Night and the City: Review

The Night and the City (1950) involves a club hustler who's plans always seems to fail just as they are on the verge of success. Many elements of Film Noir are clearly present in the film, from the use of high-contrast lighting to recurring story elements, and character types.  The Night and the City also offers a valuable exercise in learning how to read a film that doe not cater to the passive film viewer. 

One fundamental aspect of Film Noir is the exploration of the anti-hero, a main character who in spite of  his/her moral dubiousness, demands the sympathy of the audience. This is is direct contrast to the archetypal hero, who is moral right and justified in all that he/she does. Where a hero would do only good deeds to defeat the “bad guy” and resolve the conflict, the anti-hero does things that are not always considered “good” but are beneficial. 

The main anti-hero in The Night and the City is Harry Fabian, a small-time club promoter who works in London. Portrayed as a small and cunning character, many of the traits that Fabian possesses are reminiscent of a rat. A rat lives in the city and is highly adaptable and resourceful, using the city to his advantage. Although many of the traits are rat-like, Fabian's struggles are the main focus of the film. 
The entire film is an extended metaphor of life inside a city. Fabian's rat-like qualities reference the wildlife that can be found in many urban alleyways. Many of the characters, Fabian included, are often filmed behind a window pane or staircase. The camera is positioned with thick bars crossing the frame. The characters are often pressed up against the bars during emotional scenes. This visual device creates the concept that the city is a prison and there is no escape from it. The city itself is used as a symbol of confinement. There are no images of trains or ships leaving the city. The scenes where there is a waterway in the frame, no ships are seen, they are all at dock. Although in reality there are many ways to leave the city, they are not present in The Night and the City. This furthers the concept that the city is a prison. 

Another classic element of Film Noir is the Femme-Fatale, a treacherous woman who manipulates men leads the main character to his destruction. Harry Fabian requires an initial investment of money to begin his plan to usurp the group that controls boxing in London. The money is acquired through the wife of Fabian's employer. In typical femme-fatale style, she plays the characters off of each other until she gets what she wants, in this case, the opportunity opened her own night-club.  The role of the female character in film noir is very different from the roles of female characters in modern film. Today the characters are much more diverse in all aspects. Some are reduced to overly sexualized objects, while others are portrayed as complex main characters that fit the role of a hero or anti-hero. The social environment has changed dramatically for women since 1950. For this reason, true film noir is may be restricted to the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. The complex female characters that are popular in mainstream today have more liberties and social freedom than those back then. Just interesting to note, femme-fatales of modern film are so different in contemporary film that they are unable to exclusively define as flatly as they were in classic film noir. 

The Night and the City has many visual aspects that are are just as important to the story and the  expression of emotion as the dialogue and facial expressions of the characters. The use of light and dark is prominently used to subconsciously convey the high-contrast emotions of the characters. For example, during a scene of temptation where Fabian is being convinced to take the money of his employer's wife, Fabian is covered in light, while the wife is shrouded by shadows. Another visual aspect is the position of the characters in the frame. Fabian and the wife are shown at different elevations. Fabian is standing while the wife is seated. This  subconsciously expresses that Fabian is morally superior during this scene of temptation and the wife is the source of 'evil' in the scene. Only when Fabian agrees with the wife are they shown in the same frame together. Visual elements such as light and shadow and the placement of characters in The Night and the City and Film Noir as a type of film are vital to the emotions of the characters. 

One thing interesting to note is that the reliance on simple light-dark lighting  and other subtle visual elements to convey emotion in Film Noir is difficult to pick up on after being surrounded by modern films that rely heavily on complex visual effects and CGI. There is almost a level of desensitization that is present in modern films. Art directors and visual effects personnel working on modern films always seem to increase the intensity in order to impress the audience. The lack of these technologies in the golden age of Film Noir increased dependence on what was available at the time. One thing to note is that when coming from a super-saturated visual paradigm, a conscious effort must be made in order to pick up on the subtle clues that are offered by Film Noir. 
 
The Night and the City offers classical aspects of Film Noir that while not immediately accessible to a modern audience, the effort put forward by a viewer to understand the emotions and visual elements involves pays off in the end. It is an exercise in becoming more sensitive to visual metaphors in a world that is overflowing with excessive gore, violence, sexualization, and visual effects. The Night and the City  is like a cup of dark black coffee. Instead of being overwhelmed by cream, syrup, and sweeteners, the complex, bitter taste is the only thing to enjoy. Subtle, mature, and sophisticated,  The Night and the City is a refreshing wake up from the passive and under-stimulating films that often plague the modern cinema. 


IMDM it at:


Night and the City (1950)