1. The institution of the film noir genre is not classed as a genre of it’s own yet an
element or mood created within the scene of the film itself. One of the most
successful noir-type films within the box office is The Dark Night, which is now
3rd in the US top 20 for films that have collected the most money over their
lifetimes with a staggering total of $533, 345, 358. No other noir title has come
close to that apart from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with a total of $402,
111, 870. This shows us that in the past few years, elements of the noir genre are
attracting people’s attention and people are becoming interested. The most
recent noir film to date would be The Artist. This is in the style of a classic noir:
black and white/grey scale camera work yet the movie itself is silent. This style
originally came before the classic noir period of the 40’s yet it is still classed as
an early noir film.
When it comes to DVD sales, noir films have recently done pretty well, more
people are enjoying the noir theme such as the film King Kong, this film went
straight to number one in sales when it came out in 2006. More modern noir
films contain more well known actors which is uncommon for noir films as in
King Kong, the actor Jack Black stars as lead role, in The Dark Night, the actor
line-up consists of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman.
As this is not a common theme in the noir genre, it shows that people rely on
common actors to show in the film and the same goes for the directors as one of
the most recent successful noir films: Inception was directed by Christopher
Nolan who also directed The Dark Knight. James Cameron also is a famous
director by directing films such as Terminator and Rambo. This shows us that
the audience who watch noir films now would rather trust a famous director and
cast rather than the classic style by creating a new cast and director for the film
and that the film promoters and institutions use this to gather a new audience
almost all the time and are happy to promote films that use common actors to
make more money from it all.
At the Oscars, noir films haven’t really done that well with some of the most
recent being Inception being nominated for an Oscar for best picture yet did not
receive one. It did however receive an Oscar for best visual effects. The film The
Dark Knight did rather well at the Oscars in 2008 with getting one for best
supporting actor and best sound editing. It was however; nominated for best
sound, best visual effects, best makeup, best art design, best cinematography and
best editing. This shows that although most noir films don’t get Oscars as they
are either not as well known or production studios such as WB doesn’t trust the
people who create them. The ones that do get nominated/receive Oscars are the
ones that carry some traits of mainly larger known genres, as The Dark Knight is
mainly a superhero-action film yet it still comes under the noir category.
Inception also is classed as an action film yet comes under the noir genre.
Noir films used to be made and produced by down and out writers who were not
trusted as much and they are communist. Some of the more recent and
successful noir film production studios are: Warner Bros./Orion/Columbia
Pictures so the audience are now looking at big studios to produce more noir
style films and that the bigger companies are starting to take over all genres of
film.