Black film

The black film is more one current that a cinematographic kind. It appeared in 1941 (with the Maltese Falcon ) with the the United States and strongly inspired by the news of detective of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, they-even derived from the naturalism, a literary movement based on the Réalisme. It develops however especially starting from 1944.

Although it is about a typically American kind, the term black film was born under the feather from a critic from French films, Nino Frank, by assimilation with the Black series , a collection of novels of Détective. The black film generally puts in scene a character imprisoned in situations which are not its fact and driven back at desperate decisions. The Murder or the Crime, the Inaccuracy, the Treason, the Jealousy and the Fatalisme are privileged topics.

The black film is pessimistic essentially. The Archétype of the protagonist of black film is a private detective of second order, cynical and blasé, engaged for an investigation whose true implications are hidden to him by its silent partner. Its investigation generally leads it to meet a femme fatale which handles it by greed causing their loss.

the Thirst for the evil (Touch off Evil) , turned in 1958 by Orson Welles is generally regarded as last traditional black film. Other films taking again the guns of black film turned after this date are generally qualified néo-blacks by the Anglo-Saxons. One counts approximately 250 to 400 films which answer the criteria of definition of black film turned for this seventeen years period.

History

The French critics Borders and Chaumeton wrote a book on black film in 1955, the Panorama of the black film American 1941-1953 . They stressed that it was very difficult to define black film, since the style included/understood several sub-types.

Flowering during the Years 1940 and 50, this kind often profited only from reduced budgets (Série B). There existed indeed at the time the double program in a film show: a ticket gave right to see two films feature film, preceded by Cartoon S and court-measurings, and the current events. The two feature films were not of the same quality, one belonged to the series has, which answered the guns esthetic and moral of the time, vice of stars, luxurious decorations and a flattering light, and thus an important budget. It is also this film which attracted the spectator. The other film, the series B, whose principle is set up at the beginning of the year 1940, has only one reduced budget, resorts to initial actors, has few special effects, decorations.

One connects the appearance of the femme fatale in the American cinema to the effects of the Second world war. During this one, many women obtained stations with responsibilities, which increased their emancipation and disorientated the american company.

The black film disappears at the end of the years 1950 pennies the combined effect of several causes, whose principal ones are:

  • progressive abolition of the double meeting, and thus of B films;
  • the competition of the television, which often covered same subjects.

The realizers specialists in black film (and more largely in series B) often left to Europe, where they turned of the Péplum S .

Formal characteristics

The black film has a true visual identity which was largely imitated thereafter. Lightings expressionnists are strongly contrasted, leave broad sides of the screen in the darkness. The decoration is often urban, and spaces are then restricted (not escape on a place or a large avenue). The countryside or the small town is idealized, representing America of the origins. Downtown, one often finds the wet pavement, as after a rain, the night scenes are numerous there.

The black films often put in scene main characters complex and ambiguous, with a past often little glittering, and of the supporting role rich person and autonomous, in rupture with the traditional commonplaces. In the years 1950, it is also the occasion for artists and technicians who cannot any more exert because of their inclusion in the black list of Hollywood to continue to exert their trade. Unusual techniques such as the Voice-over or the subjective Caméra affirm the black style whose influence gradually starts to be felt on the great productions.

Influences

The black film appears in the line of films of American gangsters of the Années 1930 but of the contributions stylistics Europeans gave him a clean visual identity. The esthetics of black film owes much with the German Expressionnisme and as private individuals to the realizers emigrated such as Fritz Lang who fled the rise of the Nazism. They brought in particular the techniques which they had developed like dramatic lighting and the catch of subjective sight, psychological. The other principal influence comes from the Italian neorealism . After 1945, the black films adopted an aspect neorealist, filming in urban outsides (rather than in studio). A good illustration of this evolution is Assurance on the death ( Double Indemnity - 1944) which is often regarded as the prototype of black film.

The black film had in its turn an influence marked on other kinds, as well from a stylistic point of view as narrative. Thus films of Science fiction such as Blade Runner (1982) or Dark City (1998) answer the rules of the black kind quasi-religieusement, in the same way the Science fiction film Angel Heart (1987). These last years, Hollywood has an renewed interest for this kind, in particular through the adaptation of the novels of James Ellroy ( L.A. Confidential , the black Dahlia ) or through KIS, KIS, Bang, Bang and Collatéral . One can also see a strong influence in televised series like the Experts .

Principal black films

Traditional period

  • * the Films of this period followed by an asterisk is colors.

  • ** the classification of " Key Largo" as a black film is debatable. The style, the place, the type of narration, photography, and especially the end do not make think of a black film. Some also dispute the quality of black film with Mortal sin and Cold sweats because these works are color.

Néo-black

" Technoir"

See too

  • Black (2001) Japanese animated series, which pays homage to the kind of black film.

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