Film Noir and Adaptation Genre or Style

Questions about Context What were U.S. cities like after WWII? How did populations change during this period, and how did governmental programs affect the US and its economy? How did the war affect race relations?

Film and Roman Noir “In general, film noir refers to those Hollywood films of the forties and fifties that portrayed the world of dark, slick city streets, crime and corruption” (Schrader 214)

Film Noir influences War and Post WWII Disillusionment: How can soldiers find the space to be heroes in a mundane world? How can working women return to the boredom of being housewives? How can African Americans leave freedom of military and return to segregated South?

Post War Realism as Influence Public desired a more honest and harsh view of America Filming on location rather than in the studio promoted this portrayal of the dark world.

The German Expatriates as Influence Fritz Lang, Robert Siodmak, and Billy Wilder influenced style of noir and neo-noir Relied on artificial studio lighting--noir made world a stage, directing unnatural and expressionistic lighting into realistic settings Black and white, gritty, low angle shooting, deep focus, cast and attached shadows, arches as frames, wet shooting surfaces.

Hard-Boiled Tradition as Influence Created a tough and cynical way of acting and thinking that separated one from the world of everyday emotions-- romanticism in a protective shell. Protagonists lived out a “narcissistic defeatist code” (218).

Noir Stylistics Lit for night, with low-hanging ceiling lights and short floor lamps, even during the day with drawn shades. Oblique and vertical lines prevail, making the screen splintered, restless, and unstable--light enters dingy rooms in jagged trapezoids, obtuse triangles. Vertical slits as if cut into ribbons

Noir Style, cont. Actors and setting are often given equal lighting emphasis, with actors hidden in realistic tableaus of city and night, their faces blacked out by shadow--the city will outlast and negate best efforts of protagonists.

Noir Style, cont. Compositional tensions preferred over physical action--the scene is moved cinematographically around the actor instead of the actor controlling the scene with physical force. Lots of water. Voiceover narration. Complex chronological order reinforces hopelessness.

Film Noir Images

Noir Images, cont.

Devil in a Blue Dress as Noir

Devil and Noir, cont.

Devil and Noir, Cont.

Devil and Noir, cont.

Adaptation Defined: an interpretation, involving at least one person's reading of a text, choices about what elements to transfer, and decisions about how to actualize these elements in a medium of image and sound.

Adaptation Types 1. The Fidelity Issue: The most common approach to assessing the value of an adaptation involves fidelity--to what degree the film is faithful to the text it adapts. They judge a film's merit based on the film faithfully replicates "the essential narrative elements and core meanings of the printed text."

Problems with Fidelity Approach a. How is it possible to identify those core meanings?
b. How can critics make useful judgments about fidelity without clear criteria for evaluation?
c. How can critics argue that fidelity determines value when so many adaptations that closely replicate a text fail miserably as films?

Types of Adaptation Study, cont. 2. Classifying Adaptations: Here fidelity is used only as a descriptive term--not an evaluative one-- so the general relationship between text and its film adaptation can be clarified.
 a. Close--embraces fidelity (concentration)
 b. loose--text used as point of departure (point of departure)
 c. intermediate--in the middle of a sliding scale between close and loose (interweaving narrative)

Adaptation Types, Cont. 3. Advanced Inquiries:

Classifying adaptations serves as a springboard for more advanced inquiries. After noting which narrative details are kept, dropped, and added to determine classification, look back at the changes the adapter made, the alternatives available to him/her, and the consequences of the choices made.