Film Noir

The wikipedia definition of Film Noir is "a film genre sharing its setting with gangster film, police procedural, gothic romance, and social problem films, with the typical protagonist being either a victim, a suspect or a perpetrator, dealing with the legal, political or other system that is seen as corrupt"

The main features of film noir include:

• black and white
• detective and/or crime films
• urban night scenes
• murders
• protagonists usually driven by things from their past and/or human weaknesses
• shadows
• femme fatale - dangerous, sexy women
• cigarettes
• shots within a car

A femme fatale is a beautiful mysterious woman who seduces her lover and manipulates him into dangerous, and sometimes deadly, situations. 

How does the film Tokyo Drifter represent ideas of Japanese Nationality?

After feedback from our Rashomon video, we decided to not 'act' in this presentation video. We used clips from the film instead to show the point we were making. This made is easier for the viewer to relate each point with the clips. We also used to Tokyo Drifter theme song in this video, however, some viewers said it was slightly too loud. We used a script for this video also, and recorded our voices to add over the film. This video explains how Japanese film is being influenced by American film and how much more westernised it is in comparison to Rashomon. We try to highlight the main features of the film and expand on the point.

How does Rashomon represent ideas of Japanese nationality?

For this question we decided to do a video like that of cliché Japanese videos where the words/speaking are out of sync with the person speaking. We also made it look like an old movie by adding different effects, such as grain and black & white. We first wrote a script on the topic and then recorded our voices. We filmed the person speaking at a different time. The music used is very much like Japanese music would be. This ties in with our theme of making this video typically Japanese.