Sunday, March 17, 2013
Blog #6
So I found the article to be confusing and messy in a way, it jumped around a lot from film to film. I had a hard time keeping up with the article but overall I learned a few things about the differences between film noir and neo-noir. A few of the differences I noticed were regarding the femme fatale in classic noir her ending is normally tragic as she pays for her crime as for modern noir the femme fatale gets away with what ever crime she has committed, she actually is the victorious one in the end. I also noticed how the description of the femme fatale is not mentioned and as important as it is in classic noir, in neo noir the focus was more on why the female was known to be bad and dangerous versus her sexual description. Also the language is very different as far as the profanity, classic noir uses the lighting and shadowing to express the scenery to where neo -noir language and surroundings is what describes the ambiance. Another major difference is the protagonist in film noir he realizes hes been manipulated and is trying to find an escape route to where in modern noir the protagonist is not so much a hero and he normally ends up getting screwed, sorry that's the best way I could describe it. Overall I noticed that classic noir has more of a realistic feel due to the first person narrative and description of the characters which I prefer because it helps visualize better, neo- noir is more distracting to me due to the language which I feel is the main way the scene and atmosphere is described. The story line for both is related to crime and desperation but neo- noir seems to have more going on as far the characters, there is more to the story then a bad guy and a good guy and a femme fatale manipulating the ambiguous protagonist. I think reading a classic noir novel is easier to understand but watching a modern noir is more interesting due to graphics. The article had alot of useful information and it really gave me some new insight on the difference between the two noirs that I was not aware of. I feel like now I could tell the two apart more easily. I feel like the two are similar as far as tragedy , death and someone ends up taking the blame, but at the same time classic noir we know it will end and tragedy as the person narrating the story is already dead. Modern noir doesn't have a narrator and it is unknown as to where the story is going and who will end up dead. Like stated at the beginning the article was a bit confusing to me so I hope I have the differences correct, if anyone has anything to add to help me better understand please feel free to share info with me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhat you have here is true, to an extent. Some of these neo-noirs take aspects of the classic noirs and utilize them to help tell their story. However, just like classic noir, there are exceptions to the rule. Using one of the movies described in the article, "Fight Club", we see very similar traits: Voice over narration where the protagonist is in a deadly situation from the "start" of the movie; Dark and dreary landscapes and scenes; An ambiguous protagonist being lured into a scheme of crime, though, notably, not by a femme fatale, which has been described to allude to homo-erotic undertones of the movie. The similarities are there, however, they are of a different context than we have seen in the classic noir settings.
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteI felt the same when I was reading the article thats probably why I decided to not finish it because Im clueless on most of the example movies that are written there lol. I agree with you when you said that classic noir has more "realistic feel" only because it's coming from a character that is actually involve in the story. I would not base eveyrthing on the narration because it can give us unrealistic idea of what is truly going on in the story. I also like that you point out the language, I also put that on my blog. I read the short story from our book Los Angeles noir "dangerous days" and oh boy, from the smart walter to a thug black cops- didn't like it. I like when you said "reading a classic noir is easier to understand but watching a modern noir is more interesting due to graphics" I think that's the one of the reason why people get hook to it, and ofcourse people in our time would appreaciate that better than black and white. Good post!