2 EXAMPLES OF NEO NOIR

The 1982 film ‘Blade Runner’ directed by Ridley Scott is considered to be one of the best examples of neo noir. The film is a big budget dark Hollywood sci-fi set in the future (2019) and is based around human clones known as replicants designed by the ‘Tyrell corporation’ to serve in off-world colonies that illegally escape to earth and have to be tracked down by retired ‘blade-runner’ Rick Deckard to be ‘retired’. Deckard is the film’s main protagonist and is at the centre of the story.

        

Like all noir style films the plot is dark and complicated with Deckard being despatched on a mission to track down 4 replicants who made it to earth after hijacking a spaceship after he is shown a video of one of the replicants shooting another blade runner after it is exposed thus highlighting the use of guns which were popular in classic noir. As the film progresses it is clear that the attempts to make human replicants have backfired and they are far more intelligent than was originally thought and one of them who is Tyrell’s assistant is an experimental model who thinks she is a human because of an implanted memory. Tyrell is eventually killed by one of the replicants who in turn dies along with the other three while the film ends with Deckard and Racheal leaving to an uncertain future.

        

Like classic film noirs the visual style and sound are designed to give the film a sinister and uncomfortable feel. The film is set in Los Angeles and much of it including the opening scene is shot at night in a futuristic urban environment with bright lights against a dark backdrop. Venitian blinds and cigarette smoke are used in some of the indoor scenes as are close ups of the characters in conversation. The music used has an incredibly sinister and foreboding tone to it especially the opening credits sequence.

         

Like some of the classic film noirs this is a film which may be designed to capture fears about the future. Blade Runner may have been written with possible fears amongst society of mankind becoming too intelligent for its own good.

 

Sin City was produced in 2005 and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. It is a crime thriller set in a fictional city following four separate storylines that twist together to form the main plot giving it a complex and quite unusual storyline.

       

The fictional city the film is set in is full of criminals, crooked cops and corrupt law enforcement giving it an unpleasant and frightening feel. The main protagonists include a salesman and a police officer who each appear in different stories with the final one being narrated in 1^st person by the salesman. Guns and prostitutes are common features along with the criminals and cops.

         

This film is well known for its distinctive and unusual visual style with the majority of it being shot in black and white with typically high contrasting. However certain objects within a shot sometimes appear in colour (such as a red light on a button to activate a bomb) which may allow for greater emphasis on the most important objects within a scene or shot. The titles appear in bold lettering with the words ‘Sin City’ showing up in red in a font that makes it look as if it were written in blood immediately giving the audience an idea of what to expect. The way the characters talk is very threatening but often in a quiet way which can give a greater sense of insecurity to the audience than if somebody was shouting.

         

Overall this is a film that uses many of the classic noir techniques especially visually but gives them a modern twist to still give the film a cutting edge look and feel.