Looking at Scenes from the Film Noir Genre for Inspiration - 'Detour'

The second scene from the film noir genre that I am going to look at for inspiration is from the movie 'Detour'. 

The titles use a font that is typical of the genre, and the non-diegetic music is sinister, ominous and dramatically foreboding, indicating the threat that will be apparent within the narrative.

The opening scene begins on a darkly-lit road, the low-key lighting instantly creating the kind of ominous aesthetic typical of films from the noir genre. The man walking down the street, the film's central protagonist, is dressed in a typical fashion of male characters from the genre; fedora hat, suit, shirt and tie. As the extreme long shot dissolves into a medium long shot (a dissolve is a typical editing transition of the genre, which often contain flashbacks or sequences with a dreamlike quality), and we can see tha man looks haggard and his suit is dishevelled. Typically, male characters in the genre look as if they have been worn down.

As he continues to walk, sinister, dramatic, non-diegetic music plays, reinforcing the sense of foreboding for the audience. A further dissolve, to a two shot of the man with another man in a car, is shot with dimly-lit rear projection, a typical technique found in noir films from this era. In the background we can see the bright neon lights of Reno; urban areas/cities are common settings for films in the noir genre, reflecting the films' storylines which focus on criminality and sleaze. When the protagonist speaks, he does so in a world-weary monotone, reinforcing the notion of a 'broken man'.

This body language continues following another dissolve to a coffee shop, where the man is marginalised to the edge of the frame and continues to speak in monotone. He is very vague about where he has come from, and where he is going, as if he has something to hide (linking to a common theme in the genre of deception). His anger when another customer continues to probe him, reinforces this. The music that plays diegetically on the jukebox acts contrapuntally with a close up on the man's face; we see his haunted expression and that his face is clammy with sweat, indicating to the audience that he is hiding something. The scene ends with the start of the man's voiceover, another common technique found in the film noir genre.