Genre

The film sub-genre I chose to research is the neo-noir, or modern noir, which are often labelled as psychological thrillers or crime dramas. Usually revolving around mysteries, detectives, crimes, and the like, it tends to use darkness both in physical lighting and in plot themes.
These films typically feature stories and characters with moral vagueness, paranoia, and/or vengeance. In terms of production, they often employ Dutch angles, unbalanced framing, and lots of shadows and dark coloration. As for the marketing, neo-noirs are usually aimed at adults, who tend to prefer the darkness and mystery, as opposed to kids/teens and their blockbuster action films.

One example of a neo-noir would be Watchmen, a grim R-rated 2009 comic book film directed by Zack Snyder. This production tells a story revolving around a paranoid detective and vigilante that investigates a murder mystery, as his former superhero allies are seemingly targeted by a criminal. As you can tell from that sentence alone, this film employs practically all the aforementioned elements of a neo-noir film. Without giving too much away, the film follows a dark twist and goes on to explore a great moral dilemma that would likely leave the viewer psychologically thrilled. Most of the movie takes place in the dark, too.

Another example of a neo-noir film is The Dark Knight, another comic book movie from 2008. Directed by Christopher Nolan, this movie follows Batman, paranoid detective-vigilante supreme, investigating a series of crimes committed by the murderous psycho known as the Joker. For the moral vagueness, this film has Harvey Dent, who is at first a staunch ally to Batman, but he finds himself questioning his principles and morality as he is influenced by the Joker and his anarchist ideology, to say the least. Also, as the title of the movie states, it is indeed dark, with most scenes taking place at night or in shady areas. Anyway, the overall story deals heavily with themes of morality, with the Joker's magnum opus revolving around his belief that the citizens of Gotham would be morally dark enought to be willing to committ murder.

Directed by Dennis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 is a more recent example of a neo-noir film, and an excellent one, too.

Frank Miller's Sin City is an almost iconic film of the neo-noir sub-genre.

Seven, stylized as Se7en, is an intense, mind-blowing psychological thriller and absolute neo-noir.

Straight out of South Korea, Oldboy is indeed kinda old but still fresh enough to be considered neo-noir.

Finally, Looper by Rian Johnson is widely considered to be one of the best neo-noirs out there.

Introduction

Hi, I'm Juan. I made this blog. Probably gonna update regularly. It's about media studies. I'll be making a film opening. Pretty sure I'll have to use this to document the process. Some other things for the class too.