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.