Genre (C3)

• What's film noir?


  -A style of visual storytelling that emerged from silent film, one of the most influential film styles

  -Plots related to crime and sex became popular
• Features of film noir:

  -Chiaroscuro lighting

  -Hard key light - crisp edges, accentuates silhouettes 

  -Complex characters + plots

  -Common themes - greed, fame, jealousy, despair

  -Common plot device - the twist

  -Themes of pessimism, fatalism 
• What's chiaroscuro lighting?


  Harsh contrast between light and shadow creating separation between background + foreground 
• What's the Southern Gothic genre?

  Examines the Southern American condition, providing a medium to come to terms with violent historical realities
• Southern Gothic features:


  -Deeply flawed, eccentric characters

  -Derelict settings (small old towns, swamps)

  -Decay of human morality/regression of civilisation 

  -Grotesque (C’s bullet wound)

  -Past upon present (Bell’s return of old American values)

  -Secret + turbulent histories of the South 

  -Sense of place - landscapes reflections of haunted characters
• What are the three types of Western?

  Classical western (pre-war), Spaghetti western (cynical), Contemporary western (bridges gap between classical and modern)
• What's a frontier?


  A border between two countries
• What's the frontier in NCFOM?

  Set in Mexico US border and Western America
• Westerns achieved privileged status in American film –seen as genre that most reflected America + people’s recent experience of war
• How is the hero of a Western reflective of men returning from WW2?

  Alienated

  Traumatised by experience of violence

  Struggles integrating back into society because of this
• “Western gives trauma of war a structure and genre to contain it”
• “Classical westerns are something that cannot grow much, they are a beautiful thing that’s over”
• Features of a Western and how NCFOM conforms/subverts...
• Feature: set in frontier West


  Conforms: Texas

  Subverts: Moves to urban setting
• Feature: Outlaw


  Conforms: Moss

  Subverts: Killed offscreen
• Feature: Sherrif


  Conforms: Sherrif Bell

  Subverts: Reluctant to help, law is not absolute
• Feature: Hero is masculine, moral, honourable, courageous


  Conforms: Aligned with Moss/root for him

  Subverts: Moss emasculated, morally grey
• Feature: common visuals --> hanging tree, saddles, gamblers, horses, cattle


  Conforms: tree Moss finds drug dealer, Gambler -coin toss, horse
• Feature: alienation/outsider theme --> hero too much of an outlaw to accepted by people he’s saving


  Subverts: Moss --> morally grey, no clear hero
• Feature: Irony --> law established through rule breaking it's meant to suppress 


  Conforms: Dark humour - coin toss
• Feature: warm toned colour palette


  Conforms: warm toned colour palette

  Subverts: Noir lighting
• Feature: Rooted in archetypal conflict ---> white hat/black hat


  Conforms: Chigurh/Bell binary opposition

  Subverts: Unclear hero/villain
• Feature: Patriarchal


  Conforms: Carlotta, CJ

  Subverts: CJ shows agency in coin toss
• Feature: Civilisations' domination over nature


  Conforms: Jail, Moss hunting scene

  Subverts: Moves to urban setting
• Feature: Glorifying past-fading American values of the old West


  Conforms: Sherrif Tom Bell

  Subverts: Told to leave past behind, growing violence
• Feature: Plot --> simple goal of maintaining law/order, fast-paced action 


  Conforms: Fast paced

  Subverts: No justice, no showdown, narrative ellipsis
• Feature: Hostile elements


  Conforms: Guns, brutal murder scenes, bank robbery -drug deal

  Subverts: Second half of film less graphic, doesn't show CJ's death