Backlighting,as the name suggests, comes from behind the subject. The light can be positioned at many angles: high above the figure, at various angles off to the side, pointing straight at the camera, or from below. Used with no other sources of light, backlighting tends to create silhouettes, as in 4.62.Combined with more frontal sources of light, the technique can create a subtle contour, as we saw with Raine’s black cowl in Inglourious Basterds(4.1). This use of backlighting is called edge lightingor rim lighting(4.63).As its name implies, underlightingsuggests that the light comes from below the subject. Since underlighting tends to distort features, it is often used to create dramatic horror effects, but it may also simply indicate a realistic light source, such as a fireplace, or, as in 4.64,a flashlight. As usual, a particular technique can func-tion differently according to context.Top lightingis exemplified by 4.65,where the spotlight shines down from al-most directly above Marlene Dietrich’s face. Here top lighting creates a glamorous image. In our earlier example from Asphalt Jungle(4.57), the light from above is harder, in keeping with the conventional harshness of crime films. Director Jacques Audiard chose to use top lighting with very little fill in his prison drama A Prophet: “It’s a matter of realism—everything is not visible all the time” (4.66).SourceLighting has a quality, and it has direction. It can also be character-ized by its source.In making a documentary, the filmmaker may be obliged to shoot with whatever light is available. Most fictional films, however, use extra light 4.58–4.59Hard versus soft lighting.In Satyajit Ray’s Aparajito,Apu’s mother and the globe she holds are emphasized by hard lighting (4.58). In another shot from the same film (4.59), softer lighting blurs contours and textures and makes for more diffu-sion and gentler contrasts between light and shade.4.584.594.60Frontal lighting.In Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise,frontal lighting eliminates most surface shading and makes the actress’s shadow fall directly behind her, where we cannot see it.4.61Side lighting.In Touch of Evil,directed by Orson Welles, light from the left creates sharp shading of the character’s nose, cheek, and lips.4.62Backlighting.In Godard’s Passion,the lamp and window provide backlighting that presents the woman almost entirely in silhouette.
journal article
X-Ray Visions: Radiography, "Chiaroscuro", and the Fantasy of Unsuspicion in "Film Noir"Film Criticism
Vol. 32, No. 2 (Winter, 2007-08)
, pp. 2-27 (26 pages)
Published By: Allegheny College
//www.jstor.org/stable/24777345
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Film Criticism is a peer-reviewed, online publication whose aim is to bring together scholarship in the field of cinema and media studies in order to present the finest work in this area, foregrounding textual criticism as a primary value. Our readership is academic, although we strive to publish material that is both accessible to undergraduates and engaging to established scholars.
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What makes film noir so very cool? It’s the lighting of course! Here’s how the great Hollywood cinematographers used light to create dark movie magic (including a free Bluffer’s Guide to Talking About Film Noir)….
Film noir is the coolest of all movie genres, and the coolest film noir is the 1946 version of The Big Sleep. It’s got every box ticked: Humphrey Bogart as a private detective, Lauren Bacall as a femme fatale, near-constant smoking and drinking, and the most ridiculously complicated plot of all time. (In fact, the plot is so complicated that even the story’s author Raymond Chandler didn’t know what on earth was going on. During filming, director Howard Hawks asked Chandler whether one of the key characters had been murdered. Chandler revealed: "They sent me a wire asking me, and dammit I didn't know either!") But film noir isn’t about the plots. It’s about style, and attitude, and mood…
What is film noir?
