Outline for the Presentation  (100 Points)

I.                    Introduce your film and provide the premise of the film in three sentences or fewer.

Easy Rawlins is an ex World War II vet, who loses his job and finds himself in need of money to pay his house note. An companion introduces Easy to a white man named Albright, who offers him a job that consists of finding a white woman hiding in the black community. He feels uneasy about the job but  he takes it anyway  because it’s easy money. By taking the job in search for the woman things unfolds and many secrets threatens his life and freedom.

II.            Characteristics and Conventions of the Film that Link it to Classic Film Noir

1.       The protagonist.

Easy is playing the protagonist and detective figure in this movie. He demonstrates his insecurities and Weakness by taking this job with no knowledge of what it is he’ll be doing. Like the protagonist in Double Indemnity Easy is a loner, he demonstrates this in the movie because he seems to have no ties with people. . In the book he shows he’s a loner when asked by Albright if he had a family. Easy says “No, just me”(47). He had no children, no wife, and few friends.

                2. Camera angles

a. Devil in a Blue Dress adopts the distinct camera angles from the noir films to emphasize the beauty of the femme fatale. The cameras angles around the both the femme fatale eyes give them a softer look. The angel of the camera also gives close-ups on Easy making his emotions stand out more.  Noir used colors of black and white which allowed the femme fatale to stand out in brighter tones. Which makes her seem more pure then she actually was, in the same way Devil in a Blue Dress uses their coloring pattern to allow the two femme fatales to stand out also; Coretta James in her strikingly red dress and Daphne Monet this her seemingly bright blue dress. The natural eye is drawn to the two women immediately when they are seen in the camera.

III.           Elements of the Film that Deviate from Classic Film Noir and Link it to Neo Noir

1.       Two protagonist

In classic noir the protagonist is often seen swaying back and forth between the good side and dark side within him. Devil in a Blue Dress up dates this characteristic of the protagonist by making two men in the film represent these sides within the classic noir protagonist. Easy represents the good side and Mouse the dark side. In the film after Frank and Easy’s fight, Easy sits Frank down and try’s to reason with him without resorting to violence. He communicates to frank that someone would pay money to whoever finds the women. But Mouse immediately jumps to violence by shooting Frank in the shoulder. This scene in the film perfectly illustrates how Easy demonstrates the good and Mouse the bad within the classic noir protagonist.

2.       Hip Language

a.       Devil in a blue dress is evolves the noir language adding a “hip” new language in to the neo- noir film. The dialogue of the film has much slang. When Easy is being intimate with Coretta in the film she tells him he is hitting her spot. Easy responds in his narration saying, “I went on hitting her spot until just before sun up”. “Hitting her spot” is a definite use of slang.  According to William Covey “In direct contradiction to classic noirs the African American neo-noir hero revels a hipness that derives from the urban neighborhood” in his article Black and White Photographs.  His quote supports the idea that the film uses the slang language from the urban society and evolves the noir style into a now neo-noir genre.

Quotes from Outside Sources (These may be inserted anywhere in the outline)

Source One:

Context:  Provide a signal phrase that includes the title of the source and the author:	Quote from the Source: Be sure to include the page number	Significance: How does this quote relate to the topic of your essay?
In the book he shows he’s a loner when asked by Albright if he had a family.	Easy says “No, just me”(47).	He had no children, no wife, and few friends.

Source Two:

Context: Provide a signal phrase that includes the title of the source and the author:	Quote from the Source: Be sure to include the page number	Significance: How does this quote relate to the topic of your essay?
According to William Covey in his article Black and White Photographs.	“In direct contradiction to classic noirs the African American neo-noir hero revels a hipness that derives from the urban neighborhood”	His quote supports the idea that the film uses the slang language from the urban society and evolves the noir style into a now neo-noir genre.

work it out

Neo-Classical neo-noirs

The article Neo-Classical neo-noirs is giving an outlook on how the two come together and differ from one another. In the styles aspects in which the hard-boiled fiction came to the big screens.  In the neo-noirs films there are many boundaries that are crossed then in the classical noir films.

African American in neo-noirs

 The African American article discusses how a small group of neo-noirs have put together the African American and white criminals and investigators together in film and books of noir, And treating each race with dignity and respect.  The history of this racial element matter to the African American social life in the 1960s. Given them citizenship and putting them in them in a black second-class.  Noir films of 1940s and 50s did not have any blacks.

The political uses of neo-noir

This atrial give the in site on how the neo-noir form is deeply political. And the recycling of noir from the 1940 and 1950s to the neo-noir in the 1960s. It compares the two of them by each element giving the reader a clearer vision of what the diffident of the two are.  

Mean streets and raging bulls

This book talked about styles and coast of noir though out its time. How the how the financial problems affected the movie industry in the mid-sixties through the early seventies.  It also shows the noir modernist in films.

The philosophy

This book talked about the moods of film noir. And that film noir is not genre.  And the cheaters are diffident in many ways than that of western and gangster films.  

Who is really the devil

Devil in the blue dress is a very good example of neo-noir. It had a classic noir twist but still gave you a hot new neo-noir flow; with an outstanding example of the femme fatale and protagonist. The femme fatale comes off as a sweet soul but had a manipulative kind of sexiness about her. Just as the original classic noir the femme fatale overwhelms the audience with suspense into who her character turns out to be. In the end it was a big neo-noir twist to who the femme fatale really was. There was a very good soft shot on the femme fatales allowing her to look almost flawless. The movie also appeared to have more than one femme fatale and protagonist. The main protagonist played more than one role in this move. He seems to be the detective like figure as well as a heart worming new kind of protagonist. He appears to go throughout the move trying to make sense of what’s really going on. But an away he still has a kind of closed view on what’s really there. This seems to be a classic noir film with a neo-noir twist. The protagonist is a naive kind of man who’s very lonely and seems to live in an oppressive atmosphere. He is an innocent every day man who falls victim to temptation. This movie was very good I enjoyed the story line and the ins and outs of each character. This is without a doubt a neo-noir film.

Work Cited

Conrad, Mark T. The Philosophy of Film Noir. The University Press of Kentucky.

Lexington, Kentucky. 2006 Print

Covey, Willams. Black and White Photographs. Journey of Film and Video. Fall 2003. Article

Franklin, Carl. Devil in a Blue Dress.

LaSalle, Mick.  Chronicle Staff Critic. Movie Review. Friday, September 29, 1995. Web

Mosley, Walter. Devil in a Blue Dress. Pocket Books. New York, NY. 1990 Print

Wesley, Marilyn C. Power and Knowledge in Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress.

African American Review. Spring 2001. Article

dose one or two go with noir or not

　
I feel that the THE GIRL WHO KISSED BARNABY JONES is a really good example of noir because it had a really good description of the femme fatale who in this story was Cherie. And a good description of the protagonists who was Tate. Cherie, to many was a beautiful actress who had fell off ,from the acting business. She didn’t seem like a killer to her victim Tate but she was. She called him at 3:00 in the morning asking him for a favor. Then when he gets to were she is, she makes it seem as if sexes was all she wanted but like a femme fatale Cherie had more then that on her mind. She manipulated him with sex and then told him that he had to help her dispose of a man she had just shot. She stated “if I wanted a fucking ambulance I’d called one myself. You’re going to help me cover this up.” the men that was shot was still a live but because Cherie had no love for any one but her self she was over come by darkness. Tate was overcome by his lust for sex and with out question went blindly to were Cherie told him. After getting off the phone with Cherie he stated “I have a grate boner with Cherie’s name on it, and if she asked me to shovel shit I’d ask her how fast…” Tate didn’t realize that any thing was wrong until after he was there at the house with her. This story had me going because the characters were like the one’s in film noir but more in depth, more modern, and more lose with the way they did things. The Kinship seemed be the most difficult to classify as noir. It seemed to have nothing to do with the way noir set things up. The men named Tomas had told more of his life’s story then the plot to hurt a man. telling us about his life and the way his family line stuck to gather for years was not the same as way noir usually presents the story of one event.

Messy Mistakes

The protagonists in film noir are normally driven by their past or by human weakness to repeat former mistakes. The two stories’ the Kidnapper bell and the City of commerce both portrayed similarity in their roles. The protagonists in Kidnapper bell was over came by his weakness for a woman he been dating and wanted to have sex with. He had been entrapped by his desires and mistakes of cheating on his wife to the point that When the woman had killed a person she asked him to come with her to the murder seen to help her come up with a plan but she never really told him any thing. And she needed his help. He was easily led away to a dark and unhealthy reality, which seemed to be a never ending stream of death. The protagonists in the city of commerce had been over came by his weakness for gambling. He was led away from time, the time he was suppose to get home and to a meeting, when some thugs captured and beat him then made him play poker for his life. He also had a wife at home whom he cheated on with for the sweet game of poker. The two men were also alike in the ending of the story. it seemed to be more of an alternate egos. The man from kidnapper bell ended up having a clean bell in his pocket as if all along it was him who had set the whole thing up himself and the man from commerce went off and was going to stated a new life of playing poker. living the way he wanted to. And leaving behind his wife and a job he had wanted for for some time. Just like in film noir description of a protagonist these two men had been over taking by their weaknesses and both paid a price in the end.

woman to woman

The method is a story with both suspense and anticipation with both proud and to the story teller justices. Holly reviles her relationship with a man named Richard aka (Anthony) who was plotting to kill a former actress named Maria McKy whom had fried him after they had broken up. He was using holly to do the job, hoping that his charms and good sex’s would be enough. I would diffidently recommend this story to a friend or any one for that matter especially a woman, because one way or anther a woman has experienced a man trying to manipulative her with sex and charms hoping that she would go by his way. Or he uses his good looks to move her in to having sex with him. All while haveing no real intention of being with her at all. As holly tell us the story with zeal and fire, she gives the low down on the situation she had gotten her self in to. In the end she felt he needed to pay for what he intended on using her for with his life. She then put her self in a cold and heartless position to which his life slipped away before her very own eyes. This story was a really good one to me. Morocco junction on the other hand didn’t rally keep me my attention because the story wasn’t really basted on the femme or the protagonist the women tell the story was more like detective. the plot was boring to me and has a been there done that type of feel. I wouldn’t recommend this story to no one.

the fast and the dangerous

The elements of a femme fatale were vastly seen in “Midnight in Silicon Valley”. The wife of Mr. Chen reminded me a lot of Phyllis in “Double Indemnity” who was a perfect refection of the femme fatale in classic noir. Although Mrs. Chen’s motive seemed more pure than those of Phyllis, the evil she struck upon her husband was devilish and disagreeable.  Mrs. Chen had a reason for her evil where as Phyllis just did it for the money, Mrs. Chen did it for revenge. Mr. Chen had been cheating on his wife with mutable women one being a young teenage girl. Mr. Chen was almost a slime ball for what he was doing where is Mr. Nirdlinger was just a man of innocents in the book “Double Indemnity”. Dangerous Days on the other hand highlighted the characteristics of the detective figure Cravitz as did Keys in “Double Indemnity”. The book started off with a friend of Cravitz, Calzone, fearing for his life because he accidentally shot and killed a young black boy. Because of all the racial tension  Calzone was getting death threats. Cravitz offered him a hideout which soon was found. Athena later had Calzone murdered. Cravitz got down to the bottom of the case and put Athena in jail. I feel that Dangerous Days had more of the classic noir film elements because it had both the characters of the femme fatal and the detective figure. Athena was the femme fatale luring young men into her dark trap and Cravitz being the detective solving the case.