Film noir is characterized by 12 key ingredients: 1) dark, shadowy black and white images usually shot at night in urban settings. 2) Hardboiled, cynical characters like a male protagonist facing a moral dilemma or threat who is a loner. 3) A femme fatale who is gorgeous but dangerous and manipulative. 4) Elements of crime or detective stories, voice over narration, and flashbacks that link the past and present.

1. Film Noir
12 Ingredients

2. Ingredients
• 1- Dark shadowy contrasting images in black and white.
Usually at night in urban settings
• 2- Hard boiled, cynical, delusional, these characters
are usually likable
• 3- A male protagonist- usually facing a moral delima
or some kind of threat. He is usually a brooding
sardonic disillusioned, scared and insecure, alienated
from society
• He is a loner in an urban landscape (Helps
individual style) shot through his eyes a world
dominated by corruption where there is a fine line
between right and wrong

3. Ingredients
• 4- Femme Fatal (deadly woman)
• Gorgeous, unloving, predatory, manipulative and
desperate. Typically stronger
• Alluring, sassy, who is dangerous, who suffers for
independence
• 5- Often a Crime or Detective story: influence of
hard boiled authors on the narrative style
• 6- Use of voice over narration
• 7- Flashbacks- a wavering past and present.
Inextricably linked

4. Ingredients
• 8- Crisp, witty dialogue with
great one liners
• “when you’re slapped you’ll
take it and like it”
• 9- Angst American style (dread
and doom) gloomy neurotic
feeling of anxiety/depression

5. Ingredients
• 10- Healthy dose of paranoia and
insecurity, betrayal, or being
trapped
• 11- No happy ending, a happy ending
turns a Noir into a film gris or a
melodrama in Noir style
• 12- Distorting camera angles,
expressionate. Distorted closeups
and chiaroscuro lighting that fills
the frame with shafts of light and
shadow to create a world of
claustrophobia and fear

6. Ingredients
• 10- Healthy dose of paranoia and
insecurity, betrayal, or being
trapped
• 11- No happy ending, a happy ending
turns a Noir into a film gris or a
melodrama in Noir style
• 12- Distorting camera angles,
expressionate. Distorted closeups
and chiaroscuro lighting that fills
the frame with shafts of light and
shadow to create a world of
claustrophobia and fear