Soundbytes

Although during this course I will be asked to write essays, however pasting 1000's of lines of text is impractical and a chore, they will be condensed down in 'sound byte' essays. Taking the important bits and stripping it down to a paragraph or two.

Here is an example from a recent essay on film noir conventions in Casino Royale:

Said genre normaly encompasses urban settings that are particularly hopeless and daunting, traditionally at night with a heavy focus on the light and dark through use of shadows and light sources. To emphasize the sense of fate and state of mind of the antagonist they also use odd camera angles and other cinematic effects to show this.

First to compare James Bond with the conventions of film noire characters. He is definitely troubled. I can can deduce this from the bathroom fight scene. It was not a clean fight.

This suggests James in this movie is not the suave, clean cut man of previous films but grittier, which falls in with the genre as a haunted and tormented “hero”.

Another cinematic device common to film noire is the use of heavy contrast between light and shadow in a monochromatic style. One particular scene on a suspended walk way shows this greatly, with the dark suited section chief walking alone contrasting with the bright lights reflected off the metallic supports.

To conclude, does the opening sequence of Casino Royale fit the conventions of Film Noire? I believe it does. It’s not simply black and white to signal an event in the past, it’s a statement about the new James Bond, the new grit of the films. James may save the day but at what cost to himself - and others.