Final Coursework

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Similar Products - Film Noir Movies and Their Plots

'Greatest of Early and Classic Film Noir:

I Am a Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)
Fury (1936) The Letter (1940) Rebecca (1940)
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) Citizen Kane (1941)
High Sierra (1941) The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Suspicion (1941)
The Glass Key (1942)
This Gun For Hire (1942) Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Laura (1944) Double Indemnity (1944) Gaslight (1944)
The Lodger (1944)
The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Phantom Lady (1944)
The Suspect (1944) To Have and Have Not (1944)
The Woman in the Window (1944)
Cornered (1945)
Detour (1945)
Fallen Angel (1945)
The House on 92nd Street (1945)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945) The Lost Weekend (1945) Mildred Pierce (1945)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Spellbound (1945) The Big Sleep (1946)
The Blue Dahlia (1946)
Cornered (1946)
The Dark Corner (1946) Gilda (1946) The Killers (1946) Notorious (1946) The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
The Stranger (1946)
Body and Soul (1947)
Brute Force (1947)
Crossfire (1947)
Dark Passage (1947)
Dead Reckoning (1947)
Kiss of Death (1947)
Lady in the Lake (1947)
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Odd Man Out (1947, UK) Out of the Past (1947)
Ride the Pink Horse (1947)
T-Men (1947)
The Big Clock (1948)
Call Northside 777 (1948)
Cry of the City (1948)
The Dark Past (1948)
Force of Evil (1948)
Key Largo (1948) The Lady From Shanghai (1948)
The Naked City (1948)
Pitfall (1948)
Raw Deal (1948)
Road House (1948)
Ruthless (1948)
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Act of Violence (1949) Beyond the Forest (1949)
Champion (1949)
Criss Cross (1949) Gun Crazy (1949) (or 1950) (aka Deadly is the Female)
The Reckless Moment (1949)
The Set-Up (1949)
They Live By Night (1949) The Third Man (1949) White Heat (1949) The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
D. O. A. (1950)
The File on Thelma Jordon (1950)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Night and the City (1950)
Panic in the Streets (1950) Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
The Big Carnival (1951) (aka Ace in the Hole)
On Dangerous Ground (1951)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Angel Face (1952)
Clash By Night (1952)
The Narrow Margin (1952)
Scandal Sheet (1952)
Sudden Fear (1952) The Big Heat (1953)
Niagara (1953)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
Crime Wave (1954)
The Big Combo (1955)
The Desperate Hours (1955)
Diabolique (1955, Fr.) Kiss Me Deadly (1955) The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
Crime in the Streets (1956)
The Killing (1956)
While the City Sleeps (1956)
The Wrong Man (1956) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Touch of Evil (1958) Vertigo (1958)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)' - www.filmsite.org/filmnoir6.html

Rebecca (1940) - produced by David O. Selznick, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

'When a naive young woman marries a rich widower and settles in his gigantic mansion, she finds the memory of the first wife maintaining a grip on her husband and the servants.' - IMDb

Gaslight (1944) - directed by George Cukor.

'Years after her aunt was murdered in her home, a young woman moves back into the house with her new husband. However, he has a secret which he will do anything to protect, even if that means driving his wife insane.' - IMDb

Spellbound (1945) - directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

'A female psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.' - IMDb

Road House (1948) - directed by Jean Negulesco.

'A night club owner becomes infatuated with a torch singer and frames his best friend/manager for embezzlement when the chanteuse falls in love with him.' - IMDb

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) - directed by Anatole Litvak.

'Whilst on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a plot to murder her.' - IMDb

What i notice about Film Noir plots is that it generally revolves around secrecy and the relationships between men and women. It seems that a characters motivation within the plot is often to reveal some hidden secret. In my examples, the character that attempts to reveal the secret is often a women trying to get information out of the male character, or information about the male character's history.

Similar Products - Conventions of Film Noir

• Interesting camera angles – e.g. Dutch, extreme low and high angle shots, no handheld shots.

• Black and white

• Minimal lighting – (something often placed in front of the light source)

• Anti-hero

• Narrator (Non-diegetic sound)

• Often filmed at night
• Tone (urgent)
• Glamorous female character – (femme fatal)
• Urban location
• Silhouettes
• Costume – appropriate to time of genre e.g. female characters in dresses, male characters in suits and hats
• Music – Suspense building

Similar Products - a Definition of Film Noir

"film noir was applied by French critics to describe American thriller or detective films in the 1940s" - www.thefreedictionary.com/film+noir

'A movie characterized by low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical characters.' - www.thefreedictionary.com/film+noir

"[Film noir] experiences periodic rebirth and rediscovery. Whenever we have any moment of deep societal rift or disruption in America, one of the ways we can express it is through the ideas and behavior in film noir."
-John Briley (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/film+noir)

Preliminary Task - Video & Evaluation

Preliminary Task - Character Profiles

Hanna is the first character that will be shown in the production. She is smartly dressed with the intent to find out the missing pieces of the puzzle. Her character is aggressive and meaningful and has the purpose of finding out who killed her friend and her colleague; Karen. Hanna is stubborn and also persistent, her personality shows through with her blunt body language and ‘straight to the point’ words. She has one thing on her mind and nothing will get in the way from her finding out.

Elizabeth is the second character that is seen in the production. Again the same as Hanna, she is smartly dressed and has a nervous edge about her. Her defensive tone suggests she is unsure about the situation as she is caught between Hanna’s mind and the truth. Elizabeth is also a stubborn character and is willing to fight her cause especially when lies have covered up what is rightfully correct.

Karen is the last and final character to be seen in the production. She is dressed in casual clothes and appears to be ‘normal’ compared to the other two characters. Her timid mindset and actions emphasize that she is in her own world and is oblivious to the people around her. This was caused by a freak accident in Nikosia which has now impacted her life as she isn’t 100% right in her head. Karen is suspected dead but is revealed at the end leaving the production on a cliff hanger.

Preliminary Task - Film Poster

Our film poster