Wednesday 24 February 2010

Genres and Openings Research [Film Noir/French Cinema] * David Lynch's Films Inspiration

 *We are working within both the Horror and Film-Noir genre and so we are able to view a vast range of films to get a real sense of the films.
Film-Noir movies are generally done, mostly due to the 1940's era that the genre was created, in black and white and even some modern day film noir movies now called "Neo-Noir " are still done in black and white to create atmosphere like Sin City or Raging Bull however there are also many successful film noir films done in colour like Chinatown or Basic Instinct.
Often the openings of Film-Noir/Neo-Noir genre movies begin with a voice-over by the central protagonist, often a lone detective or bad cop, and they explain their story, this is something we would like to use in our film.
Also some film-noir movies would use a news report or radio voice over to set up the exposition like the beginning of Casablanca or Citizen Kane. In Casablanca the news report in the opening scene sets up the synopsis and talks about why many people are traveling to Casablanca on their journey to travel to the USA to escape the Nazi's.

The Crow directed by Alex Proyas, 1994.
Good aspects of neo-noir and also gothic theme and the anti-hero protagonist character, played by Brandon Lee in this film.
Titles start the film, plain black background and white sans-serif font, non-diegetic soundtrack plays over distantly can hear police and ambulance sirens.
Extreme establishing/helicopter shot to show a city on fire, anchorage given by subtitles naming the setting and date.
We can hear diegetic sounds like a car radio, sirens, fire burning.
Then we have a voice over giving us exposition, voice is of a young child not yet clear as to boy or girl no anchorage given at this moment.
First character we see is a black police officer, we can connote he is an American officer due to the signifiers like his uniform and accent.
Gothic style buildings and the lighting is quite dark, in parts of the film later on almost black and white like the typical noir look.
One interesting part of the film is when our central protagonist has come back to life and is almost reliving his death and has flashbacks, the modern time he is in is done in almost black and white colour and all the flashbacks are done in red hinted lighting, a good signifier of the horror and violence of what happened.

Dark Passage directed by Delmer Daves, 1947.
Black and White film, Warner Bros. logo appears on screen.
Loud non-diegetic plays over extreme long shot of a scenic setting, a bay and mountains looks like San Francisco, title credits play over this sans serif font.
We see a man in uniform and this connotes that he is a security guard, he has a gun another signifier and also signifiers the plot and theme of the film. There is a large building which looks like a prison however no anchorage yet given so it is still polysemic.
Then we hear a loud siren which again we can use as a signifier that this is a prison siren.
We see a man rolling down a hill in a garbage can, then we see a long shot of him come out of the bin but the edges of the are in the frame almost like a point of view shot of the bin.
Why cannot see the protagonists face which adds narrative enigma, we only see everything as a point of view shot. There is a voice over adding exposition, it seems this character is our central protagonist, he waves down a car and gets in, as he speaks to the driver it provides anchorage that it was his voice as the voice over. We then hear diegetic sound from radio playing which also helps to give anchorage and exposition as it says that a convict has just escaped from a prison and is on the run.

Casino Royale directed by Martin Campbell, 2006.
Has a very strong sense of neo-noir in the opening.
The production logo's of MGM and Columbia, are purposefully done in Black and White signifiers of the noir genre.
Establishing shot is done from a low angle looking up at a tall building, then a dark car pulls up outside.
Anchorage added by subtitle saying "Prague, Czech Republic". Soft eerie music, sligh heart beat sound.
Cut to a shot of a man getting out the car, low angle mid-close up could connote he is our antagonist, then cuts to him going up in a lift from a low angle and there is use of elliptical editing here to speed up so the scene doesn't lose suspense.
He walks into a room, and we see an over the shoulder shot of someone sitting in a chair looking at the man, then we have a mid-close up on the antagonist and we can see the man sitting in the chair behind. Narrative enigma as we cannot tell if the man in the chair is our protagonist or antagonist, still polysemic.
The man we think to be the antagonist sits down and opens a drawer and we see a gun, a signifier and slight anchorage he is our antagonist.
We then have a flashback which is still done in black and white but the lighting is much brighter, change in the music more fast paced action and also the use of fast paced editing and shaky camera work.
Then back to our antagonist talking to the other man, the use of shot-reverse-shot during their conversation, the man in the chair then shoots him which signifies he is perhaps our protagonist or hero, or even our anti-hero.
We then go to the flashback and have our protagonist shoot the screen as though at someone like a point of view shot through a gun barrell in the frame, this then has red blood dripping down the screen, this being the only colour so far. Music changes to "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell, and the title sequence begins.

Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, 1942.
  • Credits plays over a map of Africa, soundtrack is rousing includes of a few bars of La Marseillaise, signifier of the films connection with France and a contexual reference to a famous scene later on in the film
  • Film begins with a spinning globe and zooms into Europe and gradually shows the journey to Casablanca, dramatic orchestral music playing with a voice-over/narrator speaking over, setting up the exposition. Shows moving pictures over the map and then has a fade transition into an establishing shot of Casablanca skyline, pans down to show a market.
  • Market setting, shows middle eastern/african characters then transition to office setting, change in music and then shows man at radio station talking into a micro-phone.
  • Again then fades back to the market and has a mid-close up of what we can denote as a French police officer due to the signifiers of his uniform, he blows a whistle, the music becomes louder and there is a chase sequence.
French Cinema

We also decided to have our film done in French language as we felt this would add a sense of mystery to our story so we have decided to also look into French cinema, especially that revolving around crime and mystery.
Man Bites Dog
La Vie d'un Chien a short french film with english subtitles that has no moving picture just many still frames complete with sound and narration and music and creates a real atmosphere. Real sense of mystery portrayed.
I am also looking at films by the director Louis Malle, films like Milou en mai and Lacombe Lucien.

I had a look at the book Horror Films by Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc, in the Horror in Europe section on French Cinema Horror.
I found that cinema itself originates from France, and that many early film horror's were created in France, by such directors like the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès.
One of the earliest French film horrors was La Manoir du diable, 1896 which revolved around horror characters like witches, bats, etc.
Many French films like to have aspects of surrealism, creating the phrase Creàteur du spectacle cinématographiquè.

Also French films focus on certain controversial issues like drugs, crime and can be seen to glorify violence and crime like the film Les Vampires by Louis Feuillade which made the law look like the antagonist and the criminals the protagonist. Again films like, non French director Carl Dreyer's, Vampyr, 1932 show this.
Le Frisson des Vampires, 1971, used rock music and nudity and was seen as being controversial in France at the time, and a more contemporary french vampire film was La Fiancée de Dracula, 2002.

French horror has never stretched as far as British horror like Hammer Horror, but French cinema has specialised in more crime and mystery films like French Film-Noir, an example being Les Diaboliques, 1955. A more contemporary example would be Tell No One or the French title Ne Le dis à personne by Guillaume Canet, 2006 a thriller not just popular in France but appealed more to the world stage.

Jean Rollin was a bery successful French director who seemed to create the idea of the auteur theory, one of his films Le Viol du Vampire caused student riots in Paris due to being very controversial.



Amelie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001.
This film was able to appeal not just to a French audience but also international audience especially in the USA and UK, despite being entirely in French language, perhaps not in original screenings but certainly in DVD sales.
Good use of colour helped to give the film the light hearted feel and innocent element to the film also the use of animation too, like when Amelie is talking to her friend the crocodile in her imagination.
The use of the narrator I also thought worked incredibly well using a very much traditional french cinema aspect into a much more contemporary type of French film.

Our film is a French langauge film which will also include English subtitles, we could have taken inspiration from Quentin Tarantino like in the film Inglorious Basterds, 2009 and played around with our subtitles but instead we wanted to keep the subtitles plain and simple to create the impression our film is a French film with the English added in rather than the other way around.


David Lynch Films - Inspiration of enhancing subtle movements.

