From my research into target audiences, I have developed an understanding of audience expectations on watching Film Noir and the target audience for past and modern Film Noirs.
As with nearly every genre of art-form, conventions and audience expectations often overlap and interlink. This holds true for Film Noir, despite the contention over its actuality as a genre. To a contemporary audience of the golden age of Film Noir, the expectations would be that of Hollywood stars, glamour, murder, detectives and intricate crime thriller plots, often inspired by literature of the time. To a modern Noir audience, some of these expectations would not be as such. This mainly shift in expectation is down to the outdated nature of Film Noir to a modern audience. In its heyday, Noir was commonplace Hollywood-style filmmaking, with filmmakers referring to their productions as ‘westerns’, ‘musicals’ and ‘crime dramas’[1] as opposed to the blanket ‘Film Noir’ term employed today.
To a modern audience, expectations would primarily be fairly small, with aspects of Film Noir now fairly bastardised in the view of modern cinema. However, some aspects of Noir have remained, and perhaps filter more into the subconscious of a modern audience- conventions such as the ‘Femme Fatales’ character have metamorphosed from such classic Noir characters of Rita Hayworth[2] and Gene Tierney[3] to modernised Femme Fatales of Sarah Connor[4] and Satine[5]. Other traditions of Noir, such as the intricate and complex crime/gangster narratives have also morphed and developed into the genre of thriller, which grew out of Film Noir in the latter part of the 20th Century. Thrillers are filled with action, suspense, tension and plot twists[6]- greatly reminiscent of the Noir period. Modern expectations of Film Noir, therefore, would be closely linked with those of thriller.
In terms of target audience, I have already given a conclusion to my views on the past audience of the Noir period, and a modern audience. Film Noir boomed in the 40s and 50s, with Hollywood churning out Raymond Chandler plots and Humphrey Bogart characters by the dozen. Noir audiences were primarily American, but the consumption and making of Film Noir did extent to an international scale[7]. The audiences were of a huge scale both in the USA and internationally, it is regarded as the classic era of American cinema[8].
The modern audience is hugely diminished, unless you were to refer to Noir as its modern offspring Thriller. Modern Noir inspired films, such as Memento and Sin City have gained widespread success, but with almost unknowing reference to Film Noir in the eyes of the public. Sources give differing views on the target audience of modern Film Noir- there has been suggestion that an older audience would be a primary audience, with a nostalgic view on the style of film that they grew up with. An alternative viewpoint is that a younger audience would enjoy a new take on the thriller genre of which has grown so popular internationally in recent years. [9] As I have stated earlier, it is my belief that a modern Film Noir would be best targeted at males, aged 16-35, and this is the demographic of which we shall aim our Noir at.
[1] http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html Accessed 21st January 2011
[2] Gilda, Charles Vidor, 1946
[3] Leave her to Heaven, John M. Stahl, 1945
[4] The Terminator, James Cameron, 1984
[5] Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann, 2001
[6] http://www.illiterarty.com/genre-thriller Accessed 21st January 2011
[7] See Palmer (2004), pp. 267–68, for a representative discussion of film noir as an international phenomenon.
[8] A. Silver & E. Ward, Film Noir An Encyclopaedic Reference to the American Style, 3rd Edition, New York, 1992
[9] http://www.slideshare.net/SFDobson94/film-noir-target-audience-6762653 Accessed 21st January 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment