Film Noir: Collage, German Expressionism, Aesthetics

German Expressionism
When studying the origins of such genres as horror and film noir, it is necessary to be aware of the influence of German Expressionism, a style of film making developed during the years in Germany, particularly in 1920's Berlin.

German expressionist movies tended to emphasise cinematography above plot and narrative (focusing on the images being shown rather than the words spoken); often very slowly paced, for example, they were generally beautifully photographed, and this visual clarity had a pronounced effect on later German cinema. Danish cinema in particular was seen as being hugely influential, both in terms if style (lighting, scenic design and camera placement) and content (urban setting, focus on the criminal underworld and designed to deliver visceral thrills).

Images from German Expressionist movies

German film, in common with that of other nations, started to become more of an 'art form' in the years after world war 1 but, although the film industry was booming, the Germans could not compete with huge American budgets. As such, directors such as Lang and Murnau experimented instead with light and shadow (leading to the chiaroscuro style of lighting (essentially very low-key lighting designed to emphasise extreme pockets of light and dark) which is possibly the key feature of film noir, and, as such, much neo-noir and, more generally, horror and crime genre film ever since). In keeping with the shadowy aesthetic, themes tend to be dark (something of tradition in German literature); crime, soulessness and, in general, the darker side of human nature are emphasised. The influence was driven forward when Nazis took control of Germany and many of the directors, cinematographers and so on who had crafted this style fled to America.

The texts most commonly used as examples of German Expressionism (or heavily influenced by it) are those by Fritz Lang 'Metropolis' (1972) and 'M' (1931).

Here is an example of German Expressionism, from the movie 'Nostferatu' by Murnau (1922).

Collage of images from the noir genre.

Style/Aesthetic look of Film Noir

Film noir offers a lot of aesthetic pleasing to the eyes, as it focuses more on the visual effects than anything else. It does this by effectively using shadows anywhere they can: the characters faces, buildings, walls, lamp posts, anywhere they can they create a shadow in the image. This creates enigma to the scene and adding mystery to the story line. The lighting throughout is quite dim, so that everything seems a lot more eery. A lot of artificial light is used in the mise-en-scene to make the image a lot more disfigured and disorientated, confusing the viewers. This compliments the mood of noir, as even from the name (the french word for black) it's a very dark, somber atmosphere in the movies, so dark lighting and misty shadows can draw out the unusual darkness that the genre is trying to put across.

An example of these visual effects is this image:

This uses dark/dim lighting to create a mysterious background for the character, then in the background we see the artificial light from the lamp posts (another common prop used in noir movies), then on the wall we see the classic shadow. However this time the shadow is quite sharp, this could mean that he's the only one there? As the rest of the shot is blurred out, making the character the main focus.