Character: Building a Film Noir Cast

Noir is an interesting style of film, because the term 'Film Noir' was coined retrospectively, when critics noticed a stylistic trend of American crime and detective films in the 1940s and 50s. The trend was set as directors began to use German Expressionist cinematography to portray adaptions of pulp novels and crime sagas in American Literature. The films epitomised the opposite of the 'American Dream', and expressed pessimistic memes of depression, suspicion, moral ambiguity, disillusionment, moral corruption, guilt, desperation and anxiety. Therefore, in order to build an appropriate Noir persona, all of these ideas and emotions must be reflected in a character that is equally as dark.

In our basic OTS plan, the three characters are a Femme Fatale, the Femme Fatale's 'Goon', and a Victim. Whilst being Film Noir in style, our OTS will fit the Psychological Thriller genre. Most films, regardless of genre, introduce either the antagonist or protagonist in the OTS, and so we decided to involve a stereotype of Noir: the Femme Fatale, as our antagonist. We did not want to involve a protagonist for two reasons:

A) An OTS, particularly for a thriller, is supposed to tease the audience, and revealing the protagonist at this stage would give away a lot of information.

B) Moral ambiguity is a large factor in Film Noir, and concealing the Femme Fatale's true moral worth would instil an immediate sense of mystery as to which of the characters are good, and which are bad, or rather, which to side with, and which to not.



In film Noirs, the basic plot regularly revolves around a struggle for power, which may switch between characters and context's throughout the film. This is evident in this clip of The Blue Dahlia (above), from 4:00 to 6:45, where the power quickly switches from the hotel manager and the two 'Goons' to the Policeman. The switching of power makes the scene incredibly tense, particularly at the policeman's entry, because the audience is waiting for a conflicting power struggle to ensue.

The character above, with scruffy dress and a slightly apathetic expresion, makes a perfect Goon.

If the scripted dailogue is to work well for our OTS, I feel that it must include themes of a similar struggle for power. To achieve this, I will give each character a distinctly different way of acting in order to convey their different levels of status:

• I intend to write the Femme Fatale as a subtly arrogant character who is stern and sly in assuming her own position of power.
  
• Her Goon, as a kind of personal assistant, will submit to her regardless of circumstance. For this reason, and also in order to sustain a sense of mystery, the Goon will not speak during the OTS.
  
• The Victim will also be sly and cunning, but will be overshadowed and outwitted by the Femme Fatale for whom he is working.
  
• To show the difference in status between the Femme Fatale and the Victim, I will deliberately widen the Femme Fatale's vocabulary whilst constricting the Victim's. I will also ensure that the Victim speaks much less than the Femme Fatale, and rarely of his own initiative.

The more attention to detail that is paid to seperate areas of the production, the more professional the final product will look.