Blog #1, Question #3

Film Noir vs. Neo-Noir

When people refer to film noir they are referring to the classical period, between the early 1940’s to 1950’s. However films produce after that period was known as neo-noir. Film noir was born in a time the Unites States was recovering from World War II, therefore the moods and themes were different from neo-noir. Though both film noir and neo noir included love, murder, deception, and intrigue the contrast was somewhat great. Film noir dealt with crime dramas with the same plot and character types such as the detective, private eye, “heroes” that are flawed, femme fatale, affairs, false suspicion and double crosses.  Film noir was also associated with low key lighting, which includes the dramatic shadow pattering, the black and white visual, its weird angle shots and its special effects. On the other hand neo- noir film re-emerge in the 70’s and 80’s where it reflected much of the skepticism, and introduced innovations that were not available in film noir. Neo-noir shot in color, due to the progression in technology and its themes consisted of identity crises, and memory issues rather than the earlier version that included detectives and femme fatal, which are hardly present in the films now. Neo-noirs content, style, and visual elements are more explicit and different in artistic view.  While film noir audience had to build a relationship with the anti- heroes, neo-noir reversed it , so that you wouldn’t feel as if you were taking part in the movie. Though many elements  are similar, film noir and neo-noir are seen and created from an entirely different perspective due to the fact that they were entirely from different eras.