There’s no strict definition of ‘film noir’, but you know it when you see it. There are weird camera angles and menacing musical scores, oblongs of streetlight slicing through venetian blinds onto curls of cigarette smoke. Wisecracking criminals and racy innuendos. People talking in short sentences. The Big Sleep has all that in spades. But the most important element of film noir mood is light. Mostly, the use of low-key lighting to create extreme silhouettes and dark shadows. Film noir directors use vivid light-and-shade contrasts to reveal more about a character’s true intentions than their words (if you want to impress your friends with the technical terms, see our Bluffer’s Guide below). In The Big Sleep this is almost entirely done with lamps. There are lamps absolutely everywhere, and in virtually every scene: table lamps, floor lamps, desk lamps. They are used practically, stylistically and symbolically…
The many lamps of The Big Sleep
Whenever Bogart’s character Philip Marlowe enters a room it’s dark - because, obviously, he is investigating a shady criminal underworld. So the first thing he does is to turn on a lamp, shining his investigative light onto the scene – and when he exits the room he turns it off again, plunging us back into the black (see picture, top). The idea is that only Marlowe, coming and going, can illuminate this secretive world and glimpse the truth. Sometimes, the light represents little islands of goodness surrounded by evil. In this scene the lamp at the top of the frame illuminates only the good characters, trapped in an enemy house, while all around them impending danger lurks in the darkness….
In other scenes, the turning off and on of a lamp indicates a character’s switch of mood or change of mind. Lauren Bacall is a complex, manipulative character, who alternates between lying and telling the truth. Mid-talking, she pauses and turns on a lamp – and you can almost see her brain’s cogs turning as she decides to change her tactics…
Yes, there are lamps galore in The Big Sleep - some very fine ones, too. This art deco beauty gets worked so hard that it should have won an Oscar for Best Supporting Furniture. Bogart simply can’t leave it alone – he turns it on whenever he makes a phone call to the cops (indicating returning to the world of the goodies)…
…and off again when he’s about to do something tricksy, like hide in a dark corner waiting to shoot someone…
...and he and Bacall stand in its light when they realise they’ve fallen for each other…
The funniest use of a lamp, though, occurs when Bogart is in a bar. He’s pondering what to do next, and just as he has an idea – aha! – the barmaid in the background turns on the light above his head. PING! A lightbulb moment!
So that’s The Big Sleep. On the surface, it’s something to do with blackmail and murder and in the end it turns out that everyone is guilty, like in every 1940s private detective film. But really, it’s all about the lamps. That’s well worth dropping into the next conversation you have with a movie buff. And if you really want to impress them, here’s what you need to sound like an expert on film noir…
Film Noir - A Bluffer’s Guide
Film noir – There is no one single accepted definition of a film noir (French for ‘black film’), it’s really about a certain attitude. Film noirs typically feature seedy criminal underworlds; fast, wisecracking dialogue with lots of innuendo; cynical, world-weary men, and beautiful, amoral women. They use heavily stylised cinematography, particularly ‘low key’ lighting with contrasting dark and light shades. The ‘classical period’ of Hollywood film noir ran through the 1940s and 1950s and was influenced by the German Expressionist films of the 1930s, particularly those of Fritz Lang. Lang’s M (1930) is considered the first film noir, while Double Indemnity (1944) starring Barbara Stanwyck as a scheming femme fatale is considered by many to be the first proper Hollywood noir.
Neo-noir – Film noir never went away, but movies with noir-ish qualities made after the classical period are often described as ‘neo-noir’. The term covers all sorts of films, from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) to sci-fi classic Blade Runner (1982), and from the films of the Coen Brothers to the notorious Basic Instinct (1992) starring Sharon Stone.
Low-key lighting – There are three basic types of lighting in film: key light (lights placed above the actors’ heads to create strong shadow), fill light (a light used to fill in and soften the shadows produced by the key light) and backlight (placed behind the actos, creating a sort of glow around them so that they stand out in a scene). Film noir relies heavily on ‘low-key lighting’ to create an uncanny atmosphere. This is when there is a high ratio of key light to fill light, resulting in vivid contrasts and strong black shadows. As director and academic Robert G. Nulph put it: “Film noir has a distinct style, with shadow-filled, low-key lighting. Night ruled in film noir, the shadow more important than the light.”
Chiaroscuro – Chiaroscuro is a term from Italian Renaissance painting to describe the dramatic effect of contrasting areas of light and dark. It is often used in paintings, graphic novels and photography, while film noir and neo-noir make use of chiaroscuro to create striking, hyper-real visuals. For an extreme example, see the 2005 movie adaptation of Frank Miller’s comic Sin City.
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