The two films that I looked at are interesting in the respect that there is no real concept of the time setting in some respects they both could easily be the 1950's whereas there are certain scenes where it appears more like the 1980's, very much polysemic no real use of exposition but a nice verisimilitude set up in the film. Some aspects of post-modernism used as well mixings time periods and stereotypes of dress codes, language/dialect, social groups - like Detective. Williams in Blue Velvet is very much the stereotype of the American "cop". Also in Wild at Heart Bobby Peru is a stereotype of the southern states "hillbilly" also with aspects of gangster.

Blue Velvet, 1986 - David Lynch
Blue Velvet opens on a very much stereotypical American suburb, white middle-class, green grass, white picket fences, verandas on the front of the houses. A nice sense of irony here, almost a binary opposition to the rest of the film, which is darker and a more hostile setting centering around sex, drugs, intoxication, etc.
Old man mowing his lawn collapses onto the grass. There is then a point-of-view shot of a dog sniffing through the grass, enhacing the tiny details of each piece of grass and the little creatures on them, like looking at a jungle. There is then an extreme close up on a severed ear which the camera then zooms into.
There is a nice use of a motif, which is also used in Lynch's other film Wild at Heart, where a candle flame keeps on burning and a good use of extreme close-up, maybe it connotes wild passion, flame burning inside people.
Another good use of a close up is on Isabella Rosellini's face where we see a chipped tooth, puffed up lips, a binary opposite to how we see her earlier on in the film as this attractive almost femme fatale character, perhaps we can connote a bitter reality here, and this shows what she feels like on the inside rather than the usual seductive, mysterious woman we saw before.

Another wonderful use of cinematography is in the joy ride sequence with Dennis Hopper, where there are extreme close-ups on the car headlights, like the motif with the burning candle flame. As well as the spinning wheel of the car, connoting a fast pace story and a long journey ahead, not a calm environment and a binary opposite the opening of the film.


Wild at Heart, 1990 - David Lynch

Opening shot of the film begins with a long shot of beautifully painted ceiling, chandelier hanging from it, anchorage is provided immediately through the subtitle - "Cape Fear- somewhere near the border between North and South Carolina".
There is, diegetic, Jazz music playing, connotes a casino setting, the idea of the American casino culture glamorous settings, wild party, funky jazz playing.
Shot pans down to show a grand staircase, a 1930's Art Deco design, more anchorage of the setting.
Cuts to a mid-shot of the top of the staircase, some shaky camera work - connotes social realism?
Two-shot of Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern, there is a tracking shot an afro-caribbean male walking behind them, racial stereotype of south United States, however no real time setting.
Laura Dern glamourous female, bright blonde hair - male gaze concept?

The character of Marietta Fortune appears peering past a column in the casino, use of low angle to connote she is a dominant figure and she is the antagonist of the film.
The diegetic jazz music fades out as there is a close up on the afro-caribbean man pulling out a flick knife - click noise as he does so, helps signify this a shocking moment, sense of fear stricken into Sailor - Nicolas Cage.
Close up on Lula - Laura Dern as she screams to warn Sailor, the music now turns to non-diegetic heavy metal/rock guitar as the fight scene begins, fast paced editing used to keep the pace of the film full of energy and momentum.
Close up on a step of the staircase, blood splatter onto it. Tracking shot as the afro-caribbean man falls down the stairs cuts to a ground level shot as he falls down.
Over the shoulder shot as Sailor hits the mans head against the floor, also a high from Sailor showing the man's vulnerablity and that he has lost the fight. Long shot as Sailor is surrounded by a pool of blood. Close up on Sailor when fight is finished as he pants for breath and then lits up a cigarette.

The lighting of cigarettes is used as a form of motif throughout the entire film, and also in many parts as a good linking shot, as a cigarette may be light and there will be an extreme close up on the flame which will merge into a shot of car headlights or a sunset. The use of the burning flame could connote a wild burning spirit inside our protagonists, relating to the name of the film being that they are wild at heart, like a wild flame.

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