Film Noir - Lighting and Its Effects..

"Film Noir" is primarily used to describe Hollywood crime dramas, and is french for "Black film". It emphasises the moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. The creation of film noir stretched form the early 1940's to the late 1950's, and was associated with low key lighting and shades of black and white.

Although film noir can be seen as a genre if its own, it can embrace a variety of genres all the same. An obvious example being Gangster films. Film noir is often asscociated with urban settings, small towns and rural areas, which allows the specific lighting to compliment the mise-en-scene. Another key convention of film noir which highly relies on lighting to emhasise certain elements are "femme fatal".

One of the techniques used in film noir's are high contrasts of high key and low key lighting, emphasising light and dark. This has been deeply influenced by German Expressionism. The lighting techniques portray yet again an expressive approach to the mise-en-scene.

This image illustrates film noir very well as the contrast between light and dark is explicit, whilst the effect it has on the audience explains alot about their characters and the mise-en-scene perhaps explains the situation they're in. For example, the top lighting above the woman, accentuates her figure and visual beauty. The fact that the light is shining above her could also perhaps connote that she holds a good character and juxtaposes to the convention of femme fatal. The man in the foreground looks more of the evil villain type character as he is more or less under low key lighting, which to the audience connotes that there is something quite dark, secretive and mysterious about him, creating an enigma within this shot. Moreover, the positioning of the characters connotes that the man is more dominant than the woman as she is in the background, whereas the man is highly emphasised being in the foreground. However this also contrasts with the lighting as he is kept under low key lighting, which shows that the woman may have more importance or significance in the film, as she is under high key lighting.

Furthermore, it seems as though the filler light has come to an effective use in this shot as it has eliminated and softened any shadows which decreases the dramatic effect, and could connote that this scene may not be as dangerous as initially percieved and the situation might not be that important in this film.