You will find characters in Noir that are downright grotesque, twisted in either physical or mental form, and monsters in appearance or action - or both.
The legends of old speak of the Cyclops, the Medusa, or the Minotaur, and these creatures exist today, but only in human form.
They are common in Noir because Noir lives in a twisted world. Not only are the shadows and areas of light more pronounced, starker, and dramatic, but physical forms are exaggerated too. Everything takes on a quality of hyper-realism in the genre, and this starts with the lights.
In the real world, we are often treated to shades of gray. The lighting in our world is diffuse, spread evenly, and shadows are rarely completely black. Everything exists in a hazy world of light and color, a billion hues mixed in with a billion shades of luminosity. Ours is a place where there is darkness in every area of light.
In Noir, the differences are stark and harsh. There is no subtlety here. We can do a long shot halfway across a field to give the entire scene a sense of smallness and hopelessness. We can throw a giant shadow of a killer across a building wall a half-block away as our heroine runs in fear. That shadow represents her exaggerated fear, and in her mind, it is a fear that could swallow a building whole. Light cast like bars across the room give us the image of being trapped in a cell, and the sole area of light spilling in from a window into a room can either signify the start of a new day, or the dying light of the same as the sun gets lower in the sky.
With characters, we find those same stark qualities. A hitman can be grossly disfigured, and this reflects his twisted and disfigured personality. We aren't being politically correct here, this is a genre trope where what's inside reflects what is outside. Looking like a monster often means you are one.
The disfigurement can also be used to reflect how people see him as, a monster, and despite how kind he is to others, people will always treat him like the monster he looks like. This is as close as we could get to being politically correct, but notice there will be no salvation or redemption for this disfigured soul. You will never escape your past or how others see you.
The grotesque figure can be a hyper-sexualized female, someone so attractive and seductive that no possible woman could look that way. Like Jessica Rabbit she has impossible curves and acts like a seductive tramp to everyone she meets, to an almost parody level of action and mannerism. She is a caricature, and in a way not as seductive and pretty as she could be is she held back a little. In a way, we feel sorry for this woman as much as we do the disfigured monster who can never get a break. Does he have any respect for herself? Does she know that beauty comes from the inside? In her mindless excess, she is grotesque as well.
You see this mindless excess in others, such as Citizen Kane's Xanadu, a grotesque menagerie of wealth and excess no sane person would create, no matter how much money they possessed. You see this in the characters in Doctor Strangelove, each one a larger-than-life grotesque parody of a point of view or political party. You see this in tycoons who burn hundred-dollar bills to light cigars. You see this in politicians so greedy they would sell their own mother for a vote. You see this in villains who would pointlessly hurt a puppy just to show how evil they are to a hero. You see this grotesque excess everywhere you look in Noir, an excess born out of the starkness and contrast of the genre.
It is almost as if the differences between light and dark spilled over into the characters themselves, and this hyper-realistic level of contrast affected everyone's minds and actions.
There is subtlety in Noir as well, as not everything is such a circus of contrast. We have subtle characters with nuanced moods to contrast with those that are larger than life. A good creator of Noir knows when to play it cool, and when to exaggerate and blast shadows across the room for effect. Not everything can be so loud, and many times we are left working out the details ourselves.
There is a balance here, but it is important to realize when you need to exaggerate versus when you need to be subtle. This is true in all forms of art, but since Noir is so limited in its palette, we need to pay special attention here to the areas we exaggerate versus the ones we use a more subtle stroke. We do this exaggeration for a purpose, to set a mood, drop a hint, reveal a character, express a metaphor, or foreshadow something worse coming up. We use this to make a character's actions worse or better than they really are, and we outwardly express emotion through a character's looks and actions. We put a twisted face on a character and watch as that twisted face rules that character's actions, or rules other people's reactions to them.
But these exaggerations are a part of our two-toned color palette of light and darkness with which we use to paint this dark and twisted world. They are essential to showing excess or humbleness, and give us a range of nuanced tones in which to express light and shadow. We cannot overdo our exaggerations and grotesque creations to a level where they reach parody and stereotype, and there has to be a reason to include them other than just having them in our story.
They need to serve a purpose. They need to reveal something important. They need to reflect something we wish to reveal. Otherwise we get a rogue's gallery of mobsters that faced Dick Tracy that more seemed to me like how funny a cartoonist could draw a human head to be shaped like a hammer or a plate of spaghetti than those qualities actually reflect a real person. We need to be careful of slipping into cartoon characters, stereotypes, and irrelevant parody when we exaggerate.
We need to do this for a purposeful reason.
Our exaggerations exist in a world already so.
We need to be careful to not exaggerate everything, as then nothing is special. Nuance is just as important as twisting something into an extreme. Noir does have shades of gray, but the exaggerated areas of pure light and pure darkness take on special meanings as well.
It is a balance we seek, but also we need those highlights and shadows. Exaggerations in both image, character, and story are what we use to craft our Noir works.
