The influences of my noir filtered drawings extend through cinema. The films I am appropriating from, serve as the most influential element in the creation of the narrative drawings. Each image captured retains some element necessary to my own narrative. I utilize images from films because of the fiction it portrays, its pictorial essence or lighting captured in a given still. They are a pastiche through imitation of not only film noir but of the film.
As I formed these narrative sequences I began to examine the major influence of film noir to better understand the psychological impact of lighting and camera angles. During World War II German Expressionist filmmakers fled to the United States bringing with them film aesthetics and techniques that would comprise film noir. One of these conventions is the use of low key lighting which creates a harsh environment for the characters and in some instances melodrama. The lighting represents the conflict between good and evil, light and dark, and personal struggle. Further examination into German Expressionist film would yield the origins of other film conventions. While studying such films I paid particular note to the pinnacle of German Expressionist film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
According to John D. Barlow, author of German Expressionist Film, the film’s lighting effect in combination with the angular set designs intensifies the uneasiness of the distorted world of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Barlow also notes that these elements distort the viewer’s perspective and three-dimensionality depriving them of spatial relations (38–39). The set design for this film is angular in nature, lacking horizontal and vertical lines which enhance the disorder. This was the precursor technique to oblique camera angles later used in classic film noir. The sets of this film were painted in manner of expressionist artists, incorporating broad gestural lines. In the film, Dr. Caligari goes to the city office to obtain a carnival booth permit. The worker in the office is sitting on an elevated stool to demonstrate a position of power over the Doctor. Similarly, the police officers in the film are depicted in the same position to demonstrate authority or domination. Prior to modern effects, the film makers consciously designed the set and props in this manner in order to achieve what was later accomplished by tilting the camera. These elements founded the high, low, and oblique angled camera shots which were used in order to achieve a subliminal psychological impact on the viewer.
Understanding the psychological approaches of German Expressionists aided in the expansion of the sequencing process. I began to deliberately use these conventions as I developed the narrative by juxtaposing camera angles. By including this in my `noir filter,’ I linked opposing forces or positions of power in a given sequence. In order to use this knowledge to full effect it has become part of how and or why I choose the appropriated image, thus expanding the `noir filter’ to now include every part of the process of making noir narrative sequences.
I am also influenced by the work of contemporary artist Zak Smith. Smith’s work interjects elements of abstraction into an illustrative sensibility. He created a series of drawings entitled, One Picture for Every Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel “Gravity’s Rainbow.” In his interpretation of the text, Smith chose to simplify portions of the fiction and reduce the writing of page to a single representative image. The images are not literary illustrations of the text but are personal interpretations. While making each drawing, Smith introduces abstract qualities by distorting surface planes and figures using hatched line and ink washes. This in turn hinders the images’ objective reception and at times borders on total abstraction. Comparably, just as Smith compresses a text into drawings, I am simplifying a cinematic experience. Smith distorts using hatched lines, and I apply the `noir filter’ using gesture and washes. Both Smith’s work and my own employ prior knowledge of a narrative by the viewer, Smith is referencing Pynchon’s text, while I am recalling movies the viewer may have seen.