Chris in Concrete and Film Noir

Upon reading the article “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir,” I learned that film noir has used untraditional filming techniques to create a horrible and dark mood in the film. While I do not fully understand the definition of film noir, I can somehow relate the visual motifs that are described in Place and Peterson’s articles with the film Christ in Concrete.

According to the article, “compositional balance within the frame is often disruptive and unnerving” in film noir. In Christ in Concrete, there is oftentimes that the images of characters within a frame are distorted. This can be shown from the frames that one character stood closer to the camera, and other characters stood right behind, or that one characters stood right in front of the camera, so half of the character’s body blocked the camera as well as other characters stood opposite to him/her. This could create a sense of horror because the viewers couldn’t see the entire frame of what was happening.

Lighting was another important component of film noir. Although I do not know how to identify the lighting sources, the lighting always casts shadows of the characters. Wherever the characters went, as long as there was light, there must be characters’ shadows. This visual motif is rarely seen in other films. The shadows seemed to be part of the characters. It reflected what the characters did throughout time. Moreover, the shadows set a contrast between bright and dark, which was another important motif in the film. I am not very certain about the meaning of this bright and dark contrast, but I think it had some relations with the mood of the scene. If the scene has a happy mood such as when Geremio was forgiven by his co-workers, the proportion of brightness is much greater than darkness. If the scene had a sad atmosphere such as when Geremio begged his wife for forgiveness, the proportion of darkness is much greater than brightness. Although this was the general pattern, it might not be true all the time. That was the reason that film noir, as well as this film had lots of close-up shots. The scene when Geremio was buried alive in the cement was especially memorable. This scene showed Geremio’s expressions when the cement was pouring on him. As more and more cement was falling on him, the camera zoomed into him until he was buried under the cement and the last bit of cement dropped and completely covered him. The close-up shots were indeed important in showing the characters’ emotions and psychological activities.

Finally, I would bring back to the definition of film noir. At the beginning, I mentioned that I’m not certain about what was exactly the film noir style, because as I read the article, I believed film noir was generally used in movies with frightening and suspicious atmosphere. However, Christ in Concrete is neither frightening nor suspicious. (Except some people may argue that the way Geremio die was frightening.) It’s sad but warm film. The mood was a little dark but the plot was not. Perhaps I would figure out the answer as I learned more about film noir.

This entry was posted in Blog 6. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply