Inspiration Behind the Project:
From classic film noir through contemporary neo-noir, narrative themes of hard-boiled fiction, crime, violence, betrayal, and sexual obsession by beautiful femme fatales immediately come to mind. Settings such as urban landscapes, dark wet-streets, and nightclubs are also basic elements when discussing film noir. However most importantly, in order to create noir films based around these characteristics, critics agree that a visual style and mise-en-scene, which are generated by unique noir visual techniques, are crucial terms for noir films. Also, it can be argued that there are always consistent threads of noir visual styles even though themes and settings can be diverse (Sarena.)
Especially since 1970, film noir has become “neo-noir” which is influenced by vast modern technologies and circumstances to make a noir film even more stylish by adding color and computer animation based upon a monochromatic tradition of visual style and mise-en-scene such as low-key and high-contrast lighting, black shadow, off-balance framing, and so on (Prabhat.) To discuss visual motifs of such contemporary highly stylized neonoir films, noir films that are influenced by contemporary neo-noir graphic novels can be highly illuminating.
It is because the graphic novel film adaptation follows aesthetic styles of graphic novel and classic film noir simultaneously. Through the analysis of Sin City (2005), Watchmen (2009), and Gotham(2014~), the essay explores visual elements of the contemporary neo-noir graphic novel film adaptation.