Quiz 1

Question 1

genre

Answer 1

a category of artistic composition in literature/music/film characterized by similarities in content or form (style)
Genres are intrinsically fluid

Question 2

Elements of Film Noir: Content

Answer 2

outlaw as protagonist
female figure
setting
urban context
fatalism

Question 3

outlaw as protagonist

Answer 3

out law of some kind; good guy gone bad, gangster, hard-boiled private detective

Question 4

female figure

Answer 4

femme fatale or double-crossing dame
racialized topoi or conventions

Question 5

setting

Answer 5

typically night-time or dawn
partially lit, shadowy, and ominous

Question 6

urban context

Answer 6

human density and anonymity; cesspool of crime and corruption

Question 7

fatalism

Answer 7

tension between cynicism (everything goes bad) and moral order of code-era film noir (crime doesn’t pay)

Question 8

Elements of Film Noir: form

Answer 8

chiaroscuro
delimited spaces
sound
narrative time

Question 9

Chairoscuro

Answer 9

contrast of light and dark through lighting:
hard and soft lighting
uplighting, underlighting, low-angle lighting, back lighting

Question 10

Delimited spaces

Answer 10

emphasis on forms that lend themselves to chiaroscuro; claustrophobic elements that close in and limit vision

Question 11

sound

Answer 11

ominous music that signals the character’s fate

Question 12

narrative time

Answer 12

temporal dissonance between visual and aural aspects of story
flashbacks
voice-overs

Question 13

irony

Answer 13

the articulation of two contradictory meanings, where neither elides or completely represses the other

Question 14

The ironic protagonist

Answer 14

moral ambivalence and the Hero/Anti-hero
We both identify and reject the protagonist

Question 15

Film Noir becomes a global language because…

Answer 15

the ironic structure of urban reality:
anonymity
moral ambivalence in a world driven by sex and money

Question 16

Characteristics of Heroine of Screwballs

Answer 16

engages in “battle of the sexes”
exercise enormous agency
witty and intelligent
resists convention, only to then fall into marriage
benign wiliness
beautiful
independence squelched through marriage

Question 17

Heroine VS Femme Fatale

Answer 17

many similarities except femme fatale often has criminal intent
either quickly redeemed or killed

Question 18

intertextuality

Answer 18

visual or verbal echo of an antecedent or predecessor film
film noir repeats the same tropes, connecting across traditions, cultures, and languages

Question 19

trope

Answer 19

metaphor or visual image, where one idea stands or represents another

Question 20

Hard lighting

Answer 20

focused, often bright light, that casts harsh shadows and draws attention to a specific part of a photo

Question 21

soft lighting

Answer 21

bright, yet balanced light that avoids harsh contrast, and instead smoothens the transition between light and shadow

Question 22

The Origins of Film Noir

Answer 22

German Expressionism
Cinema Colonial
Poetic Realism

Question 23

German Expressionism

Answer 23

priveleged the expression of an artists inner feelings or ideas over the faithful representation of reality

Question 24

representation

Answer 24

a reproduction or likeness through language
including words, gestures, paintings, photographs, film, signs and symbols

Question 25

Expressionist Film

Answer 25

wildly non-realistic
plots centered on madness, insanity, and betrayal

Question 26

Cinema Colonial

Answer 26

French film made in or about the colonies, notably North Africa France (Algeria)
captures emotional truth of reality while maintaining a narrative mode
Criminal/rebel as colonized subject

Question 27

Casbah

Answer 27

trope for the labryinthine city and the prison of modern-life

Question 28

the bled as an ironic term:

Answer 28

refers to both a colony and the home
refers to both your town/city and the country beyond or “outthere”

Question 29

Poetic Realism

Answer 29

stylized, studio-bound legibly artificial representation of the real
highly evocative and self-conscious music, lighting, and dialogue

Question 30

aesthetic

Answer 30

a set of principles underlying and guiding the work of an artistic movement

Question 31

Casabanca was an attempt to repeat…

Answer 31

the success of Algiers and Pepe le Moko

Question 32

Intertextuality can be ____ or ____

Answer 32

explicit
implicit

Question 33

explicit

Answer 33

a remake, reference, or the repetition of musical theme

Question 34

implicit

Answer 34

a visual reiteration or allusion

Question 35

diegetic sound

Answer 35

emanates from the story, heard by both the audience and the characters

Question 36

non-diegetic sound

Answer 36

emanates from outside the world of the film, heard only by the audience

Question 37

trans-diegetic sound

Answer 37

sound that moves between non-diegetic and diegetic. helps bridge or link two ideas/motifs or transition between scenes

Question 38

gangster as the modern subject

Answer 38

both structured by ilicit desire
both opressed by conventions that seem arbitrary and cruel