an ageing female (Judith Anderson) who wants the younger playboy to be ‘her’ man; the beautiful advertisement designer and heroine (Gene Tierney) who is presumed dead for half of the film; and a detective (played by Dana Andrews) who chain-smokes and plays puzzles.

Touch of Evil is a dark crime thriller filmed on location in California rather than the film’s setting in Mexico. The actress Janet Leigh plays a character who is staying in a motel. The motel landlord (Dennis Weaver) won’t leave her alone. The police captain is an obsessed, driven and bloated character who is a tragic figure with a “touch of evil” in his enforcement of the law. The controversial film considers the themes of racism, betrayal of friends, sexual ambiguity, frame-up, drugs and police corruption of power.

The Characteristics, Forms and Coventions of Film Noir

The main character is often male, either a cop, private eye, or war veteran, and is trapped in a difficult situation (often because of a woman). Sometimes he would be stuck between two women, one dutiful and responsible whilst the other was sexually attractive and unreliable (the Femme Fatale - a woman with no morals). The male would make decisions out of desperation. In Fargo, the 1996 film by the Coen Brothers, the main character has some kind of debt (which is not revealed) and knows he’ll receive lots of money if his wife is kidnapped, because she and her father are both very wealthy.

Film noirs covered a wide range of genres, from gangster movies, detective and private-eye stories to films about social problems. They were made in black and white not only because this was low-budget compared with the new ‘Technicolor’, but also gave a dark and sinister feel to the film. The mood is also created by the setting, the dialogue, the filtered lighting through 'Venetian Blinds' which gives long shadows, and the locations which were often dimly-lit rooms with circling cigarette smoke to give a claustrophobic, gloomy appearance. Back alleys were often used to create paranoia and the fear of being followed. First-person voice-overs were used in some films to give a sense of reality and to speak directly to the audience. The music was often heavy, discordant and serious. Some tunes became popular because of their haunting nature, such as the theme tune from the film Laura (1944).

Camera techniques included low-angled camera shots which made the character seem taller and more powerful; deep-focus shots allowed both the foreground and background to remain in focus in the same shot; high contrast lighting was used to produce silhouettes and shadows in some of the films whilst camera panning was also used in film noir. The most used narrative is the first person voiceover, using flashbacks to tell the story, and sometimes narrated by the character who had died. Deep shadows, odd camera angles and wide shots were used to give a sense of perverse reality.

(Sources used: Wikipedia-"Film Noir" and "Neo-Noir"; A Guide to Film Noir Genre - http://rogerebert.suntimes.com; www.filmsite.org; The Rough Guide To Film Noir (book) by Alexander Ballinger & Danny Graydon, 2007)