The legends of old speak of the Cyclops, the Medusa, or the Minotaur, and these creatures exist today, but only in human form.
They are common in Noir because Noir lives in a twisted world. Not only are the shadows and areas of light more pronounced, starker, and dramatic, but physical forms are exaggerated too. Everything takes on a quality of hyper-realism in the genre, and this starts with the lights.
In the real world, we are often treated to shades of gray. The lighting in our world is diffuse, spread evenly, and shadows are rarely completely black. Everything exists in a hazy world of light and color, a billion hues mixed in with a billion shades of luminosity. Ours is a place where there is darkness in every area of light.
In Noir, the differences are stark and harsh. There is no subtlety here. We can do a long shot halfway across a field to give the entire scene a sense of smallness and hopelessness. We can throw a giant shadow of a killer across a building wall a half-block away as our heroine runs in fear. That shadow represents her exaggerated fear, and in her mind, it is a fear that could swallow a building whole. Light cast like bars across the room give us the image of being trapped in a cell, and the sole area of light spilling in from a window into a room can either signify the start of a new day, or the dying light of the same as the sun gets lower in the sky.
With characters, we find those same stark qualities. A hitman can be grossly disfigured, and this reflects his twisted and disfigured personality. We aren't being politically correct here, this is a genre trope where what's inside reflects what is outside. Looking like a monster often means you are one.
The disfigurement can also be used to reflect how people see him as, a monster, and despite how kind he is to others, people will always treat him like the monster he looks like. This is as close as we could get to being politically correct, but notice there will be no salvation or redemption for this disfigured soul. You will never escape your past or how others see you.
The grotesque figure can be a hyper-sexualized female, someone so attractive and seductive that no possible woman could look that way. Like Jessica Rabbit she has impossible curves and acts like a seductive tramp to everyone she meets, to an almost parody level of action and mannerism. She is a caricature, and in a way not as seductive and pretty as she could be is she held back a little. In a way, we feel sorry for this woman as much as we do the disfigured monster who can never get a break. Does he have any respect for herself? Does she know that beauty comes from the inside? In her mindless excess, she is grotesque as well.
You see this mindless excess in others, such as Citizen Kane's Xanadu, a grotesque menagerie of wealth and excess no sane person would create, no matter how much money they possessed. You see this in the characters in Doctor Strangelove, each one a larger-than-life grotesque parody of a point of view or political party. You see this in tycoons who burn hundred-dollar bills to light cigars. You see this in politicians so greedy they would sell their own mother for a vote. You see this in villains who would pointlessly hurt a puppy just to show how evil they are to a hero. You see this grotesque excess everywhere you look in Noir, an excess born out of the starkness and contrast of the genre.
It is almost as if the differences between light and dark spilled over into the characters themselves, and this hyper-realistic level of contrast affected everyone's minds and actions.
There is subtlety in Noir as well, as not everything is such a circus of contrast. We have subtle characters with nuanced moods to contrast with those that are larger than life. A good creator of Noir knows when to play it cool, and when to exaggerate and blast shadows across the room for effect. Not everything can be so loud, and many times we are left working out the details ourselves.
There is a balance here, but it is important to realize when you need to exaggerate versus when you need to be subtle. This is true in all forms of art, but since Noir is so limited in its palette, we need to pay special attention here to the areas we exaggerate versus the ones we use a more subtle stroke. We do this exaggeration for a purpose, to set a mood, drop a hint, reveal a character, express a metaphor, or foreshadow something worse coming up. We use this to make a character's actions worse or better than they really are, and we outwardly express emotion through a character's looks and actions. We put a twisted face on a character and watch as that twisted face rules that character's actions, or rules other people's reactions to them.
But these exaggerations are a part of our two-toned color palette of light and darkness with which we use to paint this dark and twisted world. They are essential to showing excess or humbleness, and give us a range of nuanced tones in which to express light and shadow. We cannot overdo our exaggerations and grotesque creations to a level where they reach parody and stereotype, and there has to be a reason to include them other than just having them in our story.
They need to serve a purpose. They need to reveal something important. They need to reflect something we wish to reveal. Otherwise we get a rogue's gallery of mobsters that faced Dick Tracy that more seemed to me like how funny a cartoonist could draw a human head to be shaped like a hammer or a plate of spaghetti than those qualities actually reflect a real person. We need to be careful of slipping into cartoon characters, stereotypes, and irrelevant parody when we exaggerate.
We need to do this for a purposeful reason.
Our exaggerations exist in a world already so.
We need to be careful to not exaggerate everything, as then nothing is special. Nuance is just as important as twisting something into an extreme. Noir does have shades of gray, but the exaggerated areas of pure light and pure darkness take on special meanings as well.
It is a balance we seek, but also we need those highlights and shadows. Exaggerations in both image, character, and story are what we use to craft our Noir works.
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