Expressionism and Noir

Expressionism and Noir Noir is an optical kind of a prototype for development of subjects, influenced by a criterion of identity whose main mechanisms are matriarchal murder and the exclusionary movement of a mixture of race and sex. Given that the main structure of this prototype is brutal in nature, it follows that it is inseparable with crisis. The saying “what goes around comes around” holds true here.

More so, our dedication to the procedure of development of subjects makes sure that the end product has been changed to some ambiguous, formless, and unstructured form (Gloria, 1987). Oliver & Trigo (2003) reveal that we become accountable for our own haunting experiences by employing this prototype of subject development. Noir has of late come up with some commendable masterpieces, both in the cinema and critical sectors. These include: After Dark, LA Confidential, My Sweet, More Than Night, Voices in the Dark, among others.

But even with all these, one area of production that has not been closely monitored is the use of noir in African American films. Such filmmakers find noir techniques quite useful in depicting the challenges that colored people encounter everyday as they strive to bring down the racial discrimination that is so rampant in the US. This way, noir has enabled portrayals of governance systems to be filmed in Hollywood.

Such depictions of the struggle by the blacks allow the audience to gain insight into how white supremacy can be mitigated. The films are known to lay bare whatever the blacks go through every day in their stay in the US. African American producers, through the employment of noir conventions, have been able to sensitize the viewers on the social injustices deeply rooted in the American Society, and also give them insight into how such ills can be fought (Flory, 2000, p. 28).

Film noir can be criticized in two major perspectives, either formalist or content-based. Formalist criticism normally dwells on the formal bits of film noir, the sexualization of brutality, the non-realistic lighting, the characterization of intelligence agents, the crooked elements and femmes fatales, so as to portray stabilization of the male line, and destabilization of the matriarchy. Formalist criticism relates the byname noir to some distorted form of a woman.

It is no wonder that women, criminals and intelligence agents in film noir are black, simply by taking ambiguous positions that Whiteness by default leaves for the Blackness in society. Film noir is characterized by conflicting conversation between dark and light, real world and criminal world, bad and good. The ambiguity of these lines makes the characters possess the traits of Blackness.

The formalist view characterizes a film as noir if it plays around with light and dark to portray characters who end up “Black” owing to their moral decadence. Feminists have criticized the tendency of film noir to depict White women as “Black” so as to guard their agency and self-image (Diawara, 1993, p. 525). Carl Franklin, a black director, employs a pastoral figure within film noir in a distinctive manner that can be traced to African American cinematic and literary culture (One False Move, 1991).

In this unique film by Carl Franklin, the pastoral figure is at the center of a primal crime, just like in Within Our Gates (1920) by Oscar Micheaux, and Boys N the Hood (1991) by John Singleton. Singleton’s film on the present-day L.A. has this quirky scene where the stillness of the black urban area is flooded by a dangerous pastoral sunlight. This scene was borrowed from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974), but still the theme is undeniably African American.

The sunshine noir by Polanski relates the primal crime to American greed, and particularly the heist of the Owens Valley water. Singleton’s pastoral motif depicts the snake in the urban environment as the heritage of slavery. His pastoral moment gives a powerful reinforcement to Julian Murphet’s latest narrative that film noir, particularly for the 1940s films, is always about noirs (Murphet 25-35).

Franklin’s motion picture horror film advances further than Singleton’s film, given that the urban crime takes place at the beginning of the film, but its obvious origin is the American South and also in the history of the republic (Scruggs, 2004, p. 323). Race and sex generally stand out strongly in both Berrettini’s and Diawara’s account of neo-noir, as well as in Devil in a Blue Dress by Carl Franklin.

Even so, there is another manner in which we can view this film and novel that comes before it. This view does not have sex and race competing for attention. Instead, it focuses on the absolute condensation of sex and race, and also the substitution of the matriarchal figure in the both the film and novel. These procedures are then identified as the signs of identity logic that characterizes all the noir novels, films, and criticism.

Easy Rawlins is a recent noir detective that aims at making the black characters more stable and natural by relieving a number of the tensions that noir is known for. This identity recreation process lays bare its artificial nature and operational inefficiency. The inefficiency is also revealed by the re-introduction of subjects such as Mouse and Daphne, who diffuse the matriarchal threat that forms the core of the identity logic which drives the film (Oliver & Trigo, 2003, p. 165). Devil in a Blue Dress has no element of fatalism in it.

Franklin thinks the color line is the sole reason why things are not looking good on him. The film by Franklin changes the 1940s mortality into racial segregation. To put it better, if the film creates any worry or tension, do not attribute it to the menacing brutality of the world for which the characters can do little to help. What causes anxiety and fear to the watchers is very clear as it is to the producer Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington).

“Anxious? I was right in a white neighborhood in the dead of night with a white lady in my car. I was not anxious, but rather stupid!” Rawlin’s dark complexion almost seals his fate at an era when the color line in the US was so dreadful that even a wealthy white person like Todd Carter (Terry Kinney) dared not cross it. By blaming Easy’s challenges on racial segregation, Franklin makes clear the US filmmaking norms during the 1940s.

This is to say he portrays the noir within film noir. He unearths the segregational aspect of noir. He also lays bare the warnings to authority represented by the racists (Mark, 1999, p. 76). Devil in a Blue Dress does not measure up to the normal film noir test for complex plots. It tells the story of a jobless black man in LA back in 1940s in search for cash to foot his accumulating mortgage bills. The man finally gets a job involving driving a local white woman.

This is a mere simple noir fare with nothing at all complicated. In one instance however, the film gets to a scene more thrilling and menacing, and that gives it the much-desired depth. Though the film does not feature many events, the little events covered are full of texture and life. They have deep meaning and are worth looking into further.

There is abundant literature about race as the unmentioned in noir film, with blackness as the depiction of the dark “other” which totally plunges the white character into the underworld. Devil in a Blue Dress pioneers in unearthing race form the depths to the limelight. The starring, Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) is black, and this reminds us throughout the piece how a potential typical noir film is swallowed by the expression of race. The 1940s L.A. featured blacks being used and abused by the white man.

As such, any white man in support of Easy is known to harbor sinister motives. Even if sincerely liked, there is always this expectation that he owes them something, simply because of their racial inclination (Thelongtake, 2014). Through assessment of film noir as a show of inhibited inexactness, we can create room for that inexactness to resurface on the peripherals of.