Revisionist – where the conventions are pushed to their limits and/or transplanted into a different genre. Straight Neo-Noir – which updates the elements of Film Noir to a contemporary time and place.

film noir, (French: “dark film”) style of filmmaking characterized by such elements as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and an underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era.

The Revisionist Western, Anti-Western or Post-Western is a subgenre of the Western film that subverts the standard format or theme of the Western. They often featured antiheroes or sympathetic villains more than in earlier films, blurring the traditionally clear boundaries between “right” and “wrong”.

Noir relates to a time frame between the early 1940s and late 1950s. Unlike noir films, the neo-noir films made use of modern technology that was unknown to noir films. Unlike noir films, neo-noir films also made use of the modern circumstances. Neo-noir films developed because of certain social attitudes.

Characteristics. Neo-noir film directors refer to ‘classic noir’ in the use of Dutch angles, interplay of light and shadows, unbalanced framing; blurring of the lines between good and bad and right and wrong, and thematic motifs including revenge, paranoia, and alienation.

Intensity, intimacy, ubiquity. The qualities of intensity, intimacy, and ubiquity have been singled out as the salient characteristics of the motion-picture image. Its intensity derives from its power to hold the complete attention of the spectator on whatever bit of reality is being shown.

Terms in this set (51)

• Classic period. 1941-1958.
• Codes and conventions. -alienation.
• Storyline. -non linear and twisting.
• Protagonist. Main make character – usually with a subjective voice over.
• Femme fatale. Beautiful, promiscuous, double-dealing, uses sexuality and seduction to manipulate the protagonist.
• Set.
• Atmosphere.
• Mood.

The heroes of noir generally share certain qualities, such as moral ambiguity, a fatalistic outlook, and alienation from society. They also exhibit an existential acceptance of random, arbitrary occurrences as being the determining factors in life.

Cross-cultural adaptations can revitalize their source texts through provocative changes in their setting, genre, casting, or production processes. In translating the discourses of past cultures into those of present, often insurgent cultures, they can give voice to a revealing kind of social unconscious.

1 : a movement in revolutionary Marxian socialism favoring an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary spirit. 2 : advocacy of revision (as of a doctrine or policy or in historical analysis)

Film noir is a genre of dark detective films made primarily during the 1940s and 1950s. The genre is known for using low-budget filmmaking tricks to create striking visual effects, particularly with regard to lighting.

While the exact definition is up for the debate, the key thing to note is that neo-noir films are separate from the major releases in the classic film noir era. Most film scholars cite neo-noir as emerging after the 1950s, which is when the original noir fizzled out.

To cover for low budgets, film noir tends to feature stark lighting with heavy use of shadows. Shots of characters obscured by shadowing are common, particularly the technique of low-key lighting to create suspicious shadows.

Definition Neo-noir is a contraction of the phrase new film noir, using the Greek prefix for the word new, neo. Noir is a French word that, when used in isolation in discussing film, is shorthand for ‘film noir’.