http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/WriteAFilmNoir
Essential Characters:
- Anti-Hero
- Not the stereotypical brave and powerful hero– more like a protagonist that is in it for himself and is an outlaw
- Not the most brave or heroic
- “amoral misfit”
- Shouldn’t be portrayed as any kind of crime fighter– just an ordinary guy
- Femme Fatale
- Woman to die for
- Manipulates and confuses the protagonist
- “Exploits with everything she’s got to wrap men around her finger”
- Protagonist knows she’s trouble but he can’t resist
- Very unlike the “damsel in distress”
- Generally pretty villainous– gets the protagonist into all kinds of trouble
- Always out to fulfill her own agenda and will eliminate anyone in her way
Stylistic Elements:
- “Private Eye” Monologue
- Voiceover describing encounters/events
- Short, simple words with a lot of metaphors to show intellect but to avoid geekiness
- References to pop culture = good
- References to religion (Judeo-Christian) = even better as long as it’s not overused
Plot:
- Classic = murder mystery
- Heist/con = common too
- Has a MacGuffin
- Motivating element that drives the plot along
- Does nothing but drive the plot along then serves no further purpose
- Won’t pop up again, won’t explain the ending
- Has extreme value, but is pretty useless nonetheless
- Easily Complicated
- Don’t overcomplicate the mystery
- Ends with a lot of plot holes
Costuming:
- Men = suits and fedoras
- Women = black dress & stockings, trench coat
Steps:
- The Outsider
- Protagonist = outcast
- Traditionally male
- Sense of alienation– not many people care about them
- No Heroes
- Protagonist is NOT a hero
- Driven by revenge, greed, lust, etc.
- Cross moral lines to get what they want
- Even so we empathize with them and their situation
- Important to show that protagonist has some hope to succeed
- Makes the audience hope for him and then you get to tear away that hope in the end
- Fatalism and Nihilism
- The world is one that resembles the American Dream gone wrong
- A world without hope where the bad guys win and everyone suffers
- From the beginning the protagonist is doomed on a fatal path
- Suffering of the protagonist is of his own creation
- “The joy of noir is watching the moral breakdown of a character as they desperately try to escape their fate”
- The Femme or Homme Fatale
- Sex and lust
- Attractive stranger APPEARS vulnerable and there to help the protagonist
- Traditionally a woman who manipulated the protagonist to kill her husband or lead him on a wild goose chase
- Uses feminine wiles to get protagonist to do what she wants
- Creatures of the Night
- Commonly associated with the night– certain aura of darkness only the night can bring
- Night helps add the noir atmosphere and mood
- First-Person
- First person narration by protagonist (usually detective)
- Helps put the reader into protagonist’s head
- Adds to the aura of claustrophobia needed to create noir
- Unreliable narrator technique: is the protagonist telling it as it really happened, or are they deluded, confused, or lying?
- The Mystery
- Classics generally start with a dead body or missing person
- Generally a murder mystery or about murder in some way
- Murder adds to the nihilistic nature of film noir
- City Streets
- Classics are generally in an urban setting
- Lots of tall buildings and cramped downtown areas
- However it can take place pretty much anywhere
- Broken Noses
- Violence is essential to noir
- “Symbolic darkness of the world made real”
- Fights between villain and anti-hero
- “That’s just the way it is because life is shitty and noir is telling us how it really is”
- No Happy Ending
- No happy ending
- “boulevard of broken dreams”
- Protagonist can die (physically or metaphorically)
- Protagonist can lose everything (money, family, job, grip on sanity, etc.)
- Protagonist might just lose the object of their desire
- Protagonist is either at the same place or behind where he started– CANNOT be further ahead
- Pared Back Prose
- Simple, direct, and hard prose
- No flowery descriptions
- “Just get to the point and make it snappy”