Noir Project

PROJECT PROPOSAL #2

The second film I'm proposing, is a modern noir tale, with a twist - set in England. The story follows John, an old police Sargent who has long ago retired since shooting and killing someone who later turned out to be innocent. He keeps his gun and his badge in a display case on his mantlepiece.

The narrative is set around his daughter who goes missing. Fearing the police have become lazy and corrupt since he left them, John takes matters into his own hands after deciding the mystery is more likely to be a kidnapping.

The story would follow the narrative devices inherent in all noirs, twists and turns, troubled protagonists, femme fatals and a dark ending.

STYLE:

The cinematography would be very reminiscent of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.



The heavy contrasts often seen when entire portions of the frame would be filled with shadow would be repeated in the film. I would not however want to take the Sci-Fi futuristic look of that film, as I wish for this to be timeless.

From a narrative point of view, much would be owed to Rian Johnson's Brick. The most prominent thing Brick does is take a noir film, the story of which has been done numerous times, and put a new spin on it by setting it in a high school. In an interview, Johnson states:

"The decision to set it in high school was, initially at least, just to give it a different set of visual cues, so you couldn't just take a glimpse at guys in hats and shadowy alleyways and switch your brain into "I know what this is" autopilot mode. I wanted people to experience the genre in an unexpected way."

I liked the idea of telling a story the audience was already familiar with, but in a new exciting way like Johnson had. It seemed very natural to me that a noir story take place in England. Many of the American archtypes are also present in the United Kingdom, such as the dense Cities and especially the heavy rain fall, which seems even more fitting for England than the US.

Another feature present in 'Brick' is the very unique dialogue. Johnson knew setting the film in a school with a young cast, their vocabulary should be different to his, but he didn't want to use modern linguistics for fear of dating the film - so he created his own. Its a rough homage/parody of the style of old noir films:



I too am aware that trying to write modern words and phrases into a story very quickly dates it, so I'd be looking to do the same thing in creating a hybrid between real present-day wording and old 'noir-relevant' styles of language. This, along with an old style wardbrobe would keep it unique enough that it could stay relevant for a lot longer than usual.

As previously mentioned, I'd also be following Brick's example in costume design. That film presents typical noir gear (brown coats, dark clothing) throughout the film but without drawing attention to it by putting a modern spin on everything. This kind of subtely is perfect for setting a story so 'Americanised' in another country.