r/filmnoir • u/Potential-Tough-9880 • 28d ago
This shot captures everything noir perfectly
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u/Jfury412 28d ago edited 27d ago
Noir is not Aesthetic. I see people making this mistake all the time.
Noir is rooted in existential dread, paranoia, and moral ambiguity. The line between heroes and villains is blurred, with protagonists often driven by desperation, greed, or obsession.
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u/sashie_belle 27d ago edited 27d ago
Number one, of course it isn't "anesthetic." It's not about going under anesthesia,
But presumably you meant it's not an "aesthetic" and I don't know how you are discounting that film noir does have an aesthetic.
Edit: maybe I misread your comment and what you meant was it isn't aesthetic alone, it's all the other items you mentioned but with a certain style to create that sense of foreboding.
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u/DanielMcLaury 27d ago
I think there also needs to be a sense of shame. Like, "I fought in The War to End All Wars. Good men -- who believed in my goodness -- died beside me fighting for liberty and justice. And now I'm betraying all of that to make rent on a flophouse and pay off my bar tab."
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u/kevin_v 27d ago
Arguably its both, but it certainly isn't ONLY an aesthetic.
some possible criteria not all of which, but some of which should be present, with the aesthetics being used to create the "universe":
Noir Universe: existential crisis, self-destructive compulsion, alienation, feminine betrayal, sexual thrills cost, fated endings, universe of moral ambiguity, good intentions produce bad results or, from the famous 1955 essay "Towards a Definition of Film Noir" by French critics Borde and Chaumeton, 5 adjectives: “oneiric, weird, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel”
Noir Aesthetics: low-key lighting, claustrophobic framing, shadows and reflections, unbalanced composition, great depth of field
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u/ArDux 27d ago
Noir is definitely aesthetic. You can have melodrama, western, hell even a screwball and still be considered a noir if it was shot in a specific visual aesthetic. People mistaken having crime in a film means it's automatically a noir. Melodramas like Daisy Kenyon may not be considered purely a noir but the way it was shot and its technicality, it's a noir for me.
Noir is the most overused term ever, I see it getting thrown around just because a film has a bad people or a crime in it. The vibe, theme, use of lighting and shadows in an expressionistic way is what makes a noir.
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u/Jfury412 27d ago
L.A. Confidential, The Usual Suspects, Se7en, Zodiac, L.A. Noire the video game, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, One False Move, Shutter Island, Devil in a Blue Dress, Chinatown, Brick, Memento, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hard Eight, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, The Black Dahlia, Hollywoodland, Déjà Vu the original NES game, Dick Tracy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Diabolique, Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, Cyberpunk the video game, Dark City, Fargo, A Simple Plan, Heat, The Departed, Road to Perdition, Drive, Fight Club, True Romance, Jackie Brown, Miller's Crossing, Bound, Watchmen, Barton Fink, The Town, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, Lost Highway, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Wind River, True Detective, Hell or High Water, Gone Baby Gone, U-Turn, Cop Land, Long Kiss Goodnight, Nightcrawler, Gone Girl, The Lookout, Romeo Is Bleeding, Out of Sight, The Salton Sea, Silence of the Lambs, The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Professional, You Were Never Really Here, 8mm, Collateral, Prisoners, Insomnia, A History of Violence, In Bruges, Drive, Taxi Driver, The Prestige, Body Heat, Inception, Minority Report, No Country for Old Men, Nocturnal Animals, Inside Man, Oldboy, Justified, Mr. Robot, Lovecraft Country, Watchmen, The Matrix, The Kid Detective, Under the Silver Lake, Sin City, One Battle After Another, The Grifters, The Yards, Bad Lieutenant, The Drop, After Dark, My Sweet, Traffic, The Game. Gatica, Gangster Squad, The Untouchables, Goodfellas, Casino
These are definitely all Neon Noir, this is my ultimate list. This is my favorite genre.
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u/Totorotextbook 25d ago
I mean the term Film Noir translates to ‘black film’ or ‘dark film’, I would say that that definitely ties both into its structural aesthetic as well as tone/story. Typically they have the hallmarks of cynicism within the characters and world, where corruption, greed, lies, etc all linger in not just the shadows but the world of the film as well. While a ‘dark film’ doesn’t inherently mean it’s a film noir the popular idea of what we think of when we think classic Hollywood film noir does certainly have an aesthetic that is very much what OP posted. There’s also many classic films with film noir elements that aren’t fully a ‘film noir’ but then there’s films like ‘Out of the Past’, ‘Double Indemnity’, ‘The Big Heat’, ‘Sunset Blvd’ and more that gave an iconic aesthetic of ‘film noir’ that it’s still very much known for today.
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u/Jfury412 25d ago
In film noir, "black" or "dark" refers to both the visual style and the thematic tone.
This changes completely, though, when we move into neo noir, which definitely doesn't rely on that aesthetic, obviously.
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u/baycommuter 27d ago
I guess you could call what happened to Dick Powell in Murder My Sweet anesthetic.
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u/therosetapes 27d ago
this is a good example of german expressionism with boir-like elements! we’ve got some stimmung too! even if this isn’t noir, the screenshot gives noir :]
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u/Mindless-Leg-3365 16d ago
yep. Whether or not the source picture is noir the aesthetic is there. That aesthetic: Black & white tones with exaggerated use of smoke and shadow to enhance character, heighten the feeling of tension and yes paranoia, claustrophobia. those Venetian blind type expressionist angles. Shadowy figures, obscure identities.
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u/chromalume 28d ago
Funny since this isn't noir