Analysis of two Film Noir opening sequences

Sin City
The opening sequence to a film noir is very different to the opening sequences of other films. For example other film opening may just lead you straight into the film, start from the beginning and work its way through the narrative of the film. This is why film noir’s are different, they usually end the opening sequence of the film with an enigma, which leads the audience guessing what’s next and makes them want to carry on viewing. There are typical characteristics within a film noir that make film noir what it is, and give a real identity and depth to film noir. Most of these are usually shown in the opening sequence, characteristics such as a femme fatale, which is easily noticeable from the typical look and style of a femme fatale. A femme fatale will be easily noticeable, she will usually be wearing bright red lipstick, and maybe blonde hair will be very attractive and be smartly dressed with style, usually wearing a slim dress. There are other characteristics that make up a film noir, such as low-key lighting, which is used to set the dark mood and tone that you get with a film noir. Also the use of enigma is heavily used in most film noir openings, and the pattern of narrative doesn’t really tend to change much.
I studied in detail the opening sequence of two films in order to obtain research and gain a deeper understanding of what exactly needed to make a film noir opening and how.
The first film that I chose to study was Sin City (Frank Miller, 2005), which although is a modern film, contains many of the typical codes/conventions and characteristics that were seen in the first film noirs made. Films such as Sin City have defiantly developed the forms and conventions of film noir, but the basic ideology and characteristics are all there.
Sin city uses a lot of these characteristics in its opening sequence and is very typically a film noir.
The first sense we get of the film is the very faint sound of a mellow saxophone start to fade up along with the black screen. The first shot we see is a low angle, long shot looking down onto the balcony, over a dark New York City skyline. Staying in the same shot we see a typical femme fatale, wearing a slim red cocktail dress walking up to the edge of the balcony and just looking over. Then a deep manly voice starts to come in as a voice-over. This is another typical film noir characteristic. Then we cut to a mid shot of the woman from the other side of the balcony so we can see her face. Rather than just being dark, the whole scene is blue-lit and has had all of the colour washed out of it, the only colour we see is the bright red clear colour of the woman’s cocktail dress. This is what makes her stand out as a femme fatale, also as we cut to a mid shot, it is clear that she is wearing bright red lipstick which is another very obvious characteristic of a femme fatale. In the background we can see a man, tall handsome, smartly dressed walking over to her, commonly known as a protagonist, also another characteristic of film noir. As he’s walking up behind her, she doesn’t turn around, and then he reaches his hand into his inner jacket pocket as he comes behind her, and he pauses for a moment, he pulls out a box of cigarettes, and asks her if shed like one. She turns around and it cuts to an over the shoulder shot of the woman over the mans shoulder, the strange thing is that normally femme fatale’s ore very powerful and manipulative, whereas this woman has a very nervous disposition about her. She seems kind of weary of the man, just this look alone starts to build up the enigma of why is she nervous of him? Then it cuts to a close-up of the box of cigarettes as the man holds it out to her, and her hand as she pulls ones out of the box, she seems to be a bit more in control now she realises the man means her no harm, she has regained the power of the female gaze. And looks as if she is using it to control him. It’s all these things, like the red lipstick, the protagonist, the dark, dull mood, all of these things are what make a film noir, a film noir.

Detour
The second film I look at was Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945). I decided to study this film because after looking at Sin City I decided to look at a film noir from earlier times, so I could see the difference between the old styles of film noirs and the more recent styles, like sin city, in order to see the how much influence came from the old styles of film noir.
The film opens with the plain whit titles coming up over the image of a camera being placed on the back of a vehicle while the vehicle moves along the road. There is some music gently playing the background, which seems rather cheerful. Then the screen fades to black, and the next shot is a long shot of a smartly dressed man, the protagonist, walking along a dark street on his own, the darkness is a typical characteristic of film noir, and this was also seen in Sin City. He’s wearing a suit and a hat and is very smartly dressed, another typical characteristic of film noir, also shown in Sin City. We can see from this piece of footage that sin city has taken several characteristics from old styles of film noir.