Download pdf
The Transition of Film Noir into a Genre of Crime Cinema
- 1 University of Leeds
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Some have underrated Film Noir due to some misconception that it is solely limited to black-and-white imagery. However, it encompasses much more than that. It supports an aesthetic and serves as a foundational pillar for crime cinema. This paper will use formal techniques such as diegesis, montage, mise-en-scène, camera angle, and camera movement to analyze two scenes from crime cinema. One example is The Naked City, a quintessential Film Noir that employs chiaroscuro lighting to accentuate the criminal narrative. Another illustrative instance is The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. The argument surrounding Film Noir and crime cinema reveals different depictions of geographical space, yet they share similarities in their representations of themes, including war trauma, masculinity, and class. The Naked City employs a straightforward approach to represent its unique landscape, effectively connecting external and internal spaces. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three uses transportation and currency symbols to establish distinct space connections. Both films, produced in the post-war era, allow for allegorical exploration of auteurs’ imagination and re-imagination through cinematic elements. These elements ambiguously craft narratives that intricately blend aesthetics and ideology. In this case, the transition of Film Noir into the realm of crime cinema influences the development of modern cinema.
Keywords
Film Noir, crime cinema, landscape, aesthetic, ideology
[1]. Gates, P. (2008). “Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 25(5), 437-442. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509200690902313
[2]. Lukinbeal, C. (2005). “Cinematic Landscapes,” Journal of Cultural Geography 23(1), 3-22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08873630509478229
[3]. Dassin, J., director. The Naked City. Janus Films, 1948. 1 hr., 36 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-W4MZI3T38.
[4]. Aitken, S.C. and Dixon, D.P. (2006). “Imagining Geographies of Film,” Erdkunde 60(4), 326-336. DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25647920
[5]. Neupert, R. (2010). “The New Wave’s American Reception,” Cinema Journal 49(4), 139-145. DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40801487?searchText=French+new+wave&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DFrench%2Bnew%2Bwave&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ab4a1116aa844acf72de4e1e41c30f95b
[6]. Escher, A. (2006). “The Geography of Cinema,” A Cinematic World. Erdkunde 60(4), 307-314. DOI: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25647918
[7]. Bruno, G. (1997). “Site-seeing: Architecture and the Moving Image,” Wide Angle 19(4), 8-24. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/wan.1997.0017
[8]. Domosh, M. (1988). “The Symbolism of the Skyscraper,” Journal of Urban History 14(3), 320-345. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/009614428801400302
[9]. Shiel, M. (2006). Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City. New York, Columbia University Press.
[10]. Ford, L. (1994). Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle. Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
[11]. Shiel, M. (2001). Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context. 1st ed. Oxford, Oxford Press.
[12]. Bender, T. (2007). The Unfinished City: New York and the Metropolitan Idea. New York, NYU Press.
[13]. Joseph, S., director. The Taking of Pelham 123. United Artists, 1974. 1 hr., 44 min. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcafpJVg5tQ
[14]. Mitchell, D. (1997). “The Annihilation of Space by Law: The Roots and Implications of Anti-Homeless Laws in the United States,” Antipode 29(3), 303-335. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8330.00048
[15]. Chion, M. (2015). Sound: An Acoulogical Treatise. Durham, Duke University Press.
[16]. Geiger, J. and Rutsky, R.L. (2013). Film Analysis: A Norton Reader, Second Edition. Manhattan, W. W. Norton & Company Press.
[17]. Mani, S. (2023). Late-Colonial French Cinema Filming the Algerian of Independence. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
[18]. Schönfelder, C. (n.d.). “Wounds and Words Book Subtitle: Childhood and Family Trauma in Romantic and Postmodern Fiction.” Retrieved on July 27, 2023. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctv1wxrhq.5.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A81c1b623d7d13265e4b13c7060023471&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=search-results&acceptTC=1.
[19]. Rendall, S.F. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. California, University of California Press.
[20]. Cohen, L. and Chauncey, G. (1997). “Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940,” The Journal of American History 84(2), 685. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2952659
[21]. García, M. (2013). “Space and the Amateur Detective in Contemporary Hollywood Crime Film,” Journal of Film and Video 65(3), 14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5406/jfilmvideo.65.3.0014
[22]. Floyd, K. (2001). “Closing the (Heterosexual) Frontier: Midnight Cowboy as National Allegory,” Science & Society 65(1), 99-130. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1521/siso.65.1.99.20893
[23]. Orr, J. (1993). “Cinema and Modernity.” Retrieved on July 27, 2023. Retrieved from: https://philpapers.org/rec/ORRCAM.
[24]. Laufer, R.S., Gallops, M.S. and Frey-Wouters, E. (1984). “War Stress and Trauma: The Vietnam Veteran Experience,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 25(1), 65-85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2136705
[25]. Cresswell, T. (1992). “The crucial ‘where’ of graffiti: a geographical analysis of reactions to graffiti in New York,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10(3), 329-344. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1068/d100329
[26]. Fainstein, S.S. and Campbell, S. (2011), Readings in Urban Theory. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons.
Cite this article
Zhong,O. (2023). The Transition of Film Noir into a Genre of Crime Cinema. Communications in Humanities Research,18,14-21.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Humanities and Communication Studies